Off For Oregon
I have been asked hundreds of times how many wagons were in the train I traveled with, and what train it was, and who was the captain?—assuming that, of course,…
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
“Off For Oregon” from Ventures and Adventures of Ezra Meeker by Ezra Meeker, 1908.
I have been asked hundreds of times how many wagons were in the train I traveled with, and what train it was, and who was the captain?—assuming that, of course, we must have been with some train.
I have invariably answered, one train, one wagon, and that we had no captain. What I meant by one train is, that I looked upon the whole emigration, strung out on the plains five hundred miles, as one train. For long distances the throng was so great that the road was literally filled with wagons as far as the eye could reach. At Kanesville where the last purchases were made, or the last letter sent to anxious friends, the congestion became so great that the teams were literally blocked, and stood in line for hours before they could get out of the jam. Then, as to a captain, we didn’t think we needed one, and so when we drove out of Eddyville, there was but one wagon in our train, two yoke of four-year-old steers, one yoke of cows, and one extra cow. This cow was the only animal we lost on the whole trip—strayed in the Missouri River bottom before crossing.
And now as to the personnel of our little party. William Buck, who became my partner for the trip, was a man six years my senior, had had some experience on the Plains, and knew about the outfit needed, but had no knowledge in regard to a team of cattle. He was an impulsive man, and to some extent excitable; yet withal a man of excellent judgment and as honest as God Almighty makes men. No lazy bones occupied a place in Buck’s body. He was so scrupulously neat and cleanly that some might say he was fastidious, but such was not the case. His aptitude for the camp work, and unfitness for handling the team, at once, as we might say by natural selection, divided the cares of the household, sending the married men to the range with the team and the bachelor to the camp. The little wife was in ideal health, and almost as particular as Buck (not quite though), while the young husband would be a little more on the slouchy order, if the reader will pardon the use of that word, more expressive than elegant.
Ezra Meeker. Image from book.
Buck selected the outfit to go into the wagon, while I fitted up the wagon and bought the team.
We had butter, packed in the center of the flour in double sacks; eggs packed in corn meal or flour, to last us nearly five hundred miles; fruit in abundance, and dried pumpkins; a little jerked beef, not too salt, and last, though not least, a demijohn of brandy for “medicinal purposes only,” as Buck said, with a merry twinkle of the eye that exposed the subterfuge which he knew I understood without any sign. The little wife had prepared the home-made yeast cake which she knew so well how to make and dry, and we had light bread all the way, baked in a tin reflector instead of the heavy Dutch ovens so much in use on the Plains.
Albeit the butter to a considerable extent melted and mingled with the flour, yet we were not much disconcerted, as the “short-cake” that followed made us almost glad the mishap had occurred. Besides, did we not have plenty of fresh butter, from the milk of our own cows, churned every day in the can, by the jostle of the wagon? Then the buttermilk! What a luxury!
Yes, that’s the word—a real luxury. I will never, so long as I live, forget that short-cake and corn-bread, the puddings and pumpkin pies, and above all the buttermilk. The reader who smiles at this may well recall that it is the small things that make up the happiness of life.
But it was more than that. As we gradually crept out on the Plains and saw the sickness and suffering caused by improper food and in some cases from improper preparation, it gradually dawned on me how blessed I was, with such a partner as Buck and such a life partner as the little wife. Some trains, it soon transpired, were without fruit, and most of them depended upon saleratus for raising their bread. Many had only fat bacon for meat until the buffalo supplied a change; and no doubt much of the sickness attributed to the cholera was caused by an ill-suited diet.
I am willing to claim credit for the team, every hoof of which reached the Coast in safety. Four (four-year-old) steers and two cows were sufficient for our light wagon and light outfit, not a pound of which but was useful (except the brandy) and necessary for our comfort. Not one of these steers had ever been under the yoke, though plenty of “broke” oxen could be had, but generally of that class that had been broken in spirit as well as in training, so when we got across the Des Moines River with the cattle strung out to the wagon and Buck on the off side to watch, while I, figuratively speaking, took the reins in hand, we may have presented a ludicrous sight, but did not have time to think whether we did or not, and cared but little so the team would go.
Meeker, Ezra. Ventures and Adventures of Ezra Meeker. Rainier Printing Co., 1908.
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