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OCTA > Overland Journal 32-2 Summer 2018

Overland Journal 32-2 Summer 2018

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Overland Journal 32-2, Summer 2018
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Oregon-California Trails Association

10 hours 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

1 day 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

1 day 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

2 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

3 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

4 days 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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Oregon-California Trails Association

4 days ago

OCTA is a contributing member of the Partnership for the National Trails System.Our June e-Newsletter is now available!

https://bit.ly/31wClhW

- Great American Outdoors Act Approved by Senate; House Vote Pending in July
- Fall National Trails Workshop Moves to Virtual Format in October 2020
- Upcoming July Webinars
- Trails Community Resources: COVID-19, Diversity and Inclusion, Forum
- #RecreateResponsibly Updated Guidelines
- Funding and Survey Opportunities
- Trails Enrich Your Community ... See MoreSee Less

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Oregon-California Trails Association

5 days ago

On this date in history, June 30, 1849, Alonzo Delano recorded in his diary:

"Fourteen miles brought us to the Dry Sandy----not inaptly named, for it was the dry bed of a creek where salt and unpleasant water could anywhere be found at a depth of six or eight inches below the sand. Once in every mile, at least, we saw the carcass of a dead ox, having closed his career of patient toil in this land of desolation in the service of his gold-seeking master, to become the prey of ravenous wolves, or food for croaking ravens, which covered his dead body, screaming at our approach. Six miles beyond Dry Sandy, where even the everlasting sage is scanty and of dwarfish growth, is Little Sandy----a fine creek of pure and sweet water."

Delano was born in Aurora, New York. His father, Dr. Frederick Delano, a physician, was an early settler of the town. Delano had ten siblings. The family descended from French Huguenots. His great-great-grandfather, Phillipe de la Noye, was also the great-great-great-great-grandfather of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

He left school when he was young and started working at age fifteen. His work as an itinerant merchant took him to frontier communities in Ohio and Indiana. By 1848, Delano had relocated his family to Ottawa, Illinois where he worked as a merchant selling bank stocks, flour, lard, silk, and whiskey, while becoming a well-respected community leader. He became ill that year with consumption, and following his physician's orders for a change of residence and more exertion, Delano decided to head west to California. Before departing, he made arrangements to send correspondence to the publishers of two newspapers, the "Ottawa Free Trader" and "True Delta" in New Orleans. At the age of 42, and being sick, he shipped his belongings, including cattle, to join the Dayton Company of travelers in St. Joseph, Missouri, the rendezvous point. His first week traveling was spent delirious with fever. He did not see his family again for six years.

When Delano reached Marysville, California, he earned $400 in three weeks drawing portraits of whiskered gold miners at an ounce of gold dust per head. After reaching San Francisco, Delano became a correspondent for the "San Francisco Daily Courier" and the "Pacific News." Along with Prentice Mulford, Delano was one of the first to use “California Humor,” a style of writing that uses satirical social commentary that exaggerates situations. Some of his articles were written by his long-nosed proto-Will Rogers figure "Old Block," taken from his whimsical sketches of miners and gamblers. These articles were later collected and published in book form in "Pen-Knife Sketches" and "Old Block's Sketch Book."

Charles Nahl was his illustrator. Delano's book, "On the Trail to the California Gold Rush," was a chronicle of his 1849 travels to California, and included an Introduction by American historian J. S. Holliday. His letters, a journal, and some writings were published in "Life on the Plains and among the Diggings." His comical play, "A Live Woman in the Mines," features the hero Pike County Jess and heroine High Betty Martin.

In 1850, Timothy Ellsworth and Delano purchased a claim on Massachusetts Hill located near Gold Hill in Nevada County, California, and organized the Sierra Quartz Mining Company. At one point, Delano owned one-sixth of the Massachusetts Hill Quartz Mine; Delano & Co. was very involved in its development. In 1851, Delano sold out his interest to Dr. J. C. Delavan, an agent of Rocky Bar, a New York company. Delano was a storekeeper in several communities, including Grass Valley. He was elected the first treasurer of the city of Grass Valley, California. He started working for Wells, Fargo & Company in Sacramento in 1854 and was Grass Valley's first Wells Fargo agent.

During a visit to his hometown of Aurora in 1830, Delano met and married Mary Burt. They had two children: Fred (1833–1857) and Harriet (born 1843). After Mary died in 1871, Delano married Maria Harmon in 1872. Delano died in Grass Valley in 1874 and is buried at Greenwood Cemetery. ... See MoreSee Less

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Oregon-California Trails Association

6 days ago

Today in history, June 29, 1854, Sarah Thomas is buried at age 22 along the Seminoe Cutoff in Wyoming. Click through the link to read the full article about the Cutoff and Sarah Thomas, written by OCTA's Randy Brown. The link provides excellent maps and photos as well. Following are some excerpts from his excellent article:

"Among the many branches and variants of the Oregon Trail was the 35-mile Seminoe Cutoff, which allowed travelers to avoid the last four crossings of the Sweetwater River as well as the difficult climb over Rocky Ridge.

"The cutoff was opened to wagons in the spring of 1853, after heavy snowmelt and heavy spring rains made the fords across the Sweetwater impassable well into the traveling season. The cutoff, combined with the use of the so-called Deep Sand Road that bypassed Three Crossings, enabled emigrants to stay south of the Sweetwater and avoid all the river’s fords except the first one—near Independence Rock. There, French-speaking traders with Shoshone families built a bridge across the river that lasted only until late June 1853, when it washed away.

"In subsequent years, the cutoff was used at times of exceptionally high water or early in the season when the river was too high to be safely forded.

"The cutoff was probably named for Charles Lajeunesse, one of owners of the post at Devil’s Gate and likely one of the builders of the Independence Rock bridge of 1853. His nickname was “Semino.”

"Diary and newspaper accounts show that there were emigrant deaths on the Seminoe Cutoff just as there were on the “old road,” as the main route was sometimes called, but existing identified graves on both routes are now rare. The only one that can be identified on the Seminoe is the grave of Sarah A. Thomas at Immigrant Springs.

"Nothing is known of Sarah Thomas other than the date of her death and age at the time, and these facts only because someone inscribed the information on her headstone. The epitaph reads: “SARAH A. THOMAS D. JUN 29 /54 AG. 22.”

"One account survives of her burial, but it does not even include her name. Jacob Hays of Missouri was heading for California when his company reached the springs on June 29, 1854. He wrote: “Clear but very windy, traveled over some pretty rough roads some 13 miles, encamped for the night on Rock Creek [the runoff from Immigrant Springs]. Witnessed the burial of a lady, herded cattle some miles from the wagons to the left of the road where there is a noble spring. Spring near the road called Rock Spring.” That’s it, and it’s the only contemporary account of the life and death of Sarah A. Thomas thus far discovered." ... See MoreSee Less

The Seminoe Cutoff and Sarah Thomas Grave | WyoHistory.org

www.wyohistory.org

Among the many branches and variants of the Oregon Trail was the 35-mile Seminoe Cutoff, which allowed travelers to avoid the last four crossings of the Sweetwater River as well as the difficult climb...

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Oregon-California Trails Association

1 week ago

On this date in history, June 28, 1852, John Clark wrote in his diary:

"Everything was covered with frost....some 20 old wagons, several graves & dead stock....saw 2 skeletons on the ground close to their graves. The Kiotes had drawn them out; the flesh was gone, but the bone & sinews held together. We are now going through what is termd the South Pass to Pacific Spring....We are now 52 days out from St Jo, 956 miles. Dead stock by the wayside 327, broken down & burnt waggons 111, graves 287."

After a rather quiet year for trail deaths in 1851, cholera surged back with a vengeance in 1852. Ezra Meeker wrote in his diary that the trail along the South Platte looked like a battlefield with the dead lined up "in rows of 50 or more." Another diarist, Abraham Sortore, wrote that along the Platte he was "scarcely out of sight of grave diggers." Historian Merrill Mattes pegged the mortality rate at about 6 percent. Sarah Wisner calculated that approximately 30,000 people died on the trail between 1842 and 1859, with a grave every 200 feet, on average. Most died from disease and illness, with Asiatic cholera being the main culprit.

For more on the trails and cholera, see “Dead of the Bloody Flux: Cholera Stalks the Emigrant Trail” by Herbert C. Milikien in Overland Journal 14-3 (Fall 1996), which is available as a free download for OCTA members at www.octa-journals.org or for $5 at the link here. ... See MoreSee Less

Overland Journal 14-3, Fall 1996 - OCTA

octa-trails.org

"Dead of the Bloody Flux: Cholera Stalks the Emigrant Trail" by Herbert C. Milikien; "Jedediah Strong Smith: Trails West" by Richard L. Dyer; "The Oregon Trail: Revisited" by Louis Kirkaldie

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