Transcription
I was born in the spring of 1846 in Indiana. My father was a school teacher, which made us different from most families on the frontier. We were not wealthy, but we had books in our house, and I learned to read and write at a young age. My mother had come from Massachusetts, brought eastern sensibilities and education to the Indiana wilderness. She believed strongly that girls should be educated the same as boys, that a woman needed knowledge to make her way in the world. I had two younger sisters and a brother. We lived in a small town where my father taught at the local school. Life was comfortable, predictable. I thought I would marry someone from town, raise my children there, live my whole life within 20 miles of where I was born. That was what most girls did. That was what was expected.
But then I met James Crawford. James came to Indiana in 1863 when I was 17 years old. He was from Ohio, 25 years old. Had served briefly in the Union Army before being discharged due to illness. He was a restless man full of dreams about the west. He talked about Oregon, about the Willamett Valley, where land was free for the taken, where a man could build something that mattered, where the future was being made.
My father did not approve of James. He said James was a dreamer with no practical sense that he would chase opportunities across the country and never settle down long enough to build anything real. My mother was more sympathetic. She said James reminded her of her own father who had moved the family from Massachusetts to Indiana seeking opportunities. She said some men were born to wander and if I married James, I would need to accept that I married him anyway. I was 18 years old and believed that love was enough. That if James wanted to go west, then I would go west with him, that we would build our new life together in Oregon.
We married in the spring of 1864. And by autumn, we were making preparations for the journey. We spent the winter gathering supplies and saving money. James worked at a mill, took every extra shift he could get. I sewed and did laundry for other families, saved every penny. By March of 1865, we had enough. We bought a wagon, not new, but sturdy enough. We bought two oxen supplies for six months, everything the guide book said we would need.
In April of 1865, we joined a wagon train assembling in St. Joseph, Missouri. There were 38 wagons in our company, perhaps 140 people in all. The wagon master was a man named Samuel Potter, who had made the journey twice before. He was a hard man but experienced and everyone said if you wanted to reach Oregon safely, Potter was the wagon master you wanted. We left St. Joseph on April 20th, 1865. The war had just ended. Lee had surrendered at Appamatics two weeks before, and there was a feeling of new beginnings, of fresh starts. Everyone on that wagon train was running towards something or away from something. We were all dreamers in one way or another. All believing that Oregon would be better than whatever we were leaving behind.
The first weeks went well. The weather was good. The trail was clear. The oxen were strong. James and I fell into the rhythm of wagon train life. We would wake before dawn, eat a quick breakfast, hitch the oxen, and join the line of march. We walked beside the wagon most days. Riding was uncomfortable and the oxen moved slow enough that walking was easy. We covered 15 to 20 miles on good days, less when the trail was difficult or weather was poor. James was happy during those early weeks. He would talk constantly about Oregon, about the farm we would build, about the crops we would grow, about the children we would have. He had it all planned out in his mind. We would claim 160 acres under the Donation Land Act. We would build a cabin first, then a barn, then a proper house. We would plant wheat and vegetables, raise cattle and chickens. Within five years, we would be prosperous. Within 10 years, we would be comfortable. Within 20 years, we would be wealthy.
I listened to his dreams and tried to share his enthusiasm. But I was also practical in ways James was not. I noticed things he did not notice. I saw that some of the other families were better prepared than we were, had brought more supplies, had stronger wagons. I saw that some of the single men traveling with the train were rough sorts, the kind who drank too much and caused trouble. I saw that wagon master Potter had favorites, families he was friendly with and families he barely spoke to. We were in the second group.
By late May, we had crossed into what is now Nebraska. The country was beautiful. vast rolling prairie, grass as far as you could see, sky bigger than any sky I had ever imagined. But it was also hard country. The wind blew constantly. The sun was merciless. Water was scarce between rivers. The trail was rough, full of rocks and ruts that could break a wagon wheel if you were not careful. James began having difficulties. The illness that had gotten him discharged from the army came back. A weakness in his lungs, a cough that would not go away. At first, it seemed minor, just a bad chest cold. But as the days passed, it got worse. He grew weak. Could not walk all day beside the wagon. Had to ride more and more often. The cough became constant. Kept him awake at night. kept me awake as I lay beside him, listening to him struggle for breath.
I drove the wagon more and more as James became unable to do it. I learned to handle the oxen, to keep them moving, to navigate the rough trail. It was hard work, harder than any work I had done in Indiana. My hands blistered, then calloused. My face burned in the sun. My body achd constantly from the long days of walking and working. Other families in the wagon train helped us at first. The Hendersons, whose wagon was near ours in the line, would bring us food sometimes, would help with heavy work that James could not do. Mrs. Morrison, an older woman whose husband had died before the journey, and who was traveling with her adult son, would sit with James in the evenings when I needed to do chores, would brew him teas that were supposed to help with the cough. But as weeks passed and James did not improve, the help became less frequent. People began to avoid us. I understood why. They were worried about contagion, worried that whatever James had might spread to their own families. Wagon Master Potter began making comments about our slow pace, about how James's inability to work was creating problems for the company.
We reached Fort Laram in early June. The fort was a welcome site after weeks on the trail, a place with buildings and people, a place where we could rest and resupply. We camped there for three days. I hoped the rest would help James, but he only grew worse. The fort doctor examined him and said his lungs were badly damaged. said the trail was too hard for him in his condition. Said he should turn back or wait at the fort until he was stronger. But James refused to turn back. He said we had come too far, invested too much. He said Oregon was our future and he would make it there even if it killed him. That last part frightened me. But I did not argue. I was his wife. Where he went, I went. That was how marriages worked.
We left Fort Laramie with the wagon train. But things had changed. Wagon Master Potter called a meeting the evening after we left the fort. He said that some families were not keeping up, were slowing down the entire company, were putting everyone at risk by forcing the train to move too slowly. He said that if people could not keep pace, they should consider waiting at the next fort or turning back because the company could not afford to crawl across the country. Everyone knew he was talking about us. I felt the eyes of the other families on us felt their resentment. We were the problem. We were the ones holding everyone back. James tried harder after that. He pushed himself beyond what his body could bear. Tried to drive the wagon even when he could barely sit upright. Tried to walk even when every step brought on fits a coffin. I begged him to rest. But he would not listen. He said he would not be the one who failed, would not be the burden that everyone complained about.
In late June, somewhere in what is now Wyoming, James collapsed. He had been driving the wagon that morning, insisted on doing it despite being clearly unwell. Around midm morning, he simply slumped forward and fell from the wagon seat. I screamed, stopped the oxen, ran to him. He was barely conscious, burning with fever, his breathing shallow, and labored. We had to stop. Several men helped me lift James into the wagon, laid him on our bed, and wagon. Master Potter rode back to see what was happening. He looked at James, looked at me, and his expression said everything. Then he called another meeting.
That evening, Potter gathered the company and said we had a serious problem. He said James Crawford was gravely ill, unlikely to recover on the trail, and was slowing the entire wagon train dangerously. He said we were already behind schedule, that if we did not reach the mountains before the snows came, we could all die like the Donner party had. He said hard decisions had to be made for the good of the company. He said the company would continue at its necessary pace. The Crawford wagon could not keep up. Therefore, the Crawford wagon would need to stay behind. I stood there in shock as he said this. Stay behind where? We were in the middle of nowhere, hundreds of miles from the nearest fort with a sick husband and no way to survive alone. I spoke up then. I said we would keep pace. Said I would drive the wagon myself. Said James just needed a few days to recover. Potter shook his head. He said the decision was made. He said we could not keep up and the company could not wait for us. He said there would be other wagon trains coming behind us. Perhaps in a week, perhaps in two weeks. He said we should wait for them, join them when James was stronger.
Other people spoke up then. Henderson said this was too harsh, that we should at least take the Crawfords to the next fort. Mrs. Morrison said we should stay together. That was what Christian people did. But others disagreed. A man named Silas Burke said Potter was right. that one family could not endanger the whole company. A woman named Mrs. Fletcher said her children's lives were more important than helping strangers, that she had not come this far to die in the mountains because we were moving too slow. Potter called for a vote. Of the 37 remaining wagons, one family had turned back at Fort Laram. 21 voted to leave us behind. 16 voted to keep us with the company. The majority had spoken.
The next morning, they left us. Potter gave us some extra provisions, flour, bacon, coffee. He said it was all he could spare. Henderson gave us his spare rifle and some ammunition. Mrs. Morrison cried and gave me her own shawl. But then they all formed up their wagons and moved west and we watched them disappear over the horizon. We were alone. I have thought about that moment every day for 56 years. The sound of wagon wheels rolling away. The calls of the teamsters. The sight of that long line of white topped wagons growing smaller and smaller until they were gone. the absolute silence that followed.
James was too ill to understand what had happened. He lay in the wagon, burning with fever, sometimes conscious, sometimes not. I sat beside the wagon and tried to think what to do. We were camped in a broad valley with good grass and a small creek. There were hills to the west, mountains beyond them. The trail was visible, stretching east and west, rudded from thousands of wagon wheels, but there was no one on it, no one coming, no one going, just us. I thought about turning back. We had passed a small trading post maybe three days behind us. If I could drive the wagon myself, if James could survive the journey, we could reach it. But James was too sick to be moved. The jolting of the wagon would likely end him, and I was not certain I could manage the oxen and the wagon alone over rough trail. So we waited.
I made camp properly, set up our tent beside the wagon, moved James into it where he would be more comfortable. I tended to him as best I could, kept him cool when the fever raged, kept him warm when he shivered, gave him water, tried to get him to eat. Mostly he slept, sometimes muttering in delirium, sometimes lucid enough to ask what was happening. When he was lucid, I lied to him. I told him the wagon train had stopped to rest for a few days, that we would catch up soon. I did not tell him we had been abandoned. I did not tell him we were alone. I wanted to spare him that knowledge. Wanted to believe he had not failed, had not been left behind.
Days passed. I kept watch on the trail, hoping to see another wagon train coming, but the trail remained empty. I had thought there would be wagons every few days. Potter had said so, but none came. Perhaps we had arrived in a gap between trains. Perhaps the other trains had taken different routes. Perhaps they were all behind us and would not arrive for weeks. James grew worse. The fever would not break. His breathing became more labored. He could not eat, could barely drink. I knew he was dying, but I would not accept it. I prayed constantly, begged God to spare him, promised I would do anything if James would just live.
On the eighth day after the wagon train left us, James died. He died quietly in the night. Simply stopped breathing as I lay beside him. I woke in the morning and he was gone. I will not describe what I felt in that moment. There are no words for it. I will only say that I had never felt so alone in my life. I was 21 years old, alone in the wilderness with no one to help me, no one to comfort me, no one even to know that I existed.
I buried James that morning. I dug the grave myself with our camp shovel. It took me hours. The ground was hard. I was weak from days of little food and less sleep. But I dug it deep enough to keep animals away. I wrapped James in our best blanket, said what prayers I could remember, and covered him with earth. I piled stones on the grave and carved his name on a piece of wood from the wagon. James Crawford, born 1838, died July 1865. Then I sat by the grave and tried to decide what to do.
I could try to continue west alone, try to catch the wagon train that had abandoned me, but I did not know how far ahead they were. Did not know if I could manage the wagon and oxen alone. Did not know if I would survive the mountains by myself. I could turn back, try to reach the trading post we had passed. But that was three days travel at least. And I would be traveling alone toward the east when everyone else was going west. What if another wagon train came while I was traveling east? I would miss them. So I decided to wait. Surely another wagon train would come. Surely someone would find me. I just had to survive until they arrived.
I waited three more days. I stayed in camp, kept the fire going day and night so anyone traveling the trail would see the smoke. I watched the trail constantly, stared at the eastern horizon, hoping to see the white tops of wagons, strained my ears for the sound of voices or wheels or oxen. But the silence remained absolute. I had never known such quiet existed in the world. No voices, no wagons, no sounds of civilization, just wind moving through grass, the occasional cry of a bird, the sound of the creek running over stones. Those three days were the longest of my life. I was not just alone. I had been alone before in a room by myself. This was different. This was knowing that there was no one within perhaps a hundred miles in any direction. This was understanding that I could die here and no one would know. That my body could lie undiscovered for months or years. That I could simply cease to exist and the world would continue without noticing.
I tried to keep busy to avoid thinking too much. I maintained the camp, kept everything orderly the way James would have wanted. I washed my clothes in the creek, mended the tears in my dress, organized our remaining supplies. I cooked meals for myself even though I had little appetite, forcing myself to eat, because I knew I needed strength to survive. But at night, the despair would come. I would lie in the tent beside the empty space where James had slept, and the weight of my situation would crush me. I was 21 years old. My husband was dead. I'd been abandoned by people I thought were part of a community. I had no way to reach safety. I would probably die here alone. And no one would ever know what became of me. My parents in Indiana would wait for letters that would never come. They would never know how or where I died. They would never have a grave to visit.
I thought about ending it myself. I had the rifle Henderson had given us. It would be quick. I would not have to endure days or weeks of slowly starving or being found by hostile Indians or dying of thirst if the creek dried up. I could control how it ended. But something in me refused to quit. Perhaps it was stubbornness. Perhaps it was the education my mother had given me, the belief she had instilled that women were strong enough to survive anything. Perhaps it was anger at the people who had left me, a determination not to give them the satisfaction of being right about me being too weak to survive. I don't know. But I did not end it. I waited.
On the fourth day after James died, I heard something. Voices. I ran to the trail and saw riders coming from the east. Four men on horseback traveling fast. I waved and shouted. They saw me and rode over. They were scouts, they said, riding ahead of a wagon train that was a week behind us. They asked what I was doing alone. I told them my wagon train had left me. that my husband had died, that I was waiting for help. They looked at each other uncomfortable. One of them, the oldest, maybe 40 years old, said they could not stay, had to keep moving to scout the trail ahead. But he said their wagon master would decide what to do with me. They gave me a little food, then rode on. I watched them disappear west, following the trail the other wagon train had taken.
I waited another week. I lived on what little food I had left, on what the scouts had given me. I became weak, could barely do the daily chores of keeping camp. But I waited because I had no other choice. Finally, the wagon train arrived. 32 wagons traveling with military escort, a small detachment of cavalry protecting them from Indian attacks. The wagon master was a man named Captain Miller. He stopped his train when he saw me, asked what had happened. I told him. Told him about James's illness, about wagon master Potter's decision to leave us behind, about James dying, about waiting for help. Miller listened with no expression on his face. Then he called his people together and they discussed what to do with me. The discussion went on for an hour. Some families said they should take me along, that it was Christian charity. Others said they were not running a rescue operation, that I would slow them down the same way I had slowed down the previous train. Others said I was bad luck, that death followed me, that taking me along would bring misfortune to them all.
In the end, Miller said they would take me as far as Fort Bridger, which was about two weeks ahead. There I would be on my own. I could wait for another train, could find work at the fort, could turn back if I wanted, but they would not take me all the way to Oregon. I agreed. I had no choice. I could not stay in the wilderness alone. I had to go with them or die. They gave me a place in one of the wagons, a family named Peterson, who had room since their wagon was not fully loaded. Mrs. Peterson was kind to me, fed me, let me sleep in their wagon at night. But Mr. Peterson made it clear I was a burden, that they were doing me a favor, that I should be grateful and stay out of the way.
The two weeks to Fort Bridger were the longest of my life. I was surrounded by people, but I had never felt more alone. The Petersons let me ride in their wagon and sleep under their canvas at night, but they made it clear this was charity, not friendship. Mrs. Peterson was kind in a distant way. She made sure I had food, gave me tasks to keep me busy. But you never asked about James. Never asked what it had been like to be abandoned. Never treated me like a real person with real grief. Mr. Peterson was worse. He resented my presence openly. He would make comments about how much food I was eating, how much space I was taking up, how they had been doing fine before Captain Miller forced them to take me in. He never spoke to me directly. Always referred to me in third person, even when I was standing right there. She needs to understand we're doing her a favor, he would say to his wife. She needs to stay out of the way and not make trouble.
The other families avoided me entirely. When we stopped for the evening and everyone gathered for meals or conversation, they would talk around me as if I were invisible. The children were told not to play near me, as if whatever misfortune had befallen me might be contagious. When I tried to help with communal tasks, gathering firewood, helping cook, washing dishes, people would find excuses to work elsewhere, leaving me to do the work alone. I understood what I represented to them. I was a reminder of how precarious their own situations were, how quickly someone could go from being part of the community to being an outcast. I was proof that the wagon train could abandon you if you became inconvenient. None of them wanted to think too hard about that, so they chose not to see me at all. There was one exception, a young woman named Sarah Ellis, traveling with her parents and younger siblings, would sometimes sit near me in the evenings. She never said much, but her presence was a kindness. Once she brought me an extra biscuit her mother had baked. When she sat beside me at the campfire when everyone else had moved away. She was maybe 16 years old, and I think she saw in me a version of what could happen to her if things went wrong. Perhaps my presence frightened her. Perhaps it made her more careful. But at least she acknowledged I existed.
The landscape during those two weeks was beautiful. High mountain country, clear streams, pine forests, valleys filled with wild flowers. But I could not appreciate any of it. I was traveling through a country I had dreamed of seeing, but now it meant nothing to me. It was just more miles, more days, more time until I would be deposited at a fort and left to figure out what to do with the ruins of my life.
We reached Fort Bridger in mid August. Captain Miller paid me $5, said it was for my wagon and oxen, which he was keeping as payment for taking me this far. $5 for everything James and I had bought for our dreams of Oregon, for all we had sacrificed. I took the money and did not argue. What choice did I have? I spent two years at Fort Bridger. They were years of survival, not life. I worked in the fort's kitchen cooking for the soldiers and traders and travelers who passed through. It was hard work. Hours spent over hot stoves, preparing meals for dozens of people, cleaning pots and dishes until my hands were raw. I lived in a small room behind the dining hall, barely large enough for a cot and a trunk. It was cold in winter, stifling in summer, but it was shelter, and I had nowhere else to go. The fort commander paid me $8 a month plus room and board. After two years, I had saved perhaps $80. Not enough to go anywhere, not enough to start over, just enough to keep me dependent on the fort for survival. I was trapped in a kind of limbo. Not quite a prisoner, but not free either.
I watched wagon trains come and go all through those two years. Every few weeks, another company would arrive. 30 or 40 wagons, families full of hope and dreams, heading to Oregon or California. They would stop at the fort for a few days to rest and resupply. And I would see myself in them, see the young wives walking beside their wagons, see the husbands planning their futures, see the children excited about the adventure. I wanted to warn them. Wanted to tell them that the trail took more than it gave. That communities would abandon you when survival was at stake. That dreams died easily in the wilderness. But I never said anything. What good would it do? They would not believe me anyway. Everyone who came through the fort had heard stories of hardship and death on the trail. They all believed it would not happen to them, just like James and I had believed.
The traitors and soldiers at the fort treated me with a mixture of pity and contempt. I was the widow woman, the one who had been left behind, the one who had failed to reach Oregon. Some of them were kind in their way, would give me extra food sometimes, would ask how I was managing, but most saw me as a failure, as someone who had proven too weak for frontier life. And perhaps they were right. I had not reached Oregon. I had not built the life James dreamed of. By their measure, I had failed. The worst part was seeing other families deal with illness and hardship. Several times during those two years, wagon trains came through with sick members. I would watch as the healthy members of the train discussed what to do. Would see the same calculations being made that had been made about James and me. Should they slow down for this family? Should they wait? Should they leave them behind? Sometimes they stayed together. Sometimes they voted to abandon the sick ones. I watched it happen three times in two years. Watched families left at the fort with promises that another train would pick them up later. Promises that often were not kept. Watched women like me trying to figure out how to survive after being cast aside. Some found work. Some remarried quickly out of desperation. Some simply gave up. I heard of two women who walked out into the wilderness and did not come back.
I understood the impulse. I grew hard during those two years. The hopeful girl from Indiana died at Fort Bridger and was replaced by someone more practical, more guarded, less trusting. I learned to accept help without expecting friendship. I learned to work without expecting gratitude. I learned to survive without expecting kindness. These were useful lessons for frontier life. But they came at the cost of something essential in my character that I have never gotten back.
In 1867, a man named William Garrett came through the fort. He was a widowerower, 45 years old, traveling to California to work in the silver mines. He needed someone to cook and keep house for him. He offered me marriage, not for love, but for practical reasons. He needed a wife. I needed protection and a way off the frontier. I married him at the fort. We traveled to Nevada and I spent the next 31 years as William Garrett's wife. He was not unkind, but he was not James. We had no children. He worked the mines, made enough to live on, but never struck it rich. He died in 1898. I've lived alone since then in a small house in Carson City, doing sewing work to support myself.
I am 75 years old now. I've lived a long life, longer than James, longer than many of those who traveled the Oregon Trail. But I have never forgotten being abandoned by that wagon train in July of 1865. I've thought about it every day for 56 years. Thought about the vote, about the faces of the people who voted to leave me behind. Thought about wagon master potter who made the decision. Thought about the families who argued for keeping me, who were outvoted. Thought about watching those wagons disappear over the horizon, about the silence that followed.
I understand why they did it. They were scared. They believed that keeping us would endanger everyone. that my husband's illness would slow them fatally. They believe they were making a hard choice for the greater good. I understand all of that. But understanding does not heal the wound. Understanding does not make me feel less abandoned. understanding does not change the fact that more than 20 families looked at a young woman with a dying husband and decided to leave her alone in the wilderness. I have wondered many times what happened to that wagon train. Did they reach Oregon? Did they beat the snows? Did leaving us behind save them? Or did they encounter delays anyway and discover they had abandoned us for nothing? I've looked in newspapers over the years, tried to find names I recognized, but I have never found them. They disappeared into Oregon, into history, and I have no idea what became of them. I have wondered if any of them felt guilt, if any of them thought about us after they left, wondered what happened, regretted their vote. I like to think some of them did. I like to think Mrs. Morrison and Henderson and the others who voted to keep us sometimes thought about the young woman they left behind. But probably not. Probably they were too busy with their own lives, their own struggles, their own attempts to survive and build farms in Oregon. Probably we became just a story they told sometimes about the difficult decision they had to make on the trail. about the hard choices that frontier life required. Probably they justified it to themselves, believed they had done the right thing, slept soundly without guilt.
This is what I want people to know about the Oregon Trail, about the wagon trains, about the journey west. It was not a grand adventure. It was not romantic. It was desperate people making desperate choices. And some of those choices destroyed lives. James and I started that journey with hope and dreams. We believed we would reach Oregon together, would build our farm, would raise our children, would grow old together, watching the sun set over the Willilamett Valley. Instead, James died alone in the wilderness, far from home, having failed in the one thing he most wanted to do. And I survived only to spend my life wondering what might have been, what we might have built if we had just stayed in Indiana, if James had never dreamed of Oregon.
I am an old woman now, near the end of my life. Soon I will close my eyes for the last time. And when I do, I wonder if James will be there waiting for me. I wonder if he knows what happened after he died. If he knows I was abandoned, if he knows I had to marry another man just to survive, I wonder what he would say to me, whether he would be proud I survived or disappointed I gave up on Oregon. I also wonder if I will see wagon master Potter and the others who voted to leave me. If I do, I do not know what I will say to them. I do not know if I still carry anger or if 56 years has finally worn it away to something softer. Not forgiveness, but maybe acceptance. Maybe just weariness.
What I do know is this. Being abandoned by that wagon train changed me forever. It took the hopeful girl from Indiana who believed in dreams and possibilities and it left behind someone harder, more careful, less trusting. It taught me that people will save themselves, even if it means sacrificing you. It taught me that community only extends so far. That when survival is at stake, most people will choose their own families over strangers. These are hard lessons. I wish I had never learned them. I wish James and I had stayed in Indiana, had never heard of Oregon, had lived small, quiet lives that never involved wagon trains or wilderness or being left behind to die. But wishes changed nothing. We did go west. James did die. I was abandoned. These things happened and no amount of wishing can undo them.
This is my testimony. This is what happened to a pioneer woman born in 1846 who made the terrible mistake of marrying a dreamer, of believing that hope was enough, of trusting that people on the frontier would treat each other with kindness and mercy. I am 75 years old. I have lived 56 years longer than my first husband. I have survived when I should have died. I made a life such as it was out of the ruins of my dreams. But I have never stopped being the girl who stood beside an unmarked grave in Wyoming and watched a wagon train disappear over the horizon, leaving me utterly and completely alone. That is what the Oregon Trail took from me. Not just my husband, not just my dreams, but my belief that people would help each other when it mattered most. That belief died in July of 1865, and it has never come back. That is what haunts me still. That is what I will carry to my grave. That is the truth about wagon trains in the journey west that the books do not tell you. Sometimes people abandon you. Sometimes they vote on whether you deserve to live or die. Sometimes they choose themselves over you and you survive anyway. But you are never the same. That is my story. That is what I remember. That is what still haunts me after 56 years.