Women of the Frontier

by Brandon Marie Miller

  The greatest threat, disease, became the emigrant’s constant companion. The late 1840s and early 1850s saw a worldwide cholera epidemic, and settlers carried the disease west and spread it through feces-contaminated water supplies. Victims often died within hours, or lingered for only a few days, suffering violent diarrhea and vomiting, dehydration, and kidney failure before succumbing to the disease.

  Smallpox, measles, and typhoid fever killed others; dysentery and chills and fever struck almost every traveler at some point. In June 1852 a woman observed, “All along the road up the Platte River was a grave yard; most any time of day you could see people burying their dead; some places five or six graves in a row…. It was a sad sight; no one can realize it unless they had seen it.”15

  Mothers turned to medicine chests filled with castor oil and camphor and drugs like belladonna and laudanum, an opium mixture. As a child in 1846, Lucy Henderson traveled west on the Oregon Trail with her family. She later recalled:

  Mother had brought some medicine along…. My little sister, Salita Jane wanted to taste it … as soon as we had gone she got the bottle and drank it all. Presently she came to the campfire where Mother was cooking supper and said she felt awfully sleepy…. When Mother tried to awake her later she couldn’t arouse her. Lettie had drunk the whole bottle of laudanum. It was too late to save her life.16

  Only three days after burying Lettie, Lucy’s mother gave birth to a baby girl.

  We were so late that the men of the party decided we could not tarry a day, so we had to press on. The going was terribly rough. We were the first party to take the southern cut-off and there was no road. The men walked beside the wagons and tried to ease the wheels down into the rough places, but in spite of this it was a very rough ride for my mother and her new born babe.17

  Sometime in July, wagon trains on the Oregon Trail crossed the Continental Divide at South Pass. It was a broad, flat plain that disappointed many emigrants, who expected something more spectacular. The trip was less than halfway over by this time, and the worst dangers still lay ahead. The California route to Sacramento led through sandy desert, terrible heat, and a climb over the Sierra Nevada range. Luzena Wilson described her family’s hellish trek through Death Valley, a 40-mile march of scorched feet and scalding gray dust that burned their eyes red and parched their tongues. Oregon pioneers faced the Blue Mountains, the Cascade Range, and a trip down the mighty Columbia River before they reached the Willamette Valley.

  By this stage of the journey, tension and fatigue marked the emigrants. Tempers flared and wagon trains sometimes splintered into smaller groups. “Our company do nothing but jaw all the time,” observed one woman. “I never saw such a cross company before.”18 Taking an uncharted shortcut to save time looked tempting but could prove deadly, as the Donner Party discovered. All along the trail, furniture and tools lay abandoned to lighten the load for exhausted, bony animals. In the mountains, the struggle grew perilous. Men hoisted the wagons uphill with chains, ropes, and pulleys and then eased them down again with wheel brakes locked.

  Oxen dropped dead in their tracks; the road was littered with dead cattle and bones bleached by the sun. “Shame on the man,” exclaimed Amelia Stewart Knight,

  who has no pity for the poor, dumb brutes that have to travel and toil month after month on this desolate road. I could hardly help shedding tears, when we drove round this poor ox who had helped us along thus far and has given us his very last step.19

  “We Womenfolk Visited”

  Besides their jobs as trail homemakers, women helped with men’s work, too. They drove wagons, pitched tents, loaded and unloaded, and yoked cattle. If her husband became ill or died, a woman managed on her own, often leaning on other females for help and emotional support. Women visited between wagons, spoke of old homes “back in the states,” traded ideas to spice up the monotonous diet, and shared hopes for the future. They assisted with childbirth and comforted one another in times of loss. “Late in the afternoon,” reported one journal entry, “a group of women stood watching Mrs. Wilson’s little babe as it breathed its last.”20

  Another woman wrote, “The female portion of our little train are almost discouraged. We sat by moonlight and discussed matters till near 11 o’clock.”21 Exclaimed one woman, “Almira says she wished she was home, and I say ditto!”22 Women helped out in other ways, too. On the treeless plains they might have stood in a circle, skirts fanned out, providing one another some privacy when nature called.

  Months spent on the overland trails challenged every fiber of female emigrants. Breathtaking scenery and hope for the future existed alongside discomfort and despair. The trails’ lessons on adapting and coping with the unexpected helped prepare women for their new lives on the frontier. Some never made it to California or Oregon, never tasted the fruits of the promised land. But others at last recorded—thankfully and with relief—in letters and diaries that the great journey had finally ended.

  Margret Reed

  Surviving Starvation in the Sierra Nevada

  The overland trails pitted emigrants in a 2,000-mile race against winter to reach California or Oregon, and in 1846 the group known as the Donner Party lost that race. In late October, heavy snows pinned 81 exhausted people—23 men, 15 women, and 43 children, many only toddlers and infants—near Lake Truckee in the Sierra Nevada. There, the brutal weather eventually buried them beneath 30 feet of snow. Margret Reed, who’d been a young widow so frail she married her second husband, James, while lying in a sickbed, survived that winter’s unspeakable horrors, and her four children survived, too.

  Forty-seven-year-old James Reed in part decided to go west for the sake of Margret’s health. For the long journey, the Reeds built a special wagon, with a door on the side like a carriage and bump outs over the wheels for extra room. Margret’s mother, Sarah Keyes, joined the family, which included Margret’s twelve-year-old daughter, Virginia, whom James had adopted, and the Reeds’ little children. Among them were Patty, age eight; James Jr., age five; and Thomas, age three. They left their home in Springfield, Illinois, along with the families of George and Jacob Donner. The parties included teamsters and a few servants.

  The train “jumped off” in Independence, Missouri, and joined a larger wagon train. Within days, Margret buried her mother in Kansas, a sad beginning to the adventure. The emigrants continued along the trail used by thousands of others during the next decade, trudging along the Platte River and the Sweetwater River, crossing South Pass, and then making their way to the trail split where people headed into Oregon or dropped down to California.

  Margret Reed, a drawing from a photograph made after her ordeal. US History Images

  Here, the Donner Party, urged by James Reed, opted for a third route, a supposed shorter route on an uncharted trail called the Hastings Cutoff. Others warned Reed not to risk the cutoff, but Hastings himself promised to guide the party, a pledge he broke. Nevertheless, the emigrants trudged on, hoping to make up time using a trail that didn’t exist. The group included the Breen family; there were Patrick and his wife, Peggy, and their seven children. Levinah Murphy headed a clan of her children, two sons-in-law, and several little grandchildren. William and Eleanor Eddy also came, with a toddler and baby.

  William McCutchen, his wife, Amanda, and their baby, Harriet, joined the Donners at Fort Bridger near the cutoff. A small group of Germans, the Kesebergs and the Wolfingers, bachelor Patrick Dolan, and hired hands completed the train. But Virginia Reed’s beloved pony, Billy, having traveled all the way from Illinois, simply gave up and would not go on. As the wagons rolled off, Virginia cried herself sick, watching Billy shrink into the distance until he vanished from her sight.

  In the Wasatch Mountains, they sawed and hacked their own path through a winding canyon of thick brush and trees, moving at a snail’s pace. At some point, the Graves, a family of nine, traveling with three wagons, joined the Donner group in the mountains. The journey of 35 miles cost them two weeks of precious time. The party
emerged near the Great Salt Lake with 600 miles still before them, “worn with travel and greatly discouraged,” recalled Virginia Reed.23

  Then they faced a great desert of seeping, boglike salt flats, where nothing bloomed. Oxen and wagons sank into the salty mire, while everyone choked on clouds of dust. They rationed water, baked in the day’s heat, and shivered through the cold nights. The line of wagons stretched out as people struggled, with the Reeds near the rear of the procession.

  After three days without water, the oxen stumbled, halted, and dropped to the ground. People unyoked the wagons and drove the cattle on, hoping to retrieve what they needed later. Water waited at the base of Pilot Peak, an oasis in the distance. For the Reeds, the salt flats proved a disaster. Their oxen and cattle bolted after the water, forcing the family to abandon all but one wagon and leaving them with only one ox and one cow. They had to borrow oxen to continue.

  After five miserable days in the desert, the party spent a week at Pilot Peak, resting, searching for missing cattle, and bringing up some of the wagons left behind. In all, the families had lost 36 head of cattle. In a few weeks, along the Humboldt River, Indians drove off more cattle and horses. The loss of animals affected more than transportation. Without cattle, the Donner Party headed into the Sierra Nevada lacking the most precious commodity of all: potential food.

  It was now late September. After so many months and so many miles, knowing they were late getting to the mountains, exhausted people vented their tempers, and tension marked every face. At one point, offering no details, James Reed simply noted, “All the women in Camp were mad with anger.”24 They reached the Humboldt River and the main trail to California two months after cleaving off onto the shortcut. They had probably lost about a month of traveling time.

  Only a week later, on October 5, Margret Reed faced another heartrending challenge. As the teamsters struggled to get up a steep slope, wagons scraping, animals tangling, an argument broke out. Her husband stepped into the quarrel, and in a heated exchange, John Snyder, a teamster for the Graves family, whipped Reed about the head. Bleeding, James pulled a knife and plunged it into Snyder’s chest, killing him. The shocked camp divided—had Reed committed murder or had he defended himself? Some threatened to hang James, but eventually the company decided to banish him, without food or weapons, to face death or find his way out alone.

  But James refused to leave. Margret, dreading how difficult life would be without him, urged her husband to go for his own safety. Yet how could he abandon his family, even for a while? Think of the children, Margret reminded him. They were nearly destitute, and if he could bring back supplies, he might save them all.

  James and Margret struggled with the awful decision. In the end, he left, after others promised they would help his wife and children. Margret watched him go, not knowing if she’d ever see her husband again. Virginia stole after her father into the darkness and brought him his rifle.

  At first, Margret nearly gave way to despair. Virginia and Patty actually feared for her life. But the tormenting knowledge that her children faced danger and starvation released new reserves of energy. With 400 miles to go, Margret and her children would deal with whatever came. They lived on small food rations, and soon Margret abandoned their remaining wagon—it was just too heavy for the exhausted, skeletal oxen to pull. They packed what they could into another emigrant’s wagon, carried some, and left the rest. Margret and the girls walked while the small boys rode the family’s two starved horses. After 40 miles of desert, heat, and thirst, with their animals staggering and more oxen dying along the way, the company finally hit the Truckee River—an oasis of green and fresh water—and followed the river into the mountains.

  On October 19, Charles Stanton, who’d left in mid-September with William McCutchen to seek help at Sutter’s Fort in California, met up with the emigrants. He led seven mules loaded with supplies and brought two Indian guides—a glad sight for the Donner Party. Even better for the Reeds, he’d seen James, famished but alive and well on the trail. With only 100 miles to go and a new supply of food and men to guide them, everyone must have felt the worst of the journey had ended.

  The families spread out, some pushing hard to the front, the Donners straggling behind. On October 31, those in the front reached Lake Truckee, softly blanketed in snow, and viewed the steep climb that awaited. The next day Stanton and the two Indians led Margret and her children, the Eddys, and the Graves family toward the summit. Others stayed below at the lake, too exhausted to attempt the mountain.

  The farther they climbed, the deeper the snow became. People and animals lurched through the drifts. The party abandoned their wagons and lashed belongings to the oxen. Stanton and one of the Indians scouted ahead to the summit before tracking back to urge the climbers on for the final push. But the emigrants had built fires on the snow; worn out, they huddled close to the flames. Stanton promised that if no more snow fell they could reach the pass—they had only about three miles to go, but no one had the heart to leave the fires. They’d forge ahead at dawn.

  During the night, a storm howled over the mountains, and snow nearly buried the unsheltered emigrants. Margret blanketed her children with shawls and roused herself from sleep every few minutes to brush off the drifting white flakes. By morning, mountain and valley lay deep in snow, and everyone realized there was no way now they’d reach the summit. “With heavy hearts,” wrote Virginia Reed, the company stumbled back down to the lake.

  The Breens occupied a cabin that had been built and abandoned several years before. Men chopped and hewed trees and built two more cabins, covering the roofs with hides. The Murphys took one, and Margret and her children shared a divided cabin with the Graves family. The Eddys bunked with the Murphys. William’s wife, Amanda McCutchen, and her baby stayed with the Graveses. Stanton and the Indians stayed with the Reeds. Keseberg built a lean-to against the Breen’s cabin. The Donners, who’d lagged behind due to a wagon accident, made it as far as Alder Creek, about seven miles from the lake cabins. They had no time to build a wooden shelter and would spend the winter in tents with brush and tree boughs for protection.

  Most of the remaining cattle were killed and buried in the snow. Margret Reed possessed no cattle, but she bartered for some by promising to give two cows for one when they finally reached California. Franklin Graves and Patrick Breen each gave her two animals, but the poor creatures, so weak and starved after walking 2,000 miles, provided little meat. Tired, already half starved themselves, people hunkered down. All Midwesterners, they had no idea of winter’s fury on the mountains. The first storm lasted for eight days.

  On November 12, about 15 people tried to break out and make it over the mountain, but the snow forced them back. A second attempt a week later also ended in failure. Another storm raged over the camp in late November, continuing into the first days of December. The remaining cattle and horses vanished in the storm, probably buried beneath the deep drifts, leaving the emigrants with no way to find the carcasses.

  The cabins shrank as the snow piled up, and few people had the energy or the will to move about. Collecting firewood became monumental work. Looking at one another, the emigrants could clearly see each other’s gaunt faces and bony ribs and shoulders—their families and companions were dwindling away.

  A month in, Franklin Graves proposed they try again—someone had to get through and bring back food and help. They fashioned snowshoes, and the healthiest adults and teens attempted the climb. Two people had already perished in camp when the group of seventeen (ten men, five women, and two of the Murphy boys, ages thirteen and ten) started out. Several were young parents who left their children behind with the others, seeing no way to save their little ones but to get help.

  Margret and the others could only wait and hope. Unprotected from the elements, the snowshoers suffered biting cold, heavy snowstorms and howling winds, wet clothes, and tiny rations of food—until no food remained at all. One by one, they perished, until the survivors resorte
d to the only thing they could to stay alive—they became the first of the Donner Party to cut away strips of flesh from their dead companions and eat them to stave off starvation.

  Finally, seven survivors, two men and all five women, stumbled into a Miwok Indian village, where they received food. When no one else could go on, William Eddy summoned the will to advance. A month after they’d left the lake, he staggered upon a place called Johnson’s Ranch on January 17 and found help. But how would they get help back to those who waited?

  At the lake and at Alder Creek, no one knew the fate of the snowshoers. Milt Elliot, a teamster, staggered over to the cabins from Alder Creek with the sad news that Jacob Donner had died, as had three of the young, single men with the party. Such news only added to the sense of desperation and hopelessness.

  Margret did her best to revive a few hours of Christmas joy for her hungry children. She’d saved a meager hoard for the occasion—a few dried apples, a few beans, a little tripe, and a small piece of bacon. The children watched as the treats simmered in the kettle, and when they sat down to this Christmas feast, Margret told them, “Children, eat slowly, for this one day you can have all you wish.” For the rest of her life, no matter how grand a Christmas dinner spread on her table, Virginia never forgot what her mother did for them. “So bitter was the misery relieved by that one bright day, that I have never since sat down to a Christmas dinner without my thoughts going back to Donner Lake.”25

  They lived in crowded, dark cabins beneath the snow, lice and vermin an added source of misery. People could scarcely walk; they dragged themselves between cabins. When the men did cut trees for fuel, the heavy logs fell deep down into the snow and had to be wrestled out. When the snow fell too deep, they chipped bits of wood off cabin walls to burn for warmth. Children cried with hunger, and mothers cried because they had no food to give their little ones.