More Rivers to Cross, More Miles to Walk

Ruts worn into the Oregon Trail, Photo by O.N. Eddins,
used by special permission

It seems some days as if we have been traveling forever, and that all there is in life is our little world of canvas and wood, pulled by tired oxen over ruts worn deep by other travelers in previous years. Our father planned well, and we haven't run out of food like some at this point, but we are all weary, so weary. My mother was the heart and center of our family, always ready with a smile, a kind word of encouragement. How I miss her already. So do we all.

I must not give way to discouragement -- baby Mary Jane is all my responsibility now that Ma is gone. It feels strange to be a mother when I am yet barely a wife. When people ask 'how long have you been married' and find out the wedding was only this May, and here we have a bouncing baby one year old, they give the strangest looks. I suppose I will be explaining she is my niece, and my sister died, for the rest of our lives, but that explanation does not define our relationship. She is now my daughter, and James and I love her dearly already.

Through the Blues to more river crossings

Attribution: wyoshpo (Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office) Public Domain

We were in Oregon Territory, the last part of our journey. August was passing quickly, and we had yet to claim our land, build a snug cabin, and chop enough firewood for the winter. Here was the Umatilla - another river to cross! Descending the last hill into the river valley we could see way ahead, two wagon trains larger than ours circled in camps near the river where they were watering their stock. Some days I feel as if the whole world has packed up and gone to Oregon! There are stretches of the trail where hardly any distance lies between one wagon train and the next.

Indians rode into our Camp this Morning!

 This work has been released into the public domain by its author, Pearson Scott Foresman.  

The oxen were hitched to our wagon and ready to go, when the Indians rode into our camp. After all the fearful stories we heard before leaving Iowa, it was a  relief to see they just wanted to trade. We got plenty of fine salmon, and they got some fine clothing. The Indians were good looking people, Cayuse and Nez Peirce. This Grande Ronde Valley belonged to them. We had to keep going to reach our place on the Willamette River before winter, or we would have stayed to get to know them.

On, and on and on, the trail went....

 Mary Ann knew she couldn't bear another day. Her mother was with them on the Oregon Trail, but she wasn't - it was only her body back there in her wagon. It wasn't possible to continue on the trail. The weather was hot, it had been a week since her mother died, and - Oh! it was unthinkable, what they would have to do.

Phadke09, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Their oxen and horses were beginning to fail, they saw more and more bodies of horses and oxen by the side of trail, along with grave markers of travelers. Pushing their oxen as much as they dared, it had taken five days to go the seventy-seven miles from the Powder River to their camp tonight at Grand Ronde. They would have to bury her mother in the Blue Mountains. In the morning, tomorrow, they would lay her earthly body to rest. It wasn't supposed to end this way, but all the tears in the world wouldn't change it. Nancy Ann Toone Evans' grave would be at Grande Ronde in the Blue Mountains, Oregon Territory.

Continued tomorrow - Indians!

Just when they reach Oregon Territory - Tragedy Strikes

Richard was riding ahead of the wagons - he scouted this route in 1850 and knew he could guide his family safely to their new home in the beautiful Willamette Valley. His son Edward, age twenty-two, was strong enough to drive the wagon across the river. It was up to Richard to keep the line of wagons moving, so that each wagon had room to maneuver as it gained the far bank of the river. 

 

 

Image of the Powder River is from Wikimedia commons, in the Public Domain.

 

The Powder River was at low ebb this August day, but rivers could be treacherous. This crossing looked easy, and they had made so many river crossings already. Richard's daughter Mary Ann was holding the baby again - didn't that little girl ever nap? Mary Ann said she was always curious. James was driving their wagon with Mary Ann and the baby through the Powder river, now they were safely on the west side and in Oregon Territory. The last wagon with his wife Nancy Ann was almost across.

 

Edward was doing a good job, when the oxen stepped in quick sand. It all happened so fast, and yet it was like slow motion in a dream. Or a nightmare. He couldn't get to them fast enough, and the wagon, without momentum, was turning over in the current, Nancy was in the water. How could she go under so fast? All those clothes women had to wear! Edward was yelling for his mother - he couldn't see her. Richard rode his horse into the river, to where he saw Nancy go under. Edward joined him and they fought the current, as they cast around for Nancy.

 

It was all over before they could realize it. They found her body caught on a snag, not far downstream. The men brought her back to camp, and the women laid her out tenderly, untangling her long grey hair that had come loose from its braid.

 

They wrapped her body in her favorite quilt, and James and Edward put her in the wagon. They couldn't leave her here, all alone, in the wilderness. Tomorrow they would break camp and move out on the trail. The would bring their wife and mother to their new farm, where they could visit her grave.

 

To be continued...

Today is yesterday's Tomorrow - Here is the story I promised you.

Below is the image of my great-great-grandfather's Donation Land Claim at the Bureau of Land Management. Click the link to search for your own ancestor's land grants.

James and his wife Mary Ann (Evans) Sherrill claimed, improved and farmed 320 acres of prime river bottom land in the Willamette Valley for the required four years to gain ownership. Click on the image to see a larger version.

 

 

This is what they walked and drove 2,000 miles for, this is what they endured dust, heat, and thunderstorms without shelter for. Unlike the 30,000 people who died, and thousands of others who quit and turned back, James and Mary Ann reached the end of the Oregon Trail, and fulfilled their dreams.

 

Starting the journey with their wedding, they made the Oregon Trail their honeymoon. With them in the wagon train were Mary Ann's parents, Richard and Nancy Evans, and also Mary Ann's older brother Edward Evans. Mary Ann's brother-in-law, William Holloway, was also driving a wagon, but his wife Eliza Jane, Mary Ann's sister, was not with them. Eliza Jane died after her baby was born, possibly of complications of childbirth. Mary Ann was taking care of Eliza's one year old baby, Mary Jane Holloway. She would grow up in their household until 1869, when she married. 

 

Tomorrow: disaster strikes just as they reach their goal.

Chapter Two of 29 years of genealogy research - We're Connected!

 Continued from 17 October 2017. So here is what it was like, doing genealogy research through the Internet about 1992: I would send a query to the AOL Genealogy group and then go do the dishes. About twenty minutes later, I would check on my query, and the message would be crawling across the green screen at 300 Baud (300 bits per second). I would enter my findings into PAF 1.0 on my computer.

By Lorax at English Wikipedia - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1129377

That is how I found my great-great-grandfather, James Sherrill, 1830 - 1913. Mary Davis, a kind genealogist in Denton, Texas was in the AOL genealogy group watching for queries on Sherrills. She had TWO ROOMFULS of Sherrill records.

Her first message was that it would take her awhile to sift the records, but she was sure she could place him in the proper family soon. She found a reference to James in the journal of his older sister Margaret Sherrill. I learned about his childhood on the Coosa River in Alabama, and how his parents moved the family to Iowa in 1846.

 James married Mary Ann Evans in 1852 in Pottawatomie County, Iowa, and the note on their marriage record rocked my world: it said they were heading over the Oregon Trail, planning to go to  the California gold fields. I started digging into the trail of records left by James Sherrill - marriage record, census records, land records. I discovered that somewhere along the Oregon Trail, they decided to go to Oregon and farm instead of California and dig.

I was digging still, and what turned up was better than gold. I learned the story of my Great-great-grandfather, his wife and children, and in-laws. Tomorrow I'll tell you more about my remarkable Oregon Trail ancestors - what they endured, what they overcame, what they created.

I'll see you there!

Who was on the 1852 Wagon Train?

Ann Elizabeth Sherrill, affectionately known as Annie, was born in Oregon a year after the wagon train arrived there. Her parents are next up the tree -- James Sherrill and his wife Mary Ann Evans. James' parents are Hugh Sherrill and his wife Ann Litten. They had their own adventures, but didn't go on the Oregon Trail.

Mary Ann's father is Richard Evans, and her mother is Nancy Ann Toone. They were grandparents when they started out on the Oregon Trail, with newly-wed Mary Ann (Evans) Sherrill, her husband James, and Mary Jane Holloway, the one year old baby whose mother died before the journey. Mary Ann's sister Eliza Jane Evans is Mary Jane's mother, and her aunt Mary Ann is raising her.

Richard and Nancy 's son Edward, age twenty-two, and young William Holloway, the father of the baby Mary Jane are also on the wagon train.

Tomorrow I will tell you more of their story.

NOV 5 IS WIKITREE'S ANNIVERSARY - YOU'RE INVITED.

How do genealogists party? Let me count the ways:

Static Girl. Painted walls from Lullingstone Roman Villa.,  Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC 2.0)

We'll chat about our family tree,

our latest discovery,

and how WikiTree is always FREE!

We'll celebrate with prizes and games -

If you miss out, it would be such a shame,

Without you the party just won't be the same.

REGISTER HERE for a free weekend

of classes and fun = See you there?

The end.

 

THE GAMES WE PLAY AT WIKITREE!

I'm in a down mood today because of overcast skies. What to do? I know-- I'll go play some games at WikiTree! Here is a favorite: How connected are you to these famous people? I tried it on Carl Sagan, the astronomer, and host of the popular TV show Cosmos.

Here are my results. If the picture is too small, just click on it for a larger version.

 The more the merrier at WikiTree -- come join the fun and you can play too. How many degrees are you from our presidents? or movie stars? or Mother Teresa, or Charlemagne, or ....?

DO YOU Have a Magna Carta Surety Baron in YOUR Tree?

My jaw dropped as I read the potent words on the screen, I squinted my eyes and leaned towards the screen. There it was in black and white: my ancestor, Sir Saher de Quincy, who was one of twenty-five barons standing as Surety for the Magna Carta.

Here is a link to the Gateway Ancestors List at WikiTree.  People who were early Colonial immigrants to America and who are also descendants of a Magna Carta Baron are known as Gateway Ancestors. If you have one in your family tree, you can find a path to 1215 and your honored baron ancestor.

Also at Runnymede: Sir William Marshall, 1st Earl of Pembroke, my 23x great-grandfather. Not a Magna Carta Surety Baron, Sir William was Marshall of England and stood, as he always had, with King John. Marshall's son John Marshall was one of the Magna Carta Barons.

 Do you know the fabulous story of Magna Carta, and of King John at Runnymede? You can find answers at WikiTree. 

By James William Edmund Doyle - Doyle, James William Edmund (1864) "John" in A Chronicle of England: B.C. 55 – A.D. 1485, London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts & Green, pp. p. 226 Retrieved on 12 November 2010., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12046373

 

Sarah Ann (Dannals) Ridgway's family tree https://www.wikitree.com/genealogy/Dannals-Family-Tree-14 on WikiTree (@WikiTreeOfficial).

 

  A new Connection: While I was doing research on my collateral branches which traveled the Oregon Trail in 1864 with my great-grandfather, I discovered their descendants on WikiTree. It is fun to make a connection on WikiTree -- sort of like finding just the right piece in a jig-saw puzzle.

DO YOU HAVE OREGON TRAIL PIONEER ANCESTORS?

 If you think you have ancestors who came to Oregon or Washington on the Oregon Trail, there are websites you can check to see if their names are listed. You may discover their name in the Early Oregonian Personal Profile archive. If your initial search doesn't get a hit, try using just their name and the county where they lived. I find that filling in the year slot can cause a miss.

Another great online database for finding your early Oregonian pioneers are the Donation Land Claim records, created and maintained by the Bureau of Land Management. You don't have to know the legal description of their land claim - just their name and the state where they claimed land.

Oregon is not the only state that gave away public lands to people who would farm and develop it. See if you can find your ancestors in land records in Iowa, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and other states that were once on the frontier.

When I started my search for my Oregon Trail ancestors, I had to drive to the BLM office in Portland to get answers. That was a couple of decades ago. Now I can find and print their records from my own living room.