James Sherrill - Across the Missouri - May 1852

 "It required a great deal of manual labor to propel one of the ferry boats.The one that ferried thousands of emigrants across the river at Kanesville was a scow which was pulled [along] a rope made fast on each side of the river." "Where the water was shallow, they used spike poles, and where it was deep they used oars. Two wagons were all that could be ferried at one time....hundreds of wagons waiting and hundreds coming every day." (Mary Ann Boatman on her crossing the Missouri in 1852, in "Surviving the Oregon Trail 1852", Weldon Willis Rau, copyright 2001.)

Even with three ferries running wagons across the Missouri at Kanesville (later known as Council Bluffs), it took all day for their wagon train of 200 wagons - plus all the livestock - to cross to the west bank of the Missouri River. Although it was dangerous, men would swim their herds of cattle across the river, both to save time and money. There was no  question about the smaller animals -- pigs, sheep, goats, etc. had to be loaded onto the ferries.

Mary Ann and James, and the whole family group, spent Friday, Saturday and Monday in final preparations before they could cross the Missouri River. A month's worth of their stores, used up in crossing Iowa, was replenished at the general stores that stocked everything the emigrants could want. Sunday as usual was given to rest and worship. They were all up before the dawn on Tuesday, April 18th, lining their wagons up on the bank of the Missouri for their perilous trip over in the scow. Suddenly the air was rent by the shrill whistle of a steamboat -- the El Paso had arrived.

The steamboat had come up the Missouri and was offering tickets across for $10 per wagon, four yoke of cattle included. How paltry their $4 tickets to cross on the old scows looked now, and they would have to swim their cattle across, at great risk. The rush for steamer tickets was great, but they were already in the line for their scheduled scow. The next day, May 19th, they were in camp down the road when they heard another steam boat whistle, announcing the arrival of the Robert Campbell.

Either one of the steam boats could carry over a dozen wagons with their cattle per trip, and make over a dozen trips per day, and another dozen trips at night. Emigrants coming up on them from behind were quick to inform them of the situation back in Kanesville. Within two days a thousand wagons, with their people and stock, were overtaking the Evans wagon train on the road just west of the Missouri River. According to one traveler on the west bank, "we were overtaken by this throng of a thousand wagons thrown upon the road, that gave us some trouble and much discomfort". (Mary Ann Boatman, in "Surviving the Oregon Trail 1852" by Weldon Willis Rau, Washington State University Press, 2001.)

The Evans' train started in the dark, early the next day, trying to outdistance the rolling wave of wagons behind them. By noon they made a small circle of their fourteen wagons, as all the groups in the large train were doing, and built a campfire where they could have hot coffee and dinner going. James and Mary Ann were glad to have beans, bacon, and corn bread with their coffee. Mary Ann worked with her mother Nancy and the other wives in their group, making their meal as quickly as possible. They needed to stay ahead of that humongous wave of people and oxen behind them. Such a large mess of cattle and people - ten times the size of their wagon train, would use up the firewood, muddy the water and finish off the grass. Later on in their journey, the wagon trains would achieve a regular distance between each other, but for now it was best for them to make haste.

"Courtesy of the University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin." Feydey
From The Ox Team or the Old Oregon Trail 1852-1906 by Ezra Meeker. Fourth Edition 1907

image in Public Domain

The emigrants charted their trip by The Platte River. Some traveled west on the north side of the Platte, some on the south side. Some crossed from one side to the other during the journey. The goal was to find plentiful wood for their cook fires, grass for their oxen and other livestock, and clean drinking water for humans and animals. Because the Platte River featured in their travels for a large part of the Oregon Trail, witty sayings arose to describe it. "A mile wide and an inch deep" went one aphorism. Another common description of the Platte River was “too thick to drink, but too thin to plow.” The Great Plains Trail describes the Platte in more detail.

As they journeyed west next to the Platte, James and Mary Ann shared in the common worries of the wagon train company. Would hostile Indians appear and attack? But time revealed that all Indians wanted was to get food or tobacco (although they were not above stealing an unguarded horse or ox).

The real terror of the Oregon Trail revealed itself only gradually, in the increasing number of graves they saw by the side of the trail. They soon learned the name of the dread killer of so many emigrants: cholera! It attacked men, women and children equally. One could be healthy in the morning and dead by noon. There were many ways to die on the road to Oregon: drowning, rattlesnake bite, a stampede, pneumonia from exposure to cold and storms, gunshot accidents, and more. But by far the greatest killer was cholera, which carried off over one out every ten emigrants on the Oregon Trail.

Mary Ann expressed her feelings to James one evening: "If I had realized what dangers would accompany us on this trip, I would never have wanted to come. But I'm glad I didn't know, because I wouldn't want to miss it, either." So the adventurers journeyed on, brave sometimes in spite of themselves, and Oregon Territory grew ever closer.