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OCTA > Fey

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Emigrant Trails: The Long Road to California by Marshall Fey
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Oregon-California Trails Association

12 hours ago

Today in history, June 8, 1849:

Charles B. Bishop, a member of the Washington City and California Gold Mining Association (which was captained by J. Goldsborough Bruff) died while encamped below a hill near modern-day Torrington, Wyoming.

Virtually nothing is known of Bishop. He is listed on the company roster as a 25-year-old from Washington, DC and a veteran of the Mexican-American War. Many company members were federal employees. The company departed Washington on April 2 and headed to Pittsburgh to board a steamboat bound for St. Louis and then another to St. Joseph.

On Sunday morning, July 8, Dr. Henry Austin wrote:

"I was called to a man who was sick about 5 am. I found him with symptoms of Cholera of which he died at one this day. The train started on the march leaving one wagon in which the sick man was behind. I stayed of course to attend to him the symptoms continue to be less favorable. The train stopped before it proceeded far on this road and returned and layed by for the day. Several of the men are preparing for the funeral."

Captain Bruff described the preparations:

"The messmates of the deceased laid him out, sewed him up in his blue blanket, and prepared a bier, formed of his tent-poles. I had a grave dug in a neighboring ridge, on left of the trail, about 400 yards from it. Dry clay and gravel, and coarse white sand-stone on the next hill, afforded slabs to line it with, making a perfect vault. (Bruff himself carved the lettering on the head and footstone.) I then organized a funeral procession, men all in clean clothes and uniforms, with music (a key bugle, flute, violin, and accordion) and two and two, with the Stars & stripes over the body we marched to the measured time of the dirge, deposited the body of our comrade in the grave, an elderly gentleman read the burial service, and we filled up the grave, erected the stones, and returned to camp."

The funeral was attended by another company, the New York Colony Guards, a military-style company complete with uniforms. They provided a firing party of eight men, giving the ceremony a military air, apparently in honor of Bishop's Mexican War experience. The long-lost grave was rediscovered in 1988 by long-time OCTA members Bill and Jan Hill of Centereach, New York. The grave was signed by Randy Brown of OCTA in 1995.

For more information, download Overland Journal Vol. 7 No. 1 (1989), "Charles Bishop Grave Rediscovered" by Bill Hill. It's free to download for OCTA members at www.octa-journals.org and $5 on the OCTA website at www.octa-trails.org. ... See MoreSee Less

Oregon-California Trails Association | Merrell J Mattes Collection and Overland Journals

www.octa-journals.org

Here, you can utilize hundreds of original 19th century trail diaries and have access to over three decades worth of OCTA's flagship scholarly journal, the Overland Journal. Or, click on the Merrill J...

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Oregon-California Trails Association

2 days ago

Today in history, July 7, 1846, Matilda Crowley dies and is buried alongside the trail in Utah's Emigration Canyon. Nearly a year later, Mormon William Clayton recorded in his diary:

23 June 1847
"After breakfast I went to the top of a high bluff expecting to get a view of the country west but was disappointed in consequence of the many ridges or bluffs but a little distance beyond us.

At seven o'clock the camp moved forward and immediately after was a graveyard on the left of the road with a board stuck up with these words written upon it: 'Matilda Crowley. Born July 16th, 1830, and Died July 7, 1846.

"On reflecting afterward that some of the numerous emigrants who had probably started with a view to spend the remainder of their days in the wild Oregon, had fallen by the way and their remains had to be left by their friends far from the place of destination" ... See MoreSee Less

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Oregon-California Trails Association

3 days ago

Now that you've watched "Hamilton," here is a history lesson about past efforts to commemorate the Oregon Trail.As we close out this Fourth of July weekend, here is a newly digitized OHQ article about President Warren G. Harding's visit to Meacham, Oregon, on July 3, 1923. The President and First Lady Florence Harding where greeted by over 30,000 people gathered for a two-day celebration orchestrated by Walter E. Meacham, president of the Old Oregon Trail Association. The event served two purposes: to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the first migrant trains to the Pacific Northwest and the "New Oregon Trail Highway.”

Historian Chelsea Vaughn explores Harding's visit and the July 4th weekend events in her Spring 2014 OHQ article, "'The Road that Won an Empire': Commemoration, Commercialization, and the Promise of Auto Tourism at the 'Top o’ Blue Mountains'."

https://ohs.org/research-and-library/oregon-historical-quarterly/… ... See MoreSee Less

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Oregon-California Trails Association

3 days ago

President James Polk ratified the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending the Mexican-American War. The treaty to end fighting was signed previously in Mexico on February 2, 1848. It gave the US ownership of California, Nevada, and Utah and land that comprises New Mexico, Arizona, Wyoming, and Colorado. Five-and-a-half years later, the Gadsden Purchase would purchase land south of the Gila River in what's now Arizona and New Mexico. ... See MoreSee Less

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Oregon-California Trails Association

4 days ago

Today in history, July 5, 1852, it was lightly snowing on Dempsey Ridge on the Sublette Cutoff north of what is now Kemmerer, Wyoming. The 60 members of the Hill wagon train gathered to lay 20-year-old Nancy Hill to rest. The second eldest of the six children born to Elizabeth and Wesley Hill, she succumbed to cholera that cold day on the Ham's Fork Plateau of Wyoming.

The Hill train of 62 people had left their home in Paris, Missouri (about 45 miles southwest of Hannibal) in April bound for the Soscol Valley of Napa County, California. They'd already buried two people along the Platte River and would bury Nancy's father seven weeks later in the 40 Mile Desert in western Nevada.

Nancy's uncle James Hill wrote that, "she was in good health on Sunday evening taken unwell that knight worst in the morning and a corps at nine o'clock at knight."

On July 6, 1988, fifty OCTA members and Hill descendants gathered at the gravesite to rededicate the grave with information about Nancy and the Hill wagon train. The grave remained well-tended as Nancy's fianceé had returned three times over a 53 year period to ensure it was kept up.

For more information, see Overland Journal Vol. 1 No. 1 (July 1983) "Here Lies Nancy Hill" by Reg Duffin and Overland Journal Vol. 4 No. 4 (Fall 1986) "The Nancy Hill Story: The Final Chapter." Back issues are always free to download for OCTA members at www.octa-journals.org and can be purchased for $5 each at www.octa-trails.org. ... See MoreSee Less

Oregon-California Trails Association | Merrell J Mattes Collection and Overland Journals

www.octa-journals.org

Here, you can utilize hundreds of original 19th century trail diaries and have access to over three decades worth of OCTA's flagship scholarly journal, the Overland Journal. Or, click on the Merrill J...

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Oregon-California Trails Association

5 days ago

Happy July 4th to all friends of the historic trails!Here’s to a wonderful 4th of July with friends and family. Happy Independence Day. 🎆🎇 ... See MoreSee Less

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Oregon-California Trails Association

5 days ago

Today in history, July 4, 1930: anywhere from 3,000 to 15,000 people (depending on who was counting) descend on Independence Rock in Wyoming to celebrate the 4th of July. Included are 600 Boy Scouts from 15 states, including five from New York City, one from each burough (Staten Island, Brooklyn, The Bronx, Queens, and Manhattan). While nearly two-thirds of the boys were from Wyoming, "Utah and Nebraska sent large contingents, and good-sized groups came from Texas, Pennsylvania, Idaho, and Missouri," according to OCTA's Wyoming Chapter President Tom Rea in his book "Devil's Gate: Owning the Land, Owning the Story." The five boys from NYC met with then-governor Franklin Roosevelt to carry a letter to the Wyoming governor. Two Eagle Scouts hitch-hiked from Chicago to join the festivities. The boys from Kansas City followed the Oregon Trail to Independence Rock.

Shoshone Boy Scouts from the nearby Wind River Reservation played (to again quote Tom Rea) "Indians in the second night's pageant: a wagon train circled, the Indians attacked, and a troop of mounted scouts in uniform rode to their rescue----an event as complicated, culturally, as black politicians of the same era wearing blackface to imitate white minstrels wearing blackface to caricature blacks."

Rea continues: "Afterward, Chief Tecumseh, a singer from Omaha, sang Indian songs solo from the top of the Rock, while the sun set and a big bonfire burned below. Men were moved by the singing and the setting. Afterward, the chief, a 'full-blooded Indian,' the Pittsburgh scoutmaster remembered, put his arms around the Shoshone boys 'and made a moving plea for the Indian race.' Like the setting sun, he went on, the tribes were passing away....'And as one looked at the Indians in the Boy Scout uniforms,' the scout master continued, 'one felt happy to know that the organization was doing its part to take these boys, with their sacred traditions and closeness to nature, and help mould them into true Americans.'"

Rea concludes: "Such ironies, if noticed, went publicly unremarked during three days of heat, dust, crowds, and speeches. Anticipating the traffic, the Wyoming Highway Department graded, graveled, and oiled the road from Casper to Rawlins. A big campsite had already been prepared----the sagebrush bulldozed off, latrines and a well dug, a speaker's stand built against the sharp north wall of the Rock, and its railing draped with bunting. Most scouts camped in Casper or Rawlins the night before, and traveled the last leg to the Rock the morning of July 3. There they pitched pup tents and a few teepees on the northeast side in two large, crescent-shaped encampments, leaving an open space in the middle for pageants and parades."

For more, visit https://octa-trails.org/product/devils-gate-land-owning-the-land-owning-the-story/ ... See MoreSee Less

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Oregon-California Trails Association

6 days ago

On this day in history, July 3, 1864, 3-year-old Ada Magill died of dysentery about five miles west of what is now Glenrock, Wyoming. Her parents, Caleb and Nancy, were traveling from Brown County, Kansas to Dallas, Oregon with their six children when Ada became ill after leaving Ft. Laramie. She gradually worsened and died this day 156 years ago. She was buried in her "Sunday best tiny calico dress" and buried on a small rise of ground.

In 1912, Wyoming planned a highway that would pass right over her grave. The grave was moved 30 feet north to its current location. State highway engineer Loren Clark Bishop created an exact replica headstone that now marks the final resting place of young Ada Magill. OCTA added an interpretive panel in 1987. An Oregon Trail monument stone was also added when she was re-interred in 1912 and a Pony Express marker can also be seen at the site.

For more information visit https://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/ada-magill-grave. ... See MoreSee Less

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Oregon-California Trails Association

7 days ago

Today in history, July 2, 1850, 19-year-old Alvah Unthank dies and is buried near what is now Glenrock, Wyoming. On June 23, he'd inscribed his name on Register Cliff, near the present-day town of Guernsey, Wyoming. Nineteen years later, his cousin Oliver Unthank would add his signature to Register Cliff. Oliver's son, a traveling salesman from Sheridan, Wyoming would add his own signature to the cliff in 1931.

For the first month of Alvah Unthank's trip, things were mostly routine, but his company's troubles began a few miles west of Ash Hollow on the Platte River in what’s now western Nebraska when Joe Lauter and Addison Lamb died of cholera within a day of each other. Several others were also afflicted but eventually recovered. Then, on June 26 at LaBonte Creek near present-day, Wyoming Douglas, Alvah began complaining of ill health. He seemed well enough to travel, however, so they kept moving.

Three days later he had a serious relapse. The company stopped to “doctor and nurse Alvah.” It soon became clear there was little hope of his recovery. Two company members, Pusey Graves and Henry Puckett, narrate his decline and death in journals written as letters they sent home.

On June 30, Graves wrote, “Alvah getting worse. Is quite hopeless; appears to care but little; complains none.” On July 1, “Alvah is rapidly sinking. Lying by with heavy hearts.” And on July 2, Graves noted, “This morning I was awakened to see the last of Alvah. He passed quietly away his countenance wearing a pleasing smile as his inner being entered his spiritual possessions in the second sphere of life immortalized. Bid his father be of good cheer; his child has paid the great debt of Nature … He expressed no concern whatever concerning his past, present, or future; He lay calm, bore his suffering patiently and uttered not a murmur or groan.”

Puckett wrote on July 2, “Alvah died this morning about 3 o’clock. We buried him at 1 P. M. This mournful event caused quite a sensation in our little company. On account of our more intimate acquaintance, and the associations of childhood, most of us felt his death much more severely than that of the others who had died … The bluffs near us afforded some very nice smooth stones, upon one of which we recorded in the best style our imperfect implements would allow, his name, age, state, etc., and placed it at the head of his grave.”

Sol Woody used a sharpened nail as a chisel to inscribe the headstone. Woody’s inscription reads “A.H. Unthank, Wayne Co. Ind, Died Jul. 2 1850.” A few of Alvah’s closest friends lingered at the grave after the others had left, covered it over with large stones, and transplanted over the grave a few bunches of cactuses in full bloom. Later that afternoon they moved on to Deer Creek at present-day Glenrock, Wyoming.

For much more on the fascinating stories of all three Unthanks, read OCTA's Randy Brown and his full story at the link here https://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/alvah-unthank-grave. ... See MoreSee Less

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Oregon-California Trails Association

1 week ago

Today in history, July 1, 1847, 18-year-old Frederick Richard Fulkerson dies and is buried next to Devil's Gate in Wyoming. The grave site was long identified as the final resting place of T.P. Baker. However, it was later learned that Baker inscribed his name on the marker in 1864. OCTA preserved and interpreted the site in 1996 and a picture of the grave is featured on the cover of "Graves and Sites on the Oregon and California Trails." (https://octa-trails.org/product/graves-and-sites-on-the-oregon-and-california-trails/)

The grave was noted by 49er J. Goldsborough Bruff on July 26, 1849 as he traveled through what he termed "Pass of the Rattle-Snake Mountain to the left of Devil's Gate." The survival of the large granite boulder used as the Fulkerson headstone and the sketch made of it by Bruff allows us to locate this grave precisely. (To read Bruff's journal and see his sketches, see "Bruff’s Wake: J. Goldsborough Bruff & the California Gold Rush" by H. L James at https://octa-trails.org/product/bruffs-wake/.)

Frederick Richard Fulkerson, son of James M. and Mary Fulkerson, died July 1, 1847 while en route to Oregon. His father, James Monroe Fulkerson, was born in Lee County, Virginia on August 28, 1802. The family moved west to Tennessee in 1807 and then on to Missouri in 1817, where they settled in what's now Cole County in central Missouri. In 1823, James married Virginia-born Mary Ramsey Miller. By 1847, they had seven children. Frederick, their fourth child and oldest son, was born on October 11, 1829.

In the spring of 1847, the Fulkersons and many of their relatives became part of an Oregon-bound party composed primarily of members of the Old Florence Baptist Church located near Jefferson City. Some 300 congregation members joined a wagon train captained by James Curl. The company broke into four groups and had 120 wagons. The Fulkerson family joined "The Plains Baptist Church" group, which was captained by the Reverend Richard Miller, the brother of Mary Fulkerson (to further complicate the story, Reverend Miller was married to Nancy Leeper Fulkerson, the sister of James Fulkerson!.

Accounts of the death of Frederick Fulkerson vary. The Curl family wrote: "Mrs. (Caleb) Curl's [née Margaret Fulkerson] brother took three fever, and Mrs. Fulkerson, with two other families remained while the others went on. After nine days the young man, then aged eighteen, died near Devil's Gate." A granddaughter of James and Mary wrote: "When crossing the Platte River [Frederick] swam the river below the crossing to ford the stock over, as the river was so swift it tended to wash them downstream. He became so chilled and exhausted that he died and was buried near the crossing."

When Bruff passed the grave in 1849, he also noted, "inscribed on a rock above the grave 'J.M. Fulkerson, June 26 '47.'" The inscription, which no longer exists, confirms that the family must have camped for at least a week during the final sickness of Frederick Fulkerson. Upon his death a grave was dug at the foot of this rock. According to Bruff, the epitaph was painted on the face of the rock headstone, FREDERIC RICHARD, SON OF JAMES M. & MARY FULKERSON, DIED JULY 1, 1847. AGED 18 Years.

Two weeks later, Mary Fulkerson died of mountain fever and was buried atop Names Hill on the Green River crossing of the Sublette Cutoff. Bruff saw this grave on August 7, 1849, and noted the engraving on a sandstone slab above the grave: "Mary consort of J.M. Fulkerson. Died July 14, 1847." The site of Mary Fulkerson's grave became a burial ground for other victims of the trail and eventually developed into a pioneer cemetery. All these graves were destroyed by pipeline construction. ... See MoreSee Less

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Bruff's Wake: J. Goldsborough Bruff & the California Gold Rush, by H. L James $24.95
The Oregon Trail Revisited, by Gregory M. Franzwa $24.95
In Pursuit of a Dream (DVD) $20.00
Reading, Writing and Riding Along the Oregon-California Trails (An Educational Activity Book), by William E. Hill $8.95

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