Part 3 (2/2)
We should see them struggling up against that tremendous current before steam was known, driven by their l.u.s.t for new lands. We may then understand fully what we have read of the enterprises of the old American Fur Company, and bring to mind the forgotten names of Campbell and Sublette, of General Ashley and of Wyeth--names to be followed by others really of less importance, as those of Bonneville and Fremont.
That there could be farms, that there ever might be homes, in this strange wild country, was, to these early adventurers, unthinkable.
Then we should picture the millions of buffalo which once covered these plains and think of the waste and folly of their slaughtering. We should see the long streams of the Mackinaw boats swimming down the Missouri, bound for St. Louis, laden with bales of buffalo and beaver peltry, every pound of which would be worth ten dollars at the capital of the fur trade; and we should restore to our minds the old pictures of savage tribesmen, decked in fur-trimmed war-s.h.i.+rts and plumed bonnets, armed with lance and sinewed bow and bull-neck s.h.i.+eld, not forgetting whence they got their horses and how they got their food.
The great early mid-continental highway, known as the Oregon Trail or the Overland Trail, was by way of the Missouri up the Platte Valley, thence across the mountains. We know more of this route because it was not discontinued, but came steadily more and more into use, for one reason after another. The fur traders used it, the Forty-Niners used it, the cattlemen used it in part, the railroads used it; and, lastly, the settlers and farmers used it most of all.
In physical features the Platte River route was similar to that of the Arkansas Valley. Each at its eastern extremity, for a few days' travel, pa.s.sed over the rolling gra.s.s-covered and flower-besprinkled prairies ere it broke into the high and dry lands of the Plains, with their green or grey or brown covering of practically flowerless short gra.s.ses. But between the two trails of the Arkansas and the Platte there existed certain wide differences. At the middle of the nineteenth century the two trails were quite distinct in personnel, if that word may be used.
The Santa Fe Trail showed Spanish influences; that of the Platte Valley remained far more nearly American.
Thus far the frontier had always been altering the man who came to it; and, indirectly, always altering those who dwelt back of the frontier, nearer to the Appalachians or the Atlantic. A new people now was in process of formation--a people born of a new environment. America and the American were conceiving. There was soon to be born, soon swiftly to grow, a new and lasting type of man. Man changes an environment only by bringing into it new or better transportation. Environment changes man.
Here in the midcontinent, at the mid-century, the frontier and the ways of the frontier were writing their imprint on the human product of our land.
The first great caravans of the Platte Valley, when the wagon-trains went out hundreds strong, were not the same as the scattering cavalcade of the fur hunters, not the same as the ox-trains and mule-trains of the Santa Fe traffic. The men who wore deepest the wheel marks of the Oregon Trail were neither trading nor trapping men, but homebuilding men--the first real emigrants to go West with the intent of making homes beyond the Rockies.
The Oregon Trail had been laid out by the explorers of the fur trade.
Zealous missionaries had made their way over the trail in the thirties.
The Argonauts of '49 pa.s.sed over it and left it only after crossing the Rockies. But, before gold in California was dreamed of, there had come back to the States reports of lands rich in resources other than gold, lying in the far Northwest, beyond the great mountain ranges and, before the Forty-Niners were heard of, farmers, homebuilders, emigrants, men with their families, men with their household goods, were steadily pa.s.sing out for the far-off and unknown country of Oregon.
The Oregon Trail was the pathway for Fremont in 1842, perhaps the most overvalued explorer of all the West; albeit this comment may to some seem harsh. Kit Carson and Bill Williams led Fremont across the Rockies almost by the hand. Carson and Williams themselves had been taken across by the Indian tribes. But Fremont could write; and the story which he set down of his first expedition inflamed the zeal of all. Men began to head out for that far-away country beyond the Rockies. Not a few scattered bands, but very many, pa.s.sed up the valley of the Platte.
There began a tremendous trek of thousands of men who wanted homes somewhere out beyond the frontier. And that was more than ten years before the Civil War. The cow trade was not dreamed of; the coming cow country was overleaped and ignored.
Our national horizon extended immeasurably along that dusty way. In the use of the Oregon Trail we first began to be great. The chief figure of the American West, the figure of the ages, is not the long-haired, fringed-legging man riding a raw-boned pony, but the gaunt and sadfaced woman sitting on the front seat of the wagon, following her lord where he might lead, her face hidden in the same ragged sunbonnet which had crossed the Appalachians and the Missouri long before. That was America, my brethren! There was the seed of America's wealth. There was the great romance of all America--the woman in the sunbonnet; and not, after all, the hero with the rifle across his saddle horn. Who has written her story? Who has painted her picture?
They were large days, those of the great Oregon Trail, not always pleasingly dramatic, but oftentimes tragic and terrible. We speak of the Oregon Trail, but it means little to us today; nor will any mere generalities ever make it mean much to us. But what did it mean to the men and women of that day? What and who were those men and women?
What did it mean to take the Overland Trail in the great adventure of abandoning forever the known and the safe and setting out for Oregon or California at a time when everything in the far West was new and unknown? How did those good folk travel? Why and whither did they travel?
There is a book done by C. F. McGlashan, a resident of Truckee, California, known as ”The History of the Donner Party,” holding a great deal of actual history. McGlashan, living close to Donner Lake, wrote in 1879, describing scenes with which he was perfectly familiar, and recounting facts which he had from direct a.s.sociation with partic.i.p.ants in the ill-fated Donner Party. He chronicles events which happened in 1846--a date before the discovery of gold in California. The Donner Party was one of the typical American caravans of homeseekers who started for the Pacific Slope with no other purpose than that of founding homes there, and with no expectation of sudden wealth to be gained in the mines. I desire therefore to quote largely from the pages of this book, believing that, in this fas.h.i.+on, we shall come upon history of a fundamental sort, which shall make us acquainted with the men and women of that day, with the purposes and the ambitions which animated them, and with the hards.h.i.+ps which they encountered.
”The States along the Mississippi were but spa.r.s.ely settled in 1846, yet the fame of the fruitfulness, the healthfulness, and the almost tropical beauty of the land bordering the Pacific, tempted the members of the Donner Party to leave their homes. These homes were situated in Illinois, Iowa, Tennessee, Missouri, and Ohio. Families from each of these States joined the train and partic.i.p.ated in its terrible fate; yet the party proper was organized in Sangamon County, Illinois, by George and Jacob Donner and James F. Reed. Early in April, 1846, the party set out from Springfield, Illinois, and by the first week in May reached Independence, Missouri. Here the party was increased by additional members, and the train comprised about one hundred persons.... In the party were aged fathers with their trusting families about them, mothers whose very lives were wrapped up in their children, men in the prime and vigor of manhood, maidens in all the sweetness and freshness of budding womanhood, children full of glee and mirthfulness, and babes nestling on maternal b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Lovers there were, to whom the journey was tinged with rainbow hues of joy and happiness, and strong, manly hearts whose constant support and encouragement was the memory of dear ones left behind in homeland.
”The wonderment which all experience in viewing the scenery along the line of the old emigrant road was peculiarly vivid to these people.
Few descriptions had been given of the route, and all was novel and unexpected. In later years the road was broadly and deeply marked, and good camping grounds were distinctly indicated. The bleaching bones of cattle that had perished, or the broken fragments of wagons or castaway articles, were thickly strewn on either side of the highway. But in 1846 the way was through almost trackless valleys waving with gra.s.s, along rivers where few paths were visible, save those made by the feet of buffalo and antelope, and over mountains and plains where little more than the westward course of the sun guided the travelers. Trading-posts were stationed at only a few widely distant points, and rarely did the party meet with any human beings, save wandering bands of Indians. Yet these first days are spoken of by all of the survivors as being crowned with peaceful enjoyment and pleasant antic.i.p.ations. There were beautiful flowers by the roadside, an abundance of game in the meadows and mountains, and at night there were singing, dancing, and innocent plays.
Several musical instruments, and many excellent voices, were in the party, and the kindliest feeling and goodfellows.h.i.+p prevailed among the members.
”The formation of the company known as the Donner Party was purely accidental. The union of so many emigrants into one train was not occasioned by any preconcerted arrangement. Many composing the Donner Party were not aware, at the outset, that such a tide of emigration was sweeping to California. In many instances small parties would hear of the mammoth train just ahead of them or just behind them, and by hastening their pace, or halting for a few days, joined themselves to the party. Many were with the train during a portion of the journey, but from some cause or other became parted from the Donner company before reaching Donner Lake. Soon after the train left Independence it contained between two and three hundred wagons, and when in motion was two miles in length. The members of the party proper numbered ninety.”
This caravan, like many others of the great a.s.semblage westbound at that time, had great extremes in personnel. Some were out for mere adventure; some were single men looking for a location. Most of them were fathers of families, among them several persons of considerable means and of good standing in the community which they were leaving. While we may suppose that most of them were folk of no extraordinary sort, certainly some were persons of education and intelligence. Among these was the wife of George Donner--Tamsen Dormer; a woman of education, a musician, a linguist, a botanist, and of the most sublime heroism.
Tamsen Donner sent back now and then along the route some story of the daily doings of the caravan; and such letters as these are of the utmost interest to any who desire precise information of that time. It would seem that the emigrants themselves for a great part of their route met with no great adventures, nor indeed, appeared to be undertaking any unusual affair. They followed a route up the Platte Valley already long known to those of the eastern settlements.
”Near the Junction of the North and South Platte, June 16, 1846.
”My Old Friend: We are now on the Platte, two hundred miles from Fort Laramie. Our journey so far has been pleasant, the roads have been good, and food plentiful. The water for part of the way has been indifferent, but at no time have our cattle suffered for it. Wood is now very scarce, but 'buffalo chips' are excellent; they kindle quickly and retain heat surprisingly. We had this morning buffalo steaks broiled upon them that had the same flavor they would have had upon hickory coals.
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