It is the middle of winter, but they are leaving for Oregon in May, as soon as the snow is no longer on the ground. The supplies of food for the travelers, the supply of seed for when they arrive and plow, plenty of bedding, essential cook pots: the things they have to have versus the things they want to bring -- books, and heirloom furniture, the whole kitchen furnishings - but even if it would all fit, the oxen would die pulling such a heavy load. Their clothes and their shoes will wear out on this trip: 2,170 miles, mostly on foot, because the oxen had to be able to pull the wagons all the way.
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| From: The Ox Team - or - The Old Oregon Trail by Ezra Meeker, published 1906. page 178. Recommending this book by Ezra Meeker |
They are all so eager to get started, and they are all working furiously to have everything done in time. If they weren't turning over their farms to a grown son - or a daughter who married a farmer - they were selling them, and it had to be in time, but also at the last minute. They wouldn't miss this difficult Iowa farmland - hilly, with marshy ground, full of fog and miasmas. No where else had they seen so much illness and even death. They couldn't wait to leave! But how hard it was going to be, to leave behind loved ones who would not, or even could not, make the epic journey.
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| On the Prairie from Ezra Meeker's book: The Ox Team - or - The Old Oregon Trail Publishing date: 1906. Page 88 |
Could Constant bring his precious fiddle? There would be room for Caroline's flute, but the family piano would have to stay behind. And what about the chickens, the milk cows, the sheep and pigs and cattle and horses? They would be needed at the other end of the Oregon Trail, but who was going to herd them along that long, long, trail?
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