Aunt June and Uncle Tim had three sons: Henry, Tom, and Adam who all struck out for California mining camps in search of gold. Their sister, River Ann, married Paddy O’Reilly, a famous tenor with the San Francisco Opera.
In 1906 Aunt June’s granddaughter, Daisy Valentine, would be one of the survivors of San Francisco’s great earthquake and fire.
Americans have always had a tradition of wanting to explore new territories and search for wide-open spaces. Today, we venture forth into the frontiers of space, and the European-American pioneers of the 1800s were no different in their spirit of adventure as they bravely set out to explore the relatively unknown parts of the North American continent.
Following a nationwide depression in 1837, there was a strong movement toward westward expansion. James Polk ran for president in 1844 as an expansionist candidate. The United States had recently gained Texas as an annexed territory (and after the Mexican War ended in 1848, California and New Mexico would become part of the country, too). The United States and Great Britain had both claimed the Oregon Territory, and Polk’s campaign used the slogan, “Fifty-four-forty or fight!” This rallying cry referred to the latitude of the Oregon Territory, which America wanted to claim as its own. Ultimately, a treaty was signed with Great Britain, and the territory south of the 49th parallel — what is now Oregon and Washington — became part of America. As a result, the country nearly doubled in size during Polk’s presidency.
In 1845, a newspaperman named John L. O’Sullivan used the phrase “manifest destiny” in an article he wrote about westward expansion. His theory was that since American democracy was so successful, Americans had a divine — or God-given — right to take over any land they desired, and even a duty to do so. Many citizens agreed with this philosophy, and were eager to establish homesteads on the newly acquired territories. The Indians who lived there were primarily seminomadic and believed that the land belonged to everyone. But because the pioneers had a very different cultural concept of private ownership, they claimed the land as their own, despite the fact that the Indian peoples had lived there for over ten thousand years.
The entire Oregon Trail was first used during the early part of the nineteenth century by fur trappers; missionaries; various explorers such as Jim Bridger, John C. Frémont, and Lansford W. Hastings; as well as other adventurers. The Indians had already been using parts of the trail for thousands of years. Along with the California and Sante Fe trails, the Oregon Trail served as the main route to the Pacific Ocean from the 1830s until the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869.
The two-thousand-mile-long Oregon Trail originated in Independence, Missouri, although there were several other “jumping-off points” nearby. The journey took an average of six months to complete. The first organized wagon train of fourteen wagons left from Independence in 1836. The party was led by Protestant missionaries Marcus and Narcissa Whitman and included approximately seventy men, women, and children. Narcissa Whitman kept a detailed diary of the journey, as did many pioneer women. By 1843, the “Oregon fever” had spread, and one thousand settlers — also known as emigrants — set out on the trail. During the next few years, at least five thousand more brave pioneers followed in their tracks to settle in the rich farmland of the Oregon countryside. The Mormans, led by Brigham Young, would find their homeland around the Great Salt Lake in Utah in 1847. Countless others would head to California after gold was discovered there at Sutter’s Mill in 1849.
The most famous group to travel on the Oregon Trail was the Donner Party in 1846. Eighty-nine unfortunate emigrants were stranded in the Sierra Nevada mountain range when winter arrived, preventing them from being able to complete their journey. They had left late and taken a “cutoff” — or shortcut — in order to try to save time. The decision was deadly. Many of them froze or starved to death, and the forty-seven who survived were forced to resort to cannibalism when their provisions ran out. As a result, the Donner Party became a notorious symbol of the worst that could happen during the long, dangerous journey to the Pacific Ocean. One survivor’s letter to a friend back East warned, “Never take no cut ofs and hury along as fast as you can.”
There were countless natural hazards to be found along the Oregon Trail. Still, more than anything else, the emigrants feared contact with Indians. But Indian attacks were actually rare. The emigrants were far more likely to die from accidents; diseases, such as cholera and typhoid; starvation; drowning while attempting a river crossing; or the perils of an unexpected blizzard. The wagon trains often encountered grass fires, hailstorms, floods, and other powerful forces of nature.
At least twenty-seven different Indian tribes lived in the areas surrounding the Oregon Trail. Some of the tribes included the Lakota Sioux, the Kiowa, the Apaches, the Pawnees, the Shoshone, the Kansa, the Arapaho, the Crow, the Cheyenne, the Bannock, and the Flatheads. On rare occasions, Indians stole livestock or provisions from the wagon trains, but most of them were more interested in bartering with the settlers. Generally, they would provide fresh buffalo meat or salmon in exchange for cash, metal fishing hooks, calico, and other clothing items. Because the emigrants were ignorant about Indian cultures, they often behaved in an unnecessarily hostile manner toward the Indians.
Any family preparing to take the Oregon Trail needed to gather enough supplies to last for the entire journey. They would purchase or build a sturdy wagon, and buy either oxen or mules to pull it. Mules were able to travel faster, but they usually weren’t strong enough to make the entire trip. Oxen could generally go only five to ten miles a day, but they were much sturdier animals. The emigrants frequently had to detour from the trail, in order to locate fresh water and plenty of grass for their animals.
Each family would stock up on lots of provisions like flour, bacon, salt pork, sugar, dried beans and fruit, saleratus (baking soda), tobacco, cornmeal, vinegar, rice, and chipped (smoked) beef. For the most part, they lived on beans and coffee, and any wild berries or root vegetables they could gather. The average breakfast consisted of bread or pancakes, fried meat, beans, and tea or coffee. There was rarely any medical care available on the trail, so they would pack primitive medicinals and remedies like laudanum (an opium medicinal) and camphor for general ailments, quinine, castor oil, and hartshorn for snakebites. The cost of the entire trip, to outfit and transport each family, was about five hundred dollars.
Most emigrants walked next to their covered wagons, rather than riding, so that the livestock would have less weight to pull, and because there was very little room to sit inside. Firewood was always scarce, and during the day, women and children collected weeds and buffalo chips (dung) to use to heat their evening meal. Though there was very little formal schooling, children learned a great deal — from how to care for animals to the names of flowers.
Women and teenage girls worked extremely hard. In addition to cooking and caring for the younger children, they also pitched tents, built fires, drove oxen, and assumed other traditionally male duties. Some of them were pregnant during the journey, which made life even more difficult. There was never a good time to go into labor on the Oregon Trail! Women were almost always the first ones to get up in the morning to make fires and prepare breakfast, and the last people to go to sleep at night.
When the California Gold Rush hit in 1849, traffic along the first half of the Oregon Trail increased dramatically, with hundreds of thousands of people going west to seek their fortunes. By the mid-1850s, the Oregon Trail had become much safer. Ferries and bridges were common, and many trading posts were established along the way. Telegraph poles dotted the road, and some people even traveled in the relative luxury of stagecoaches and bought lodging in small inns at night. Over the years, the grueling six-month ordeal became a much safer three-month trip along smooth, well-populated roads.
Almost five hundred thousand people used the Oregon Trail between 1836 and 1870, heading to Oregon, California, and
Utah. With the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869, the use of the trail was reduced to a trickle. But for many years, it was the main gateway to the West, and helped form the United States as it exists today.
Covered wagons were also called prairie schooners. The canvas tops were rubbed with oil to make them waterproof. Smaller front wheels helped maneuver around sharp turns, and axle grease made the wheels turn more smoothly. It took three to six yoke of oxen or four to six mules to pull each wagon.
The wagons could be as small as ten feet long and four feet wide and had to hold an entire family’s food, clothing, medicines, and furniture. There were hooks inside for hanging bonnets, spoons, dolls, guns, jackets, and milk cans.
Wagons camped in circles for security, with the front of one wagon facing the back of another. Children often played inside the circle before bedtime.
A pioneer family after a long, exhausting day of travel. Women and girls wore skirts or dresses made from gingham and calico, sturdy shoes, and bonnets to protect them from the hot sun. Men and boys wore cotton shirts, pants made from cotton or buckskin, and wide-brimmed hats.
Women and teenage girls worked hard and became very strong physically. Here a woman gathers dried “buffalo chips,” or droppings, in order to build a fire on the treeless plains. Without any of the conveniences of home, the travelers learned to be resourceful and self-sufficient.
The title page from Lansford W. Hastings’s famous booklet The Emigrants’ Guide, to Oregon and California. The Donner Party followed a shortcut known as the “Hastings Cutoff,” described in the book.
The pioneers were rewarded with breathtaking scenery. But it was often so difficult to travel over the steep mountain passes that people had to discard heavier belongings, or cut their wagons down to a cart with just two wheels.
River crossings were often frightening and dangerous.
This wagon had to be abandoned when it got stuck in quicksand. Its canvas has been stripped away by strong winds.
Pioneers left messages for travelers who followed behind. Sometimes they would tell them where fresh water could be found or alert them to certain dangers. This buffalo skull has a message cut into it by Brigham Young, the leader of the Mormon expedition. It says, “Pioneers camped here June 3 1847 making 15 miles today All well Brigham Young.”
Water hemlock roots are so poisonous, a person could die from eating just one bite. Pioneers had to familiarize themselves with inedible plants or risk death.
Many travelers died from cholera and typhoid epidemics, as well as from accidents and natural disasters. Trailside graveyards were not uncommon sights along the way west.
A Lakota Sioux woman. Despite the emigrants’ fears about Indians, the various tribes they met were mainly interested in trading. The real wars with the Indians did not begin until the 1850s and 1860s when the emigrants began to settle permanently on Indian land.
In the 1840s, thousands of buffalo roamed the plains. The pioneers relied on buffalo meat. They learned from the Indians how to jerk (dry) the meat so it would keep for long periods of time. They attached strips to their wagons and let them dry in the hot prairie sun.
This recipe is adapted from The First American Cookbook.
Words and music to “Skip to My Lou.” This celebrated folk song was a favorite among pioneer teenagers. The word “lou” meant “sweetheart.”
Modern map of the United States, showing the Oregon Trail route.
This detail of the Oregon Trail indicates important landmarks and stopping points mentioned in the diary.
Kristiana Gregory wrote Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie a few months after she and her husband and their two young sons moved from California to Colorado. “The journey itself wasn’t as dangerous as Hattie Campbell’s,” she says. “And it took just two days instead of eight months. But like Hattie, we left behind family and lifelong friends to settle in a town we’d only seen on a map, a town where we didn’t know a soul.
“I identified with the pioneers’ excitement and hopes, with their dream of starting a new life in a new land. I understand the despair they must have felt to leave behind loved ones, and even though there are now telephones, fax machines, and airplanes, it is still lonely when your friends are far away. But Hattie was able to quickly begin new friendships, as we have.”
Kristiana Gregory has written more than thirty books for young readers, many in Scholastic’s Dear America and Royal Diaries series, including The Winter of Red Snow and Cannons at Dawn, both Revolutionary War diaries of Abigail Jane Stewart; and Cleopatra VII, Daughter of the Nile; she also created the Prairie River series and Cabin Creek Mysteries series for Scholastic. Her first novel, Jenny of the Tetons, which was published by Harcourt, won the SCBWI Golden Kite Award for fiction. The Winter of Red Snow and Cleopatra VII were both made into movies for HBO.
In her spare time, Ms. Gregory loves to swim, read, hang out with friends, and walk her golden retrievers, Poppy and Daisy. She and her husband live in Boise, Idaho. Their two sons are all grown up.
The author would like to thank Karla J. Demby, M.D., F.A.C.P., for sharing case studies on hemlock poisoning; and Anita Tanner for historical material on Brigham Young’s westward journey of 1847.
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to use the following:
Cover portrait by Tim O’Brien.
Cover background: A detail from William Henry Jackson’s Kanesville Crossing, courtesy of Scotts Bluff National Monument, Nebraska.
Wagon with parts labeled, drawing by Heather Saunders.
Interior of covered wagon, National Archives.
Wagons at Independence Rock, Wyoming, Denver Public Library, Western History Collection, William Henry Jackson, WHJ-10624, Denver, Colorado.
Pioneer family, Denver Public Library, Western History Collection, artist unknown, X-11929, Denver, Colorado.
Frontier woman with her daughter, Bettmann/Corbis, New York, New York.
Title page from The Emigrants’ Guide, to Oregon and California, Library of Congress.
Wagons traveling through the Rocky Mountains, ibid.
Crossing the Platte River, ibid.
Abandoned wagon, National Archives.
Buffalo skull, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter–Day Saints, courtesy of Museum of Church History and Art, Salt Lake City, Utah.
Hemlock, drawing by Heather Saunders.
Graveyard, Library of Congress.
She Comes Out First by Elbridge Ayer Burbank, Collection of the Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio.
Buffalo, Library of Congress.
Recipe, adapted from The First American Cookbook: A Facsimile of “American Cookery,” 1796 by Amelia Simmons, Dover Publications, Inc., Mineola, New York.
Words and music to “Skip to My Lou,” from The American Song Treasury by Theodore Raph, ibid.
Map by Jim McMahon.
Map by Heather Saunders.
While the events described and some of the characters in this book
may be based on actual historical events and real people,
Hattie Campbell is a fictional character, created by the author,
and her diary and its epilogue are works of fiction.
Copyright © 1997 by Kristiana Gregory
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, DEAR AMERICA, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invent
ed, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the earlier hardcover edition as follows:
Gregory, Kristiana. Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie : the Oregon Trail diary of Hattie Campbell, 1847 / by Kristiana Gregory. p. cm. — (Dear America ; 4) Summary: In her diary, thirteen-year-old Hattie chronicles her family’s arduous 1847 journey from Missouri to Oregon on the Oregon Trail. ISBN 0-590-22651-7 (alk. paper) 1. Oregon Trail — Juvenile fiction. [1. Oregon Trail — Fiction. 2. Overland journeys to the Pacific — Fiction. 3. Frontier and pioneer life — West (U.S.) — Fiction. 4. Diaries — Fiction.] I. Title. II. Series. PZ7.G8619Pr 1997 [Fic]—dc20 96-25671
e-ISBN 978-0-545-53001-9
The display type was set in Horley Old Style.
Cover design by Elizabeth B. Parisi
This edition first printing, April 2012
Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie Page 10