This week I have been immersed in reading journals and letters from the Oregon Trail. What an extraordinary documentation of the Migration of thousands of Americans across the plains and mountains from the Midwest to the Oregon Territory. I knew about one branch of my family (my paternal grandmothers family) who had left Muskigan County Ohio for the mining towns in California. Since we had lived in Placerville (known as Hangtown in the 1850s) for many years I assumed I knew that history. But working on a project related to my KDP (Kinship Determination Project) I decided I needed to read more about the Oregon Trail. I found a book, part of a series, “Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails 1852.”
There is a bounty of information online about the Oregon Trail. I found that the Wagon Train I’m interested in did not have any known journals or dairies published. Others experiences can tell the story that many who made the journey would have also been experiencing. I had started with the Oregon State Archives. Learning what sources were available with them on my research subject. The “Early Oregonian Database Overview” with the Oregon Secretary of State was very helpful. I was able to determine, from searching the families I was interested in, their arrival dates in Oregon.
Also online I found lists of the men that came to Oregon listed by arrival dates in “Oregon”.1 Each grouping could be members of a single train or possibly several trains. Unlike the Passenger lists for ships sailing into a port there were no organized documentation’s for the individual trains.
If we didn’t already have plans to be traveling this next month I would love to talk my husband into a Road Trip. I would want to head down to Oregon, to Oregon City and then East to The Dalles, Baker City, and then on to Idaho. Stopping at all the historical sites for this western portion of the Oregon Trail.
After reading “Covered Wagon Women,” I learned that some left the Train, died in route, or were left behind. The causes varied. There were murders on the Trail, and Trials were also conducted. Babies were born and died. Young men became impatient and headed off on their own. Everyone had a story and it must have been tough heading into the unknown and at the mercy of the elements.
Even if you had no family ancestors on the Oregon Trail reading these diaries gives you a true sense of appreciation of what it took to be a pioneering woman in the westward expansion of our country.
1 Condor Tales, “On the Trail,” Arrivals in Oregon 1853, by Stanford Wilbur, (https:condortales.com/onthetrail/arrivals-in-oregon—-1853.html : pub. 2022, viewed 12 Jan 2024).