Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail Part 2

About the first week of October, in 1851, a covered wagon drew up in front of Thomas Sumner's house, then but four miles out from Indianapolis on the National Road. It was ready to be loaded for the start.

Eliza Jane, Thomas Sumner's second daughter, the la.s.s already described, was now the wife of the young man mentioned (the author). She also was ready for the journey. She had prepared supplies enough to last all the way,--cake and b.u.t.ter and pumpkin pies, jellies and the like, with plenty of substantials besides. The two young people had plenty of blankets, a good-sized Dutch oven, an extra pair of shoes apiece, cloth for two dresses for the wife, and an extra pair of trousers for the husband.

Tears could not be restrained as the loading progressed and the realization faced the parents of both that the young people were about to leave them.

"Why, mother, we are only going to Iowa, you know, where we can get a home that shall be our own. It's not so far away--only about five hundred miles."

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Dutch oven.]

"Yes, I know, but suppose you get sick in that uninhabited country; who will take care of you?"

Notwithstanding this motherly solicitude, the young people could not fail to know that there was a secret feeling of approval in the good woman's breast. After a few miles' travel the reluctant final parting came. We could not then know that this loved parent would lay down her life a few years later in a heroic attempt to follow the wanderers to Oregon. She rests in an unknown and unmarked grave in the Platte valley.

What shall I say of that October drive from the home near Indianapolis to Eddyville, Iowa, in the delightful atmosphere of Indian summer? It was an atmosphere of hope and content. We had the wide world before us; we had good health; and above all we had each other.

At this time but one railroad entered Indianapolis--it would be called a tramway now--from Madison on the Ohio River. When we cut loose from that embryo city we left railroads behind us, except where rails were laid crosswise in the wagon track to keep the wagon out of the mud. No matter if the road was rough--we could go a little slower, and shouldn't we have a better appet.i.te for supper because of the jolting, and sleep the sounder? Everything in the world looked bright.

The great Mississippi was crossed at Burlington. After a few days of further driving, we arrived at Eddyville, in Iowa. Though we did not realize it at the time, this was destined to be only a place to winter, a way station on our route to Oregon.

My first introduction to an Iowa winter was in a surveyor's camp on the western borders of the state. This was a little north of Kanesville, now Council Bluffs. I began as cook for the camp, but very soon changed this position for that of flagman.

If there are any settlers now left of the Iowa of that day, they will remember that the winter was bitter cold. On the way back from the surveying party to Eddyville, just before Christmas, I encountered one of the bitterest of those bitter days.

A companion named Vance rested with me overnight in a cabin. We had scant food for ourselves or for the mare we led. It was thirty-five miles to the next cabin; we must reach that place or lie out in the snow. So a very early start was made before daybreak, while the wind lay. The good woman of the cabin baked us some biscuits for a noon lunch, but they were frozen solid in our pockets before we had been out two hours. The wind rose with the sun, and with the sun two bright sun dogs--a beautiful sight to behold, but arising from conditions intolerable to bear. Vance came near freezing to death, and would have done so had I not succeeded in arousing him to anger and getting him off the mare.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NORTH AMERICA IN 1850

By 1850 the general divisions of the continent had taken the shape that they have today. The states of Texas and California and the territories of Utah and New Mexico had been added to the United States, all as a result of the war with Mexico. The dispute with Great Britain over the Oregon Country had been settled by a compromise. The region just west of the Missouri, known as the Nebraska Territory, was still beyond the frontier.]

I vowed then and there that I did not like the Iowa climate, and the Oregon fever that had already seized me was heightened. The settlement of the northern boundary by treaty in 1846 had ended the dispute between the United States and Great Britain for ownership of the region north of the Columbia. As a consequence, American settlers were beginning to cross the Columbia in numbers, and stories were coming back of the wonderful climate, the rich soil, and the wealth of lumber. The Oregon Country of that day included the present states of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, and parts of Montana and Wyoming.

It was a special consideration for us that if we went to Oregon the government would give us three hundred and twenty acres of land, whereas in Iowa we should have to purchase it. The price would be low, to be sure, but the land must be bought and paid for on the spot. There were no preemption laws or beneficial homestead laws in force then, nor did they come until many years later.

But what about going to Oregon when springtime came? An event was pending that rendered a positive decision impossible for the moment. It was not until the first week of April, 1852, when our first-born baby boy was a month old, that we could say we were going to Oregon in 1852.

It would be a long, hard journey for such a little fellow, but as it turned out, he stood it like a young hero.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Crossing the muddy Missouri.]

CHAPTER FOUR

TAKING THE TRAIL FOR OREGON

WHEN we drove out of Eddyville, headed for the Oregon Country, our train consisted of but one wagon, two yoke of four-year old steers, and one yoke of cows. We also had one extra cow. This cow was the only animal we lost on the whole journey; she strayed away in the river bottom before we crossed the Missouri.

Now as to the members of our little party. William Buck, who had joined us as partner for the expedition, was a man six years my senior. He had had some experience on the Plains, and he knew what outfit was needed; but he had little knowledge in regard to a team of cattle. He was an impulsive man, and to some extent excitable; yet withal a man of excellent judgment and honest as G.o.d makes men. No lazy bones occupied a place in Buck's body. He was scrupulously neat and cleanly in all his ways; courteous to every one; always in good humor and always looking upon the bright side of things. A better trail mate could not have been found.

Buck's skill in camp work and his lack of ability to handle the team naturally settled the division of the work between us. It was he who selected the outfit to go into the wagon, while I fitted up the wagon and bought the team. We had b.u.t.ter packed in the center of the flour, which was in double sacks; eggs packed in corn meal or flour, enough to last us nearly five hundred miles; fruit in abundance, and dried pumpkins; a little jerked beef, not too salt. Last though not least, there was a demijohn of brandy "for medicinal purposes only," as Buck said, with a merry twinkle of the eye.

The little wife had prepared the homemade yeast cake which she knew so well how to make and dry, and we had light bread to eat all the way across. We baked the bread in a tin reflector instead of the heavy Dutch oven so much in use on the Plains.

The b.u.t.ter in part melted and mingled with the flour, yet it did not matter much, as the "shortcake" that resulted made us almost glad the mishap had occurred. Besides, did we not have plenty of fresh b.u.t.ter, from the milk of our own cows, churned every day in the can by the jostling of the wagon? Then the b.u.t.termilk! What a luxury! I shall never, as long as I live, forget the shortcake and corn bread, the puddings and pumpkin pies, and above all the b.u.t.termilk.

As we gradually crept out on the Plains and saw the sickness due to improper food, or in some cases to its improper preparation, it was borne in upon me how blessed I was, with such a trail partner as Buck and such a life partner as my wife. Some trains were without fruit, and most of them depended upon saleratus for raising their bread. Many had only fat bacon for meat until the buffalo supplied a change; and no doubt much of the sickness attributed to the cholera was caused by bad diet.

I am willing to claim credit to myself for the team, every hoof of which reached the Coast in safety. Four steers and two cows were sufficient for our light wagon and the light outfit, not a pound of which but was useful (except the brandy) and necessary for our comfort. I had chosen steers that had never been under the yoke, though plenty of broken-in oxen could have been had, generally of that cla.s.s that had been broken in spirit as well as to the yoke.

The ox has had much to do with the settlement of the country. The pioneers could take care of an ox team in a new settlement so much cheaper than a horse team that this fact alone would have been conclusive; but aside from this, oxen were better for the work in the clearings or for breaking up the vast stretches of wild prairie sod. We used to work four or five yoke to the plow, and when dark came we unhitched and turned them on the unbroken sod to pasture for the night.

I have often been asked how old an ox will live to be. I never knew of a yoke over fourteen years old, but I once heard of one that lived to be twenty-four.

On the Plains, oxen were better than horses for getting their feed and fording streams. There was another advantage, and a very important one, to oxen: the Indians could not run them off at night as easily as they could horses.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The tin reflector used for baking.]

The first day's drive out from Eddyville was a short one. When we got to plodding along over the Plains, we made from fifteen to twenty miles a day. That was counted a good day's drive, without unusual accidents or delays.

As I now remember, this was the only day on the entire trip when the cattle were allowed to stand in the yoke at noontime, while the owners lunched and rested. When it was near nightfall we made our first camp.

Buck excitedly insisted that we must not unyoke the cattle.

"What shall we do?" I asked. "They can't live in the yoke always."

"Yes, but if you unyoke here you will never catch them again," he said.

One word brought on another until we were almost in a dispute, when a stranger, Thomas McAuley, who was camped near by, stepped in. He said his own cattle were gentle; there were three men of his party, and they would help us yoke up in the morning. I gratefully accepted his offer and unyoked, and we had no trouble in starting off the next morning.

After that, never a word with the least semblance of contention to it pa.s.sed between Buck and me.

Scanning McAuley's outfit in the morning, I was quite troubled to start out with him. His teams, princ.i.p.ally cows, were light, and they were thin in flesh; his wagons were apparently light and as frail as the teams. But I soon found that his outfit, like ours, carried no extra weight, and he knew how to care for a team. He was, besides, an obliging neighbor, which was fully demonstrated on many trying occasions, as we traveled in company for more than a thousand miles, until his road to California parted from ours at the big bend of the Bear River.

Of the trip through Iowa little remains to be said further than that the gra.s.s was thin and washy, the roads muddy and slippery, and the weather execrable, although May had been ushered in long before we reached the little Mormon town of Kanesville (now Council Bluffs), a few miles above the place where we were to cross the Missouri River. Here my brother Oliver joined us, having come from Indianapolis with old-time comrades and friends. Now, with the McAuleys and Oliver's party, we mustered a train of five wagons.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A yoke of oxen.]

It was here at Kanesville that the last purchases were made, the last letter sent back to anxious friends. Once across the Missouri and headed westward, we should have to cross the Rocky Mountains to find a town again.

We had now come to the beginning of the second stage of our long journey. We had reached the Missouri River. From the western bank of the river we should strike out across the Plains, through what is now Nebraska and Wyoming, to the crest of the continent. We should follow the ox-team trail along the north bank of the Platte, and then up the north fork of the Platte to the mountains. But first we must get across the Missouri.

"What on earth is that?" exclaimed one of the women, as we approached the landing for the ferry which crossed the river to a point a few miles below where Omaha now stands.

"It looks for all the world like a big white flatiron," answered another.