The Road to No Where: The Oregon Trail: Death on the Trail

Death was a common occurrence along the Oregon Trail. Statistically, for every mile of trail there are ten graves. From starvation to cholera, snake bites to infections, people died all along the road west. Many of these graves have been found and marked but even more have not been. Too many travelers did not have the time or the wood for proper markers, making thousands of graves along the road unmarked and unknown.[1]

Many people wrote about their experiences along the trail. One such journal was written by Jacob Hammer, who set out with his wife and children in a wagon trail headed for Oregon. Traveling in 1843, he took care to keep notes of their journey west.

“ We traveled all day in a town of the prairie dogs. Many buffalow bones are to be found here. Thomas Vance very sick and has been for several days. Some others not very well. Traveled five miles up the Platte. This afternoon we crossed Unknown Creek.

[June 23] …T. Vance very sick yet. Distance traveled is twenty miles.

[June 24] Stay in camp today for Vance to get better.

[June 25] Vance is no better. Traveled sixteen miles today…

[June 26] Vance is not better. Distance traveled is twenty miles.

[June 27] Our sick man is no better. Some buffalo occasionally brought in. Distance traveled, twenty miles today.

[June 28] Traveled twenty miles. Thomas Vance died this evening about sunset. This man is a member of the Baptist society, the regular Baptists… His faith appeared to be good. He seemed to be sincere… …the young man as he departed sighed one sigh and departed without struggle. And as he opened his eyes and looked up as if he was looking into heaven… He was decently laid out. Now the people … thought best to bury him as quick as the grave could be dug, for mortification had taken place. Some thought to wait till morning the smell would be so great that they could not endure it very well… We had no coffin for him. We dug the grave deep and dug a very neat vault and placed in it some dry grass. And putting a quilt around the corpse we placed it in the vault and laid some pieces of planks on the vault. This formed his coffin… We buried this young man about ten miles up the North fork of the Platte river [on] the North side of the river in the bottom a few rods from the river.”[2]

Men were not the only ones to keep journals of their trials and tribulations. Catherine Sager was a young woman who wrote candidly about her family despite their bad fortune in a way that only a child can:

“We had one wagon, two steady yoke of old cattle, and several young and not well-broken ones. Father was no ox driver and had trouble with these…

Reaching the buffalo country, our father would get some one to drive his team and start on the hunt, for he was enthusiastic in his love of such sport…

August 1^st we nooned in a beautiful grove on the north side of the Platte. We had by this time got used to climbing in and out of the wagon when in motion. While performing this feat that afternoon my dress caught on an axle helve and I was thrown under the wagon wheel, which passed over and badly crushed my limb before father could stop the team…

In a broken voice he exclaimed: “My dear child, your leg is broken all to pieces!”… A surgeon was found and the limb set; then we pushed on the same night to Laramie…

…Sickness became common. Father and the boys were all sick… it soon became apparent that his days were numbered. He was fully conscious of the fact, but could not be reconciled to the thought of leaving his large and helpless family in such precarious circumstances.

The evening before his death we crossed Green River and camped on the bank. Looking where I lay helpless, he said: “Poor child! What will become of you?!”…He said his last hour had come, and his heart was filled with anguish for his family. His wife was ill, the children small, and one likely to be a cripple… He begged the Captian to take charge of them and see them through. This he [Captian] stoutly promised. Father was buried the next day on the banks of the Green River. His coffin was made of two troughs dug out of the body of a tree, but the next year [1845] emigrants found his bleaching bones, as the Indians had disinterred the remains.

…With camp fever and a sore mouth, she [Mother] fought bravely against fate for the sake of her children, but she was taken delirious soon after reaching Fort Bridger and was bed-fast… We traveled a rough road the day she died, and she moaned fearfully all the time. … The tent was set up, the corpse laid out, and the next morning we took the last look at our mother’s face. The grave was near the road; willow brush was laid in the bottom and covered the body, the earth filled in- then the train moved on.

Her name was cut on a head-board, and that was all that could be done. So in twenty-six days we became orphans. Seven children of us, the oldest fourteen and the youngest a babe…”[3]

Catherine and her siblings were adopted by the wagon train and taken to a mission to be raised.

Some of these markers and many modern ones can be found today. The Oregon Trail does still exist, and such markers can be seen alongside. There are even places that bare the wagon wheel ruts from so many traveling the same path. The Oregon Trail was more than a way for the nation to grow; it was a way for the pioneers to extend themselves, to pit themselves against the wilderness and for some, to win.

[1] Michael Trinklein, The Oregon Trail (Amazon Digitial Services, 2011), Amazon Kindle Edition.

[2] David Dary, The Oregon Trail; An American Saga (New York: Alfred A.
Knope, 2004), 124-125.

[3] Ibid, 115-118