Wapello County, Iowa - Summer, 1850
"Margaret, who is that tall girl over there with the dark hair?"
"What girl, James? Oh! You must mean Mary Ann Evans. She is in my quilting circle - would you like me to introduce you?"
And that is how it began, that James Sherrill and Mary Evans got engaged to be married. They were both children of pioneer farmers, who had grown up on the frontier. They started talking with each other at that first meeting after church one Sunday, and afterwards were usually found together, in church, at socials, riding in his borrowed buggy -- it was clear they were headed for the altar.
Wapello County, Iowa - Autumn, 1851
Richard Evans considered the young man's request, that he be included in the Evans' wagon train when they left Wapello County in the spring next year. James Sherrill continued, "Yes sir, I'll be twenty-two this autumn, and I will have my own wagon and supplies. Yes, I've raised and trained my own oxen. My best team has been together for four years, and my new team has been in training two years. I'll have a team and spare team, and we won't make delays for you."
"You can come with our group if I'm satisfied that you have the necessary gear and supplies ready when I look at it come March. I'll give you a written list - we can discuss the details later. We have about eight wagons that are family, and we'll have to join up with a larger wagon train when we reach Kanesville on the Missouri River. Come to dinner after church Sunday and we'll talk some more," advised Richard, as he climbed into his farm wagon.
No one with any sense set out on the Oregon Trail without getting everything ready. Get the rifles ready - check. Get the lead for bullets ready - check. Get the iron for shoeing the oxen and horses ready - check, check, check, all the way down a very long list of clothes, food, tools, and stuff that would go in the wagon. Wagon - check. Reinforced, covered with hoops, covered with cloth and then covered with water-proof cloth, Loaded with water barrel, hung with lanterns, anything forgotten they would have to do without -- no supply stores for two thousand miles! It was all anyone thought about or talked about for the entire year before they left. No such thing as being over-prepared.
The next spring, 10 April 1852...
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James threw her a smile, and touched the brim of hat as he walked by the head of his lead ox, guiding them into the roadway behind her brother Edward's wagon. They all had agreed on their assigned places as they left town, and each night at camp they would agree on their rotating assignments, so that no one wagon would have to 'eat dust' all the way to Oregon -- they would take turns at taking up the rear of the wagon train.
Mary Ann would have to walk most of the way, as would her fifty-four year old mother, her six year old cousin Mary Kyniston, and in fact, about everyone unless they were infants or sick. For just this day, the women and children would ride, while the men guided the oxen, walking by them as usual. The brightly painted wagons made them look like a circus as they passed down the road. At every farm, the dogs came out to bark at them, and the farmers and farm wives paused from their labor to shout 'good journey' to them.
They wouldn't always have a blue sky, but it was encouraging weather to begin their journey. It would take a month just to get across Iowa to Kanesville, and until they left Kanesville and crossed the Missouri River, they could not even say they had started on the Oregon Trail. Iowa was a state of the United States, since 1846. Across the river -- wilderness, the Great Plains, known for one thing -- emptiness. Once across the river they were leaving civilization for the six months it would take them to get to Oregon Territory.
Tomorrow: a wagon train wedding, section two of Oregon Trail Honeymoon
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