Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail. Ezra Meeker Meeker
TWENTY-FOUR
REVIVING OLD MEMORIES OF THE TRAIL
THE WORLD'S GREATEST TRAIL
Worn deep and wide by the migration of three hundred thousand people, lined by the graves of twenty thousand dead, witness of romance and tragedy, the Oregon Trail is unique in history and will always be sacred to the memories of the pioneers. Reaching the summit of the Rockies upon an evenly distributed grade of eight feet to the mile, following the watercourse of the River Platte and tributaries to within two miles of the summit of the South Pass, through the Rocky Mountain barrier, descending to the tidewaters of the Pacific, through the Valleys of the Snake and the Columbia, the route of the Oregon Trail points the way for a great National Highway from the Missouri River to Puget Sound: a roadway of greatest commercial importance, a highway of military preparedness, a route for a lasting memorial to the pioneers, thus combining utility and sentiment.
PART ONE
FROM OHIO TO THE COAST
This map shows the main divisions of North America as they were when Ezra Meeker was born. The shading in the Arctic region shows how much there was still for the explorers to discover.
The Oregon Country is shown as part of the United States, although the whole region was in dispute between the United States and Great Britain. In the United States itself the settled part of the country was east of the dotted line that runs from Lake Ontario to the Gulf of Mexico. West of this line was the Indian country, with only a few forts as outposts of settlement. Several territories had been organized, but Oregon, Missouri, and Nebraska were little more than names for vast undetermined regions.
CHAPTER ONE
BACK TO BEGINNINGS
I was born in Huntsville, Butler County, Ohio, on December 29, 1830. That was, at this writing, more than ninety years ago.
My father's ancestors came from England in 1637. In 1665 they settled near Elizabeth City, New Jersey, building there a very substantial house which stood till almost 1910. More than a score of hardy soldiers from this family fought for the Colonies in the War of Independence. They were noted for their stalwart strength, steady habits, and patriotic ardor.
Both my parents were sincere, though not austere, Christian people. Father inherited to the full the sturdy traits of his ancestors. I well remember that for three years, during our life in Indiana, he worked eighteen hours a day as a miller. For this hard service he received only twenty dollars a month and bran for the cow. Yet out of the ordeal he came seemingly as strong and healthy as when he entered it.
My mother's maiden name was Phœbe Baker. English and Welsh strains of blood ran in her veins. Her father settled in Butler County, Ohio, in the year 1804, or thereabouts. My mother, like my father, could and did endure continuous long hours of severe labor without much discomfort. I have known her frequently to patch and mend our clothing until very late at night, and yet she would invariably be up in the morning by four to resume her labors.
Small wonder that with such parents and with such early surroundings I am able to say that for fifty-eight years I was never sick in bed a single day. I, too, have endured long hours of labor during my whole life, and I can truthfully say that I have always liked to do my work and that I never watched for the sun to go down to relieve me from the burden of labor. My mother said I was "always the busiest young 'un" she ever saw, by which she meant that I was restless from the beginning—born so.
According to the best information obtainable, I was born in a log cabin, where the fireplace was nearly as wide as the cabin. The two doors on opposite sides permitted the horse, dragging the backlog, to enter at one and then to go out at the other. Of course, the solid floor of split logs defied injury from such treatment.
The skillet and the Dutch oven were used instead of the cook stove to bake the pone or johnny cake, to parch the corn, or to fry the venison which was then obtainable in the wilds of Ohio.
A curtain at the farther end of the cabin marked the confines of a bedchamber for the "old folks." The older children climbed the ladder nailed to the wall to get to the loft floored with loose clapboards that rattled when trodden upon. The straw beds were so near the roof that the patter of the rain made music to the ear, and the spray of the falling water would often baptize the "tow-heads" left uncovered.
Our diet was simple, and the mush pot was a great factor in our home life. A