In 1996 I walked the Oregon Trail, just over 2100 miles in 3 1/2 months. Of course, my journey was infinitely easier than those who did it originally. The trail is along (mostly) well paved roads. Even so, it was a difficult trek. I think the most important quality needed is the ability to simply walk. In the rain, the wind, through sudden hail storms, and under the unrelenting sun. If someone can do that for 10 or so hours a day for months on end, well, they too can walk the Oregon Trail. And should! I was able to see our great country in an amazingly intimate way. Along with a beautiful landscape, I met a land briming with wonderful people.
My great great grandmother walked along side a wagon most of the way from Missouri to Oregon, oh by the way she was pregnant!!!! They settled in Albany, Oregon in the Willamette valley. I’m very proud of this story.
All of my ancestors were part of this great migration between 1856 and 1869, most of them coming to Utah in handcarts with some suffering horrible weather and horrendous difficulties to get here. I have always been in awe of their fortitude, strength and courage.
Yup, same. The one Dude that made it to Utah, wrote "a rich man is still rich & a poor man is still poor." Disallusioned some of the relatives split to Mexico
This clip is very well put together, with care and facts. It is sincerely appreciated and enjoyed by me. Thank you for your care and work. Genuinely appreciated.....
I think I would have been a pioneer. I can't imagine life without unknowns and mysterious places. I've driven alone across the country several times and always had an adventure.
My great grandparents lived in Ky...had 13 kids. They walked (stuff & chickens & babies in wagon - the rest walked (and herded ox, cows, 2pigs) all the way to SW Missouri. I have a board that was saved from the "new" Mo cabin...some of which is still standing (delapidatedly)...
My great grandfather (born in 1915) made two round trips to California before he turned 15 years old via covered wagon. He was 92 when he died, and I was 5 so I have some faint memories of him. He seemed like a hella cool dude, and it’s wild to think that this lifestyle wasn’t actually all that long ago.
The big trail John Wayne 1930. They did a very good job at making you feel the pain of the trail. I live by the 3 island crossing. The ferry is still by the river. Crossing is a park with a museum and rebuilt wagons. 570 mile from 3 island to the Pacific coast. 3 months left. Took me 3 months from grants pass Oregon to Glenn's ferry Idaho on a pack string of horses.
Loved playing the Oregon Trail game on the computer, made me wish I traveled it at that time. But now I'm older and realize that it was not as fun as the game made it seem. This was made clear to me when I was one time when I was flying from Salt Lake City to Washington, DC and looking out the window at the vast land and being amazed as to how much land the pioneers had to cross in the days before cars and planes.
I learned to fly in Kansas, in the spring time the remaining portions of the trail that weren’t paved over were visible.The wagons carried salted meat in barrels mounted on the outside of the wagon. The salt fell on the ground and slowed growth of green plants there by marking the trail. Fifty years later that is still the case.
That’s really cool!! My father and I built a steen sky bolt biplane and a few times we went to Montana and Wyoming from Washington we saw some of the trails. It was very neat. Crazy to think how people back then took care of themselves and how determined they were, not quite the same in most cases today
@Jim Marcum I knew a man growing up here in Pensacola whose name was Jim Marcum. He was a really great guy. I l was fortunate to know Pap Snell. He died when I was 13. He was German and about 5 ft nothing. He built a village in southern Ohio named Jonesboro. The homes were built to his height, so I had to duck to go in the doorway. When we ate dinner, I could not sit with my back to the wall or I would hit my head on the ceiling. His blacksmith shop though was huge. Fond memories of Ohio as a kid. I was born & raised here in Florida, but I always looked forward to visiting my relatives there every August for two weeks.
My great, great grandparents on both sides came west on the Oregon Trail, and settled in the fertile Willamette Valley to farm. I grew up on my grandparents farm, 60 acres on the Willamette River northwest of Keizer. It was some of the best soil in the valley because of regular flooding and ensuing deposits of sand and mud.
the 1950's TV show Wagon Train was a fairly realistic portrayal of the wagon trains and the lives of the people on the Oregon Trail. It's still a good show to watch in the reruns today, excellent script writing, acting, photography. I've always admired Ward Bond as Major Adams and his being a first rate trail boss and leader. Charlie the cook, he's such a fun loveable character
We have a letter written by my husband's great grandparents when they traveled by wagon trail their letter says their were no Indian troubles, sickness in I think Colorado, they often gathered t I gether in later years for get togetgers. The friendship they made stayed strong through the tears.
I knew Gertrude Easterling, who was 4 years old when her family came into Oregon by the southern branch of the Oregon Trail. She was the last person who came into Oregon by that trail, in 1900. She remembered her father's delight when they finally saw Pilot Rock, which was the last checkpoint and the last climb they had to do prior to entering the Rogue River Valley, which was their objective. Her father tied her to the tailgate of their Conestoga, for her safety, as they climbed the foothills of Mt Ashland. They sang the song, "There'll be apples on each branch in Oregon, There'll be plenty of sun and rain..." I met her when she was in her 70s, and like a lot of her generation she had become a schoolteacher.
That must have been a fantastic visit with her. How interesting. I imagine she had an endless supply of stories to tell. What a memory to have of a visit with such an interesting person
I love hearing tales about the Oregon Trail. I’ve never forgotten watching a documentary in the late 90s about the I think the 1845 lost wagon train and I was hooked from then. Totally fascinating and profound to think of the hardships they had to endure for a better life.
My grandmother Lillie Barnes, her 2 older brothers, her father Thomas Barnes and her mother Lavada Barnes traveled all the way to Oregon in 1895 when she was 7 years old. They lived there for only 6 months.. Just long enough to build a cabin.. There were so many pioneers that were murdered around their homestead that they decided not to stay.. They traveled back to NC by train by the time she was 8.. My father told me this story that was told to him by his mother, Lillie.. I wish I had known this before my grandmother died.. I would have loved to heard it directly from her..
It's interesting that -- next to illness -- possibly the greatest risk on the trail was the armed white male. The Barnes family went back to NC because of the "many pioneers that were murdered around their homestead." And the beginning part of the video indicates that the initial attitude of the Indians was open minded and even positive in hopes of producing an equitable trading relationship. That changed when they recognized just how "equitable" this arrangement was going to be. No wonder later representations of that era veered so far into the wildly fantastic. The truth was just a little too ... true.
Many decades ago I rode numerous times in unsprung wagons of the typed described here. The misery remains indelibly etched and fresh in my mind. The jolting occurred with constant violence that can not be exaggerated. Eyeballs jarred in their sockets, teeth seemed likely to shake loose from the jaw, and every minor surface imperfection imposed a surprising assault on every bone and tissue, particularly those of the back, neck, and backside. Larger ruts and rocks caused sheer dread. Walking was far preferable. Pity those too injured or ill to walk, condemned to endure the torture of riding in the wagon.
Yes I've heard the Conestogas where not used much except for hauling . Twas different hand carts etc that they used. I'm sure the bigger wagons were slept in at night time though.
My father was born in a farmhouse next to Oak Grove Station near Oak, Nebraska. His father farmed. He told me how he and his brothers( in 1930's/ early 40's) would find oxen shoes, arrowheads and all sorts of other paraphernalia related to trail life. At that time they didn't think much of it and never kept any of the items. Every year of elementary school we would cover Oregon trail a bit. It always aggravated me to no end that they never kept any artifacts - still does! 😂
There's an off short of the wagon trail thru northern comanche County Texas. There are at least 2 graves of very young children right beside the trail and finally a historical marker. I can't go past without stopping and saying a prayer those poor little girls. One marker said it took 3 days for the dad to be able to get his wife to leave.
I visited some museum about the history of wagon trains in Independence, Mo. two years ago while visiting my cousin from Kansas City, Mo. Very entertaining. We also sometimes go to this pub in KC called Kelly's. My cousin once told me that it is the oldest building in the city and back in the day, the wagons would roll by. Next time I visit, I hope we can drive out and see the prairies in Kansas. Love history.
Being tough was necessary to survive. I met and lived with some their descendants 12 years ago when I was recuperating from major surgery, and they haven't changed much...except they watch TV and play the lottery!!
And look now... our govt. shut most of the country down... printing money and handing it out with helicopters. But the NFL and NBA is still in business... bread and circuses.
My mother had a teacher who would say, “Landsakes children! Don’t you remember the pioneers?” Then she would launch into a memory of seeing the last ones going down The Pike Road in the valley. The teacher was 6 when she observed this. Amazing to think that our history so short.
@@darrellmortensen9805 Pity that. It can be good for readers who struggle or high school kids who want to take driver’s ed the easy way. The view was of the Shenandoah Valley. My mother shared stories about her very old teacher. She was probably 80 and worked so she could eat. One day a classmate decided to play a prank on the teacher. So he put a bloody hog head on her blotter. They all awaited her reaction. Without skipping a beat to get the day started she picked it up by the ears and put it in the wastebasket. Not a word was said of it even as the fly problem worsened. I would share these stories with my third graders over the course of 34 years. History lives.
Thank you, as a Brit with no in depth knowledge of this period ( except that presented by western films) I found this both informative and interesting.
One of my ancestor’s letters says the bottom boards of the wagon were eleven feet long, which is how they came to have a front door six feet tall and a back door five feet tall once they built their cabin. And one ancestor was around eight years old when her family came to California. Prior to the War Between the States, also called by that branch of my family tree The War of Northern Aggression or, in one of the all time great euphemisms, what my maternal grandmother called “the recent unpleasantness” (absolutely true!), she had her personal slave nanny. On the way west she was picking up “prairie coal.”
Imagine- going just a short 100 yr time span from 1888 on the Oregon trail to 1988. What an amazing giant historical change! I always say, for people who were alive in the 1800’s to turn the of the century, the world in the latter 1900’s must have seemed like sci fi. It was for my great grandma! She was born in 1906 St Louis. She died when I was 36, in. 2006 at the age of exactly 101. She always lived in south St. Louis. I asked her over the years as things were rapidly changing (even for me!) what she thought. My grandmother from rural Michigan grew up with an out house- so my great grandma didn’t perceive modern society as soft and easy compared to her early years as my grandmother who had been born in 1927 rural Michigan. For her, yes things were absolutely amazing and life was much much easier!
@walter graham isn’t is crazy? My great grandma was exactly 101 when she died in 2006. My gran, mom and I were all first borne so I was about 36- I knew her extremely well. I asked her a lot how the world must seem, because this has been an incredible time in history.
I read once, that if a farmer from 1860 was time traveled to 1940 USA, he would not have felt too out of place, except for minor changes. Electricity did not reach either of my parents homes until after WW2. Phones may have been a little earlier. Today, my phone system is still operated by the same local family!! It is a private system that was started by the grandfather in the early 1930's. We are not part of the big telecommunication networks!! It services our valley, the SE section of our county & publishes its own phone book. Until the 1980's there were still party lines & the switchboard was in Wilma's kitchen. The kids took over & modernized to direct dial!! After WW2, tractors came in to our area. The US , especially in rural areas like ours, Upper Michigan, remained effectively 100 years behind, compared to metro areas until after WW2.
In Guernsey Wyoming, you can visably see the steel covered wagon wheel ruts that cut into the rocks on that portion of the trail! It’s super interesting, and sobering to stand in those ruts & think of the real people that were on that very trail. The great migration… that slowly took away the native peoples land..
I live right by the Butterfield stage route. We have a lot of history here. People in the very small rural area I live in found all kinds of Indian artifacts here. I love it. There is a taco shop about 30 miles away that is called the stage stop, as the stage coach used to stop in that very spot.
Our telephone exchange when I was growing up in Southern California was BUtterfield8-, so the person calling you dialed the first 2 numbers as BU -then the number. It was named for the stage line.
My great great grandparents came on the trail and settled in the Bear Lake Valley in SE Idaho after cutting off the Trail and entering the Salt Lake Valley.
😊oh my goodness, I remember playing this on an Apple computer. I would LOVE it when I was hunting and bagged deer... brought back some good times, thank you!🎉❤
The South African trekkers had suspension. They had a light weight version for fast relocation and the heavy , big ones for large loads. Our ancestors were incredible
I feel a great connection to the Oregon trail, My great Grandfather knew nothing about it, here I am years later and I too know nothing about it. We often used to sit and chat about the stuff we know nothing about...Oh the memories.
I had read the Rinker Buck book in the Oregon Trail. I plotted his travel to replicate the Trail on an atlas then decided to replicate his travels in my truck. Drove to St. Joseph, Missouri, and started west following mainly roads that were paved over the original trails and side roads where the original trails became private farm lands. Fascinating trip. While the original pioneers would like to make 20 miles a day, I was going 70 mph in air conditioned comfort. But I saw some if thr endless plains in Kansas and Nebraska and marveled star tenacity and toughness of these settlers crossing with all their worldly possessions in their wagon. In Caspar, Wyoming, is a Western History Museim with full size dioramas and replicas if thr hand wagons used by thr Mormons crossing on thr Mormon Trail. Thry used hand carts as they couldn't afford thr Prairie Schooners. Imagine pulling and pushing these carts across the wildlands and deserts on their way to Salt Lake City. Drove to Chimney Rock, Nebraska, Independence Rock in Wyoming, and wondered how many people had crossed these landmarks. Truly an eye opening way to appreciate the early settlers' grit and determination.
My ancestors on my mother's side came to Western Kansas from Pennsylvania in the 1850's, and settled near Cimarron and Dodge City, KS. My great-grandmother told me her grandmother delivered twins on the trail. There was a mid-wife in the group so she had some help in delivering her 6lb twins. I have twins myself, so I know how much work that entails. The hardships endured on the trail paled in comparison to the 1918 Pandemic and the 1930's Dust Bowl. Some of them moved to Eastern Kansas for better farmland and pastures to raise Black Angus cattle.
He keeps mentioning Rinker Buck. In 2012, Rinker Buck and his brother built a wagon and then followed the Oregon Trail. He wrote a book about the experience: The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey. Good read!
Excellent video and beautiful photography!!! Well done! I still enjoy thinking back on how to an older guy like myself it sometimes seems is really wasn't all that many years ago and to think about people like Laura Ingalls Wilder, who came west in a wagon in the 1870's, she lived to be 90 and passed away in 1957. In time to witness the transition from covered wagons to Jet Airliners and the start of the space race with Sputnik being launched in 1957 too! We've come a long way in a relatively short time when looking back on the huge scope of technological changes in less than 100 years and it's amazing! If it was left up to me, I'd still be chasing lightning storms anytime I needed heat or wanted to cook a steak!
@@redrock3109 Amen! Take a kids (20 something) smart phone away and drop them off in the middle of nowhere, even with some basic survival gear and a small rifle to hunt food with and see how long they last. Maybe the rifles a bad idea they may hurt themselves or someone else.
Thank you for sharing history to a lot of people that are uneducated about history my best subject when I was in school was history a+ all through my school years rest of my grades were really bad because I was interested in the history of the pioneer settlers and even Jesse James Billy the kid Wyatt Earp and doc Holliday we live up in the Appalachian mountains of Perry county Kentucky there's unmarked Graves all up in these hills that we know nothing about they probably date back during the 1700s of course my ancestors are up here on these cold mountains also. It's a shame less people in today's era can give a hoot about our history thank you so much for sharing your videos God bless you and your family and happy holidays
@William Brown Thank you William, what a lovely message to wake up to. Also waking up to the coldest morning of winter so far, zero degrees Fahrenheit. I have traveled through some parts of the Appalachians, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia has a part that goes way far north bordering North parts of Ohio and Pennsylvania! Love to study History and Geography too. You stay safe and warm as well!
Greetings from the Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania, born and raised and have some recently moved west to the Rockies. Can't keep mountain folk away from the mountains. Have a good year.
@Lost In Transit Greetings to you from Canada as well. Forgot to mention to William that I also went through the Pennsylvania mountains traveling from Buffalo en route to South Carolina!
It was not the settlers but the buffalo hunters who caused the Native Americans to become hostile, because the hunters almost exterminated the bison for their skins and left the meat to rot! The Sioux wars that culminated in the destruction of Custer's 7th cavalry was started by a stray Mormon cow and an over zealous army officer. Marie Sandoz did a wonderful job of portraying those times in her book "Crazy Horse - the strange man of the Oglalas'.
You didn't mention how they collected water across the great prairies withe few streams. They would drag wool blankets to collect dew that had formed on the grass then wring them out to recover the water.
The old Apache man that taught me to track and hunt Antelope in Colorado told me how it was done and didn't believe it until showed me. He taught me many things. He was a poor lonely old man that lived in a shack in town. When I made a trip in town I met him really for the first time at 14 yrs old. He fascinated me and I found a job for him and got him moved into the old bunk house. He fixed it up really cool. At first my hard core Dad didn't approve but I made it happen any way and mother intervened as?she was a Christian and they became good friends as she had lots of little chores for him so he had some money. I spend 5 years on the prairie with him learning what he knew and the knowledge was priceless as i later learned in life. He died in bed with a flu at 78 and he was sorely missed. Even my hard core old man cried at his funeral. That was 50 years ago and I still think of him almost every day.
A LOT of people actually got seasick from the swaying and jolting, women got pregnant and suffered horribly. If someone was sick, they occasionally had to be left behind since there was only so much time to get across country before the winter weather. There were many children and accidents were common. Often a child might wander off, and there are families that had to leave them behind if they couldn't find them. Many old diaries and letters talk about the tragedy of families missing children and having to move on without them. It happened more often that I ever realized.
When I was younger I was always awestruck at the hardships our ancestors undertook. Now as I've gotten older and started yearning to move out west I have a much more understanding perspective. I'd gladly walk that journey. Hell on top of the fact that I'm gonna hike the Appalachian trail I've regularly thought about doing a forest gump walk from coast to coast. As I've gotten older I've just realized the hollowness of modern society. I'd rather roam the country, take in the sights, and live a worthwhile life, than spend my life on hamster wheel.
Independence rock is just shy of an hour drive from Casper. In 1856 Fort Seminoe (located adjacent to Devil's Gate on the Sweetwater River, Wyo.) was abandoned due to risk of Indian unrest and lack of protection for the traders who established the trading post. A replica of Fort Seminoe stands today near the original Sun Ranch now referred to as Martin's Cove where the Edward Martin handcart company was rescued from dire straits in late 1856.
It is amazing if you are ever in Wyoming and you are able to see some of the deep ruts left by the wagons. I was on a business trip with my supervisor and, after a morning and lunch spent with each of three districts, we'd move on to our next, which left us some time for sightseeing every afternoon. We were OK with not getting to our next motel stop before 7 or 8 in the evening. Independence Rock was one stop, as well as anything else worth seeing. Very enjoyable business trip.
But he does not really represent the truth when he said that it was a widely debunked myth that Native Americans were a scourge to the wagon trains and pioneers. 50,000 men, women, and children died from attacks and often horrible deaths at their hands. There are many well-documented books on this history. Gregory Michno is known as the best living historian of the American West. His books can be found for sale online at all the usual places.
In the 1970s I had a college professor who said his father had come to California in a horse team-drawn covered wagon in the 19th Century after the Civil War. This professor was the youngest son of a very old father and that professor was close to retirement age himself.
And after a long day of walking, the children had to gather Buffalo dung for the cooking fire, the wife had to cook the evening meal, and the men had to take care of their livestock and all the harnesses and repairs of the wagons, etc. If the pioneer wagon train was unlucky enough to be passing through some area of land that was being contested between the Indians and US government, there was the additional burden of who stayed up to guard, and the worry of being set upon by Indians and tortured by them. It all sounds just exhausting!
The amount of stuff discarded was so numerous that the train could literally navigate by following the trail of items. Speaking of visible ruts, the Donner Party's trek across what is now the Salt Flats is still visible to this day...Despite Hollywood, horses were never used: horses are more susceptible to disease, and hauled less than oxen.
I have actually found a few of those spots along the Overland trail. One such wagon dumping site 2 ft deep under the soil in a cornfield, revealed a complete busted up wood stove, oxen shoes, barrel band hoops, broken china, 1 wagon hub, shell buttons and a load of busted Drake's 1860x plantation bitters bottles. Every artifact I find has a story to tell, if only they could talk.
My great uncle's drove freight wagons between Nebraska and Wyoming with horses. When they started going to Oregon they continued to use horses. They led eight wagon trains of family members out the Oregon trail all using horses. My father was on the last one as a child with his parents.
The Donner Party tragedy occurred because they split off from the main wagon party, and left the trail, in order to take an unestablished short cut. The suffering of the Donner Party pioneers…absolutely heart wrenching. I always wonder where God is at these times of crisis.
@@neldonah2833 I don't look down on the United States. I love the USA. My roots there go back to 1700 in Virginia, but God's purposes for my life required me to be born and raised in Canada, and I love Canada, too. I think it is a great privilege for people to be born in either of these nations.
@@faithworks217 I lived and worked in Canada. I believe it's much easier than the U.S. it's not overrun by, according to real stats, 28 million poor latin Americans willing to work for 7$ an hour. Canada takes care of it's people. Canadian jobs are for Canadians, free clinics, hospital etc. Just look how Canada dealt with taking care of people with checks starting a year ago. No comparison between quality of life in the 2 countries. Canada's usually in the top 5 countries when not number 1 or 2 for best places to live. Good for them.
@@faithworks217 Born Toronto 1944. My mother's family crossed into Canada by wagon train. My husband was born in Darien, CT, in 1940. Governor of Virginia, late 1700s on his mother's side. Still have his dresser & mirror from Governor's Mansion. He's dying from Parkinson's now in a nursing home here in Kingston, ON. I can't see him because of the lockdown. I sometimes wonder what God's purpose could possibly be.
My beloved Grandmother Mary two feathers ( Whiteted ) Blackfoot Indian crossed from The plains of Montana to the Appalachians in swords Creek Virginia The trip to 6.years , she told me stories that I'll cherish for the rest of my life ❤️‼️
Maybe the Indians were largely friendly. However, I have a letter in which my Great Great Grandfather says otherwise. He stated that as they came across in a covered wagon he clearly remembers the many "skirmishes" they had with Indians. This was in 1850.
they would kill you just for being there and scalp you alive when it's life or death and your just trying to pass thru someone is charging to try to kill you and your wife kids dog whatever your start shooting till the threat is over 10/4 there were no rules other than try to see the sunrise
My grandmother was born in 1890. I remember her saying that she had gone from horse and buggy to seeing a man walk on the moon. She stayed up all night watching the astronauts. She said she has seen it all and could now die.
I also thought, while taking care of my Gma who lived from 1907 to 2010, that she lived during the most interesting times. From the horse and buggy and outside bathrooms to the telephone, television, internet, etc. But her favorite invention was electric lights. So much so that she always liked to have a nightlight in her room all night.
Cool you have those memories of your grandmother. My grandfather said the same thing just about. He grew up riding in a wagon in Eastern Oregon with a ex wagon train Master for a dad and an Indian woman for his mom.
I read about those Dutch people traveling and settling in Michigan. There was a group from my hometown in the Netherlands that traveled to Michigan. They're family's are still there.
@@mbca007 .....Saw your comment about The Dutch in Michigan. The area they settled in is what we call West Michigan. It is close to the coast of Lake Michigan. The towns( cities) in that area are Grand Rapids, Holland, Zeeland, New Gronigen,Vreisland,Graafschop & more. The area is a fruit & dairy farming region. Grand Rapids was the furniture capitol of the US for years. People are still quite religious & Conservative. The phone directories are nothing but, Dutch names!!
My favorite book on this is "Ox-team Days on the Oregon Trail" by Ezra Meeker who does a great job explaining how life was back then. This guy was an adventure addict. Decades after he traveled on the Oregon Trail, he retraced his journey and described how much everything along the trail had changed.
@@track1219 It's available on Amazon in both book and Kindle forms. It was fun reading about areas just a few miles away from me before many people were here.
@@harleyhawk7959 ??? Meeker's first trip to Oregon was in 1852. He traveled from his home in Puyallup, Washington to Washington D.C. in 1906 to publicize and remember the pioneers who had traveled on the Oregon Trail.
I had a grandmother who, with her sister, was in the Oklahoma Land Rush..They were successful ..She was one of the nicest, gentlest woman I knew. But she was tough as boot, business wise, settling in Dalles ..
But the big lie in this documentary is about the myth of depredations by "Native Americans." (If you're born here, you're a native). 50,000 men, women, and children often died horrible deaths trying to get to California or Oregon at the hands of "Native Americans." There are many factual histories on the issue, available. Gregory Michno's "Circle the Wagons" is a great place to start.
@@jab3593 I never did make it to Oregon when playing that game. It's a good thing I already lived here. (Descended from those who did survive the trip by ship and wagons.)
my great grandma came to Oregon when she was three years old. I have a photo of my dad holding me, less than a year old, my grandmother, and great grandma. Since I was born in 1940 she was alive when I was alive and she came by wagon train. Still find it hard to believe.
That is a good one. But my favorite is Meeks Cutoff. It really shows what the mind numbing daily drudgery of trail life is like. At least it was like that for me when I walked it....
I am just so happy that we can now have a clear picture of what happened...I think series like 1883 helped bring the bad things to light....say dying from a snake bite because you were on the prairie and did not know a thing about snakes....relieving yourself and then running and spreading the poison even worse...and the fact that if your wagon train fought with native Americans for any reason...the arrows were dipped in some bad stuff...shall we say...this was very informative! Great to read! Write some more and I'll sure read it......
In 2020 during my Great American travels from Florida to Oregon, I saw signs about the Oregon Trail, and I stopped at many sites, including the Bozeman Trail and other famous trails along the way.... I visited Independence Rock in Wyoming, a famous pit-stop of the pioneers.
The clanging of pots and pans, on the married couples first night ,was called a chivary( shiv-a-ree). They did that to my mom and my step father in the early 1974. Very noisey
To Ela Vke, no, we traveled by UHaul towing our car! I was a young woman with a toddler and a new baby moving to Duluth MN, in 1968 away from my hometown of Takoma Park, MD. So when my husband talked of perhaps moving to Colorado, I told him I pioneered once, and that was it. We did relocate to lower Michigan 34 years ago.
I watch Wagon Train the old tv series alot and I believe the show is based on true events. I knew it was the hardest road of them all! Good Story, Signed, Greg the egg
I grew up in Oregon City just off Holcolm road & Moss Hill, which is last hillside to last wagon roundup an mouth of Clackamas River flows into Willamette River. During Oregon Trail Reenactment we just had to walk down pass couple houses to watch horse drawn wagons pass, all excited that they had finally made it to End of Oregon Trail! So they built a McDonald's there, how wonderful!
Watched a c/o build chuckwagons over a year youtube & they drove them to washington using a donkey / mule team some festivile anniversary was Epic to watch
I find it interesting that the pioneers carved graffiti on the rock and the Native Americans carved wonderful petroglyphs. Newspaper rock in Utah is covered in ancient Indian graffiti, or petroglyphs. Some of our current rattle can graffiti work is being renamed art in recent years. Ok now that I’m off my soapbox this was a great concise video of the trail especially explaining the wagon and livestock situation. An amazing number of people think via TV movies ect that horses were used to pull the wagons, you did an excellent job of explaining the problems associated with moving the household supplies.
Very strong people to make that journey. I talked to a man whose great grandmother took two of her four children by herself in a wagon from Long Island NY to Arizona when the children had tuberculosis. She was there for a few years until they both died then she took the wagon with their bodies and came back to New York. I still go to their family cemetery and look at those graves and wonder about that long trip out west and back again.
Their bodies would of quickly rotted just like dead bodies do currently in graves. She would of gotten very sick n soon died as well with them in coffins etc. Also if she had formaldehyde in them. Juices still would rollout, stink to high heaven, bring disease, bugs n certain wild animals. No airconditioning. Oh so gross. No way is this story true
@@darrellmortensen9805 She was in AZ for a few years the first child died soon after arriving and the other child died a few years later. So how did these families in the Civil War go out to battle fields and recover their loved one and bring the body home to be buried. There is a grave in a local cemetery of a Revolutionary War soldier who died in New Jersey and was brought home to Long Island and buried. Please do tell us how they brought the body home in the middle of of one of the hottest summers.
My grandmother came across the Oregon Trail she told us many times she walked all the way. She caught many of the diseases lived through them all. She was very disappointed she's never saw an Indian the whole way
Very interesting since the train was dwindling in the 1870s. You must be really old yourself. Why don’t you publish a story about her trip? Walking? She had to be a very little child, what a feat that must have been. This would make a great story to relate to our youngsters.
My great grandfather told about coming West to Kansas when he was six. He was born in 1849. He said a group of Indians approached the wagons. Women and children took to the rocks. The Indians were looking for water. His mother became pregnant, and the family stayed in Iowa for a year before moving on. He also told of a river crossing where family members (cousins) had an accident on the barge. A horse became unruly, the barge toppled over. No one knew the outcome as the people were never heard from again. As they all knew the destination was near Iola Kansas it was assumed the people had died in a horrible accident. When he was in his 80's he flew in a bi plane to Texas to visit his son. When asked about the flight, he said it was smoother than a wagon on the trail.
My great aunt was sent out west (Portland, OR from Illinois) when she told her parents (my great grandparents) she was pregnant (and unmarried). She was about 19 though, and the young man wanted to marry her. However, my G-grandparents wouldn't hear of it (a shame to the family!...times were different for sure) so they set her on a wagon and sent her away, probably hoping for her to miscarry the baby. The time frame was approx. 1910, were autos had been invented, but not everybody had one, or if they did, they still used the wagon for chores, hauling, ect. When I tracked the story down that my dad had told over the years, I found that she was on the Oregon Trail.
Very interesting, Bonnie. She must have endured great hardship in her young life, both emotional and physical. Does she have descendants you keep in touch with?
@@marydonohoe8200 ... I found a grave in our ancestors cemetery with a 2 yr. old child (1910-1912) that gives the parents initials that match. as does the baby's name match the man she met on the trail...and married. She went on to live one week shy of her 67 birthday, and had 5 other kids that lived to adulthood. My dad does not remember ever seeing the 2 yr olds grave before....until finally one trip about 20 yrs ago. Dad thinks his aunt must have had her child's coffin moved much later in life to be near other family members. F'or every question answered by Genealogy... there's always a new ? that pops up!!...but it's fun!
@@annbolyn4910 ... sadly, with all the Privacy Issues out now, it's very difficult to track those who may still be alive. I was able to find those that were alive when I was young (1950-60's). But you have encouraged me to search some more, I'll check to see if I can find obits of her children. Thank You! I have been working ALL my family lines, but became very disabled 3.5 years ago and had to stop doing what I loved.
@Lauren DuVall ~ curse is a pretty strong word Lauren, it basically means you wish they would've gone to hell when they died. I would never wish that on anyone. Also, she stopped in Montana for a couple years before going on to Oregon. You have to remember that back in 1900-1910 time frame, especially in southern Illinois and vast other areas of the US, it was not respectable to get pregnant before marriage, and in teeny tiny little towns with a population of about 200-300, everybody made it their business to know your business and make life unbearable for you. I have no idea why the boy did not follow her out there, I wasn't born for several more decades. Her husband that she met soon after though was a very nice man, and father to her child for the couple short years he lived. She even gave the child his name. She went on to have 5 more kids, a couple of them traveled with her back to southern Illinois when my grandpa (her little brother) died. She had a very well to do lifestyle having married a man who worked construction. I'm sure if my Great Grandparents were alive today, things probably would have turned out different. She didn't hate her parents...so why should you?
My great great grandpa told me that his family brought 2 dozen live chickens with them. Most layed eggs. They didnt want to weigh down the wagon and take up space with cages. So they chained the chickens around their necks all in a row and forced them to walk, single file. It was not an easy trip for the chickens.
Incredible they laid eggs under that stress. And chickens don't do well under stress. Surprised they survived one day walking single file. Hard to believe.
I'm related to the Applegates, and I live in the Willamette Valley. I recommend a book titled "Skookum" about the Applegate family, written by Shannon Applegate.
In 1996 I walked the Oregon Trail, just over 2100 miles in 3 1/2 months. Of course, my journey was infinitely easier than those who did it originally. The trail is along (mostly) well paved roads. Even so, it was a difficult trek. I think the most important quality needed is the ability to simply walk. In the rain, the wind, through sudden hail storms, and under the unrelenting sun. If someone can do that for 10 or so hours a day for months on end, well, they too can walk the Oregon Trail. And should! I was able to see our great country in an amazingly intimate way. Along with a beautiful landscape, I met a land briming with wonderful people.
Good way to lose weight too.
@@shirleybalinski4535 Lovely story, thanks for sharing!
Amazing ..
Can’t imagine how desperate things have to be for you to make this trek .. These were amazing driven people
rapist trail USA, bags of shit USA
My great great grandmother walked along side a wagon most of the way from Missouri to Oregon, oh by the way she was pregnant!!!! They settled in Albany, Oregon in the Willamette valley. I’m very proud of this story.
A story of triumph pver adversity which should be retold.
I have a small chair, that was brought over the Oregon Trail by my great grandmother. Love it.
All of my ancestors were part of this great migration between 1856 and 1869, most of them coming to Utah in handcarts with some suffering horrible weather and horrendous difficulties to get here. I have always been in awe of their fortitude, strength and courage.
But the women had no panties. 😯
Yup, same. The one Dude that made it to Utah, wrote "a rich man is still rich & a poor man is still poor." Disallusioned some of the relatives split to Mexico
Very few came pulling handcarts, and it was only for a couple of years.
@@scoutandastir Many Jerked off along the way.
They were idiot zealots who gave their money to conmen.
This clip is very well put together, with care and facts. It is sincerely appreciated and enjoyed by me. Thank you for your care and work. Genuinely appreciated.....
I find this period of US history so interesting. I can’t imagine what it was like to travel somewhere so vast and unknown.
I think I would have been a pioneer. I can't imagine life without unknowns and mysterious places. I've driven alone across the country several times and always had an adventure.
ww re wwwww×qwqqqqqqqqqqqqqq
@mikeykm1993-Left-wing anti-American democrats feel that way about America right now!
My great grandparents lived in Ky...had 13 kids. They walked (stuff & chickens & babies in wagon - the rest walked (and herded ox, cows, 2pigs) all the way to SW Missouri. I have a board that was saved from the "new" Mo cabin...some of which is still standing (delapidatedly)...
@@SteveBrownRocks2023 Huh? That comment makes no sense at all as a response.
My great grandfather (born in 1915) made two round trips to California before he turned 15 years old via covered wagon. He was 92 when he died, and I was 5 so I have some faint memories of him. He seemed like a hella cool dude, and it’s wild to think that this lifestyle wasn’t actually all that long ago.
That’s one Hell of life! I guess if you can survive that, your guaranteed an easy life even in tough times.
The big trail John Wayne 1930.
They did a very good job at making you feel the pain of the trail.
I live by the 3 island crossing. The ferry is still by the river. Crossing is a park with a museum and rebuilt wagons.
570 mile from 3 island to the Pacific coast. 3 months left. Took me 3 months from grants pass Oregon to Glenn's ferry Idaho on a pack string of horses.
Loved playing the Oregon Trail game on the computer, made me wish I traveled it at that time. But now I'm older and realize that it was not as fun as the game made it seem. This was made clear to me when I was one time when I was flying from Salt Lake City to Washington, DC and looking out the window at the vast land and being amazed as to how much land the pioneers had to cross in the days before cars and planes.
Your introspection is mature and thoughtful, Sean. Thank you.
We would have one idiot less if you had been traveling that time.
Ty Great info
I learned to fly in Kansas, in the spring time the remaining portions of the trail that weren’t paved over were visible.The wagons carried salted meat in barrels mounted on the outside of the wagon. The salt fell on the ground and slowed growth of green plants there by marking the trail. Fifty years later that is still the case.
That’s really cool!! My father and I built a steen sky bolt biplane and a few times we went to Montana and Wyoming from Washington we saw some of the trails. It was very neat. Crazy to think how people back then took care of themselves and how determined they were, not quite the same in most cases today
I just drove from Oregon to Nebraska and back in 4 days. What a time to be alive.
My Great, Great Grand Parents came from Missouri to Bend Oregon. They were a lot tougher than any of us will ever be.
Did you meet them?
@@karlabritfeld7104 no. But I met my Great Grandmother. Their child and she was in her 90s
My great-grandfather was a blacksmith in Ohio. He made various wagons. He lived from 1874 to 1967.
@Jim Marcum I knew a man growing up here in Pensacola whose name was Jim Marcum. He was a really great guy.
I l was fortunate to know Pap Snell. He died when I was 13. He was German and about 5 ft nothing. He built a village in southern Ohio named Jonesboro. The homes were built to his height, so I had to duck to go in the doorway. When we ate dinner, I could not sit with my back to the wall or I would hit my head on the ceiling. His blacksmith shop though was huge. Fond memories of Ohio as a kid. I was born & raised here in Florida, but I always looked forward to visiting my relatives there every August for two weeks.
I bet he was a rough ol' cob! Most of those fellers were.
😊🤗 thank you for sharing ! Interesting how our grandparents were young once just like us 😁😳👀 lol
and he saw the rise of the auto industry and the interstate highway system replace pioneer trails
my great grand uncle was a blacksmith.
My great, great grandparents on both sides came west on the Oregon Trail, and settled in the fertile Willamette Valley to farm. I grew up on my grandparents farm, 60 acres on the Willamette River northwest of Keizer. It was some of the best soil in the valley because of regular flooding and ensuing deposits of sand and mud.
the 1950's TV show Wagon Train was a fairly realistic portrayal of the wagon trains and the lives of the people on the Oregon Trail. It's still a good show to watch in the reruns today, excellent script writing, acting, photography. I've always admired Ward Bond as Major Adams and his being a first rate trail boss and leader. Charlie the cook, he's such a fun loveable character
We have a letter written by my husband's great grandparents when they traveled by wagon trail their letter says their were no Indian troubles, sickness in I think Colorado, they often gathered t I gether in later years for get togetgers. The friendship they made stayed strong through the tears.
Traveled together! Years not tears! Fingers are getting old here!
@@denickite y u gotta b so mean??????
Thanks 4 sharing
@@allyshivers3082 Mean about what ?
No Indian troubles because most of them had either been outright killed, put on a reservation or given disease ridden blankets.
I knew Gertrude Easterling, who was 4 years old when her family came into Oregon by the southern branch of the Oregon Trail. She was the last person who came into Oregon by that trail, in 1900. She remembered her father's delight when they finally saw Pilot Rock, which was the last checkpoint and the last climb they had to do prior to entering the Rogue River Valley, which was their objective. Her father tied her to the tailgate of their Conestoga, for her safety, as they climbed the foothills of Mt Ashland. They sang the song, "There'll be apples on each branch in Oregon, There'll be plenty of sun and rain..."
I met her when she was in her 70s, and like a lot of her generation she had become a schoolteacher.
Thank you for sharing that with us.🤗
Very interesting and a fortune of fate for you being able to get to know such a woman with her history and experience!!!
I can only imagine the fascinating stories that lady could tell.
That must have been a fantastic visit with her. How interesting. I imagine she had an endless supply of stories to tell. What a memory to have of a visit with such an interesting person
You are more worthy of telling a story here
I love hearing tales about the Oregon Trail. I’ve never forgotten watching a documentary in the late 90s about the I think the 1845 lost wagon train and I was hooked from then. Totally fascinating and profound to think of the hardships they had to endure for a better life.
My grandmother Lillie Barnes, her 2 older brothers, her father Thomas Barnes and her mother Lavada Barnes traveled all the way to Oregon in 1895 when she was 7 years old. They lived there for only 6 months.. Just long enough to build a cabin.. There were so many pioneers that were murdered around their homestead that they decided not to stay.. They traveled back to NC by train by the time she was 8.. My father told me this story that was told to him by his mother, Lillie..
I wish I had known this before my grandmother died.. I would have loved to heard it directly from her..
It's interesting that -- next to illness -- possibly the greatest risk on the trail was the armed white male. The Barnes family went back to NC because of the "many pioneers that were murdered around their homestead." And the beginning part of the video indicates that the initial attitude of the Indians was open minded and even positive in hopes of producing an equitable trading relationship. That changed when they recognized just how "equitable" this arrangement was going to be. No wonder later representations of that era veered so far into the wildly fantastic. The truth was just a little too ... true.
L. BM
P2w😮7j
U BM
The Lewis and Clark expedition is also a fascinating story to me.
Many decades ago I rode numerous times in unsprung wagons of the typed described here. The misery remains indelibly etched and fresh in my mind. The jolting occurred with constant violence that can not be exaggerated. Eyeballs jarred in their sockets, teeth seemed likely to shake loose from the jaw, and every minor surface imperfection imposed a surprising assault on every bone and tissue, particularly those of the back, neck, and backside. Larger ruts and rocks caused sheer dread. Walking was far preferable. Pity those too injured or ill to walk, condemned to endure the torture of riding in the wagon.
Interesting... Accurate too.
Yes I've heard the Conestogas where not used much except for hauling . Twas different hand carts etc that they used. I'm sure the bigger wagons were slept in at night time though.
@@sandyfreyman3501k look 12:06
My father was born in a farmhouse next to Oak Grove Station near Oak, Nebraska. His father farmed. He told me how he and his brothers( in 1930's/ early 40's) would find oxen shoes, arrowheads and all sorts of other paraphernalia related to trail life. At that time they didn't think much of it and never kept any of the items. Every year of elementary school we would cover Oregon trail a bit. It always aggravated me to no end that they never kept any artifacts - still does! 😂
Yep. Your folks are from Nebraska. Mom was from there and the word "agravate" was part of her talk.
There's an off short of the wagon trail thru northern comanche County Texas. There are at least 2 graves of very young children right beside the trail and finally a historical marker. I can't go past without stopping and saying a prayer those poor little girls. One marker said it took 3 days for the dad to be able to get his wife to leave.
I visited some museum about the history of wagon trains in Independence, Mo. two years ago while visiting my cousin from Kansas City, Mo. Very entertaining. We also sometimes go to this pub in KC called Kelly's. My cousin once told me that it is the oldest building in the city and back in the day, the wagons would roll by. Next time I visit, I hope we can drive out and see the prairies in Kansas. Love history.
Yup my great great grandmother told us of her traveling the Oregon trail on foot with her family! She was 92 in the 70’s
These were strong people and so brave. Most people can’t clean there own homes now a days
They were tough, determined folks.....Proud to be an American!
Well said.
Being tough was necessary to survive. I met and lived with some their descendants 12 years ago when I was recuperating from major surgery, and they haven't changed much...except they watch TV and play the lottery!!
except the part where we stole the native american land....
And look now... our govt. shut most of the country down... printing money and handing it out with helicopters. But the NFL and NBA is still in business... bread and circuses.
@@terrykrall Yes it makes you wonder if we would be that tough and determined. No safe spaces and playdough therapy for these folks, that is for sure.
God bless the souls that went on that trail and built our country🙏. They should never be forgotten.
My mother had a teacher who would say, “Landsakes children! Don’t you remember the pioneers?” Then she would launch into a memory of seeing the last ones going down The Pike Road in the valley. The teacher was 6 when she observed this. Amazing to think that our history so short.
Lucky kids to hear her account.
The older you get, the shorter it gets ..
@@adamdavis5312 good one. Those who fail to understand our history have to re take it in summer school.
Where? No Summer school in my state or surrounding four states!
@@darrellmortensen9805 Pity that. It can be good for readers who struggle or high school kids who want to take driver’s ed the easy way.
The view was of the Shenandoah Valley. My mother shared stories about her very old teacher. She was probably 80 and worked so she could eat. One day a classmate decided to play a prank on the teacher. So he put a bloody hog head on her blotter. They all awaited her reaction. Without skipping a beat to get the day started she picked it up by the ears and put it in the wastebasket. Not a word was said of it even as the fly problem worsened. I would share these stories with my third graders over the course of 34 years. History lives.
Thank you, as a Brit with no in depth knowledge of this period ( except that presented by western films) I found this both informative and interesting.
And incomplete. As long as the history of Indigenous Americans is not included, it is incomplete history.
@@BigBri550 a person can only tell what they know.
@@christinepeniaranda8484 When it comes to American history, there is much they deliberately leave out.
One of my ancestor’s letters says the bottom boards of the wagon were eleven feet long, which is how they came to have a front door six feet tall and a back door five feet tall once they built their cabin. And one ancestor was around eight years old when her family came to California. Prior to the War Between the States, also called by that branch of my family tree The War of Northern Aggression or, in one of the all time great euphemisms, what my maternal grandmother called “the recent unpleasantness” (absolutely true!), she had her personal slave nanny. On the way west she was picking up “prairie coal.”
Imagine- going just a short 100 yr time span from 1888 on the Oregon trail to 1988. What an amazing giant historical change! I always say, for people who were alive in the 1800’s to turn the of the century, the world in the latter 1900’s must have seemed like sci fi. It was for my great grandma! She was born in 1906 St Louis. She died when I was 36, in. 2006 at the age of exactly 101. She always lived in south St. Louis. I asked her over the years as things were rapidly changing (even for me!) what she thought. My grandmother from rural Michigan grew up with an out house- so my great grandma didn’t perceive modern society as soft and easy compared to her early years as my grandmother who had been born in 1927 rural Michigan. For her, yes things were absolutely amazing and life was much much easier!
@walter graham isn’t is crazy? My great grandma was exactly 101 when she died in 2006. My gran, mom and I were all first borne so I was about 36- I knew her extremely well. I asked her a lot how the world must seem, because this has been an incredible time in history.
I read once, that if a farmer from 1860 was time traveled to 1940 USA, he would not have felt too out of place, except for minor changes. Electricity did not reach either of my parents homes until after WW2. Phones may have been a little earlier. Today, my phone system is still operated by the same local family!! It is a private system that was started by the grandfather in the early 1930's. We are not part of the big telecommunication networks!! It services our valley, the SE section of our county & publishes its own phone book. Until the 1980's there were still party lines & the switchboard was in Wilma's kitchen. The kids took over & modernized to direct dial!! After WW2, tractors came in to our area. The US , especially in rural areas like ours, Upper Michigan, remained effectively 100 years behind, compared to metro areas until after WW2.
Alice..read my reply to Walter concerning the Oregon trail & your grandmother. What area of Michigan was she from?
In Guernsey Wyoming, you can visably see the steel covered wagon wheel ruts that cut into the rocks on that portion of the trail! It’s super interesting, and sobering to stand in those ruts & think of the real people that were on that very trail.
The great migration… that slowly took away the native peoples land..
I live right by the Butterfield stage route. We have a lot of history here. People in the very small rural area I live in found all kinds of Indian artifacts here. I love it. There is a taco shop about 30 miles away that is called the stage stop, as the stage coach used to stop in that very spot.
Awesome! What state do you live in?
Our telephone exchange when I was growing up in Southern California was BUtterfield8-, so the person calling you dialed the first 2 numbers as BU -then the number. It was named for the stage line.
My great great grandparents came on the trail and settled in the Bear Lake Valley in SE Idaho after cutting off the Trail and entering the Salt Lake Valley.
😊oh my goodness, I remember playing this on an Apple computer. I would LOVE it when I was hunting and bagged deer... brought back some good times, thank you!🎉❤
The South African trekkers had suspension. They had a light weight version for fast relocation and the heavy , big ones for large loads. Our ancestors were incredible
I feel a great connection to the Oregon trail, My great Grandfather knew nothing about it, here I am years later and I too know nothing about it. We often used to sit and chat about the stuff we know nothing about...Oh the memories.
I had read the Rinker Buck book in the Oregon Trail. I plotted his travel to replicate the Trail on an atlas then decided to replicate his travels in my truck. Drove to St. Joseph, Missouri, and started west following mainly roads that were paved over the original trails and side roads where the original trails became private farm lands. Fascinating trip. While the original pioneers would like to make 20 miles a day, I was going 70 mph in air conditioned comfort. But I saw some if thr endless plains in Kansas and Nebraska and marveled star tenacity and toughness of these settlers crossing with all their worldly possessions in their wagon.
In Caspar, Wyoming, is a Western History Museim with full size dioramas and replicas if thr hand wagons used by thr Mormons crossing on thr Mormon Trail. Thry used hand carts as they couldn't afford thr Prairie Schooners. Imagine pulling and pushing these carts across the wildlands and deserts on their way to Salt Lake City. Drove to Chimney Rock, Nebraska, Independence Rock in Wyoming, and wondered how many people had crossed these landmarks.
Truly an eye opening way to appreciate the early settlers' grit and determination.
I am reading that book now and came across this video. A very good book for a Brit like me living in Ohio.
My ancestors on my mother's side came to Western Kansas from Pennsylvania in the 1850's, and settled near Cimarron and Dodge City, KS. My great-grandmother told me her grandmother delivered twins on the trail. There was a mid-wife in the group so she had some help in delivering her 6lb twins. I have twins myself, so I know how much work that entails. The hardships endured on the trail paled in comparison to the 1918 Pandemic and the 1930's Dust Bowl. Some of them moved to Eastern Kansas for better farmland and pastures to raise Black Angus cattle.
He keeps mentioning Rinker Buck. In 2012, Rinker Buck and his brother built a wagon and then followed the Oregon Trail. He wrote a book about the experience: The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey. Good read!
Excellent video and beautiful photography!!! Well done! I still enjoy thinking back on how to an older guy like myself it sometimes seems is really wasn't all that many years ago and to think about people like Laura Ingalls Wilder, who came west in a wagon in the 1870's, she lived to be 90 and passed away in 1957. In time to witness the transition from covered wagons to Jet Airliners and the start of the space race with Sputnik being launched in 1957 too!
We've come a long way in a relatively short time when looking back on the huge scope of technological changes in less than 100 years and it's amazing!
If it was left up to me, I'd still be chasing lightning storms anytime I needed heat or wanted to cook a steak!
True and we did all of this without the crap going on today!
@@redrock3109 Amen! Take a kids (20 something) smart phone away and drop them off in the middle of nowhere, even with some basic survival gear and a small rifle to hunt food with and see how long they last. Maybe the rifles a bad idea they may hurt themselves or someone else.
@@donc9751 But, but, rifles are big scary things! LOL
My grandmother rode in a stage coach as a young woman and lived to see a man walk on the moon! What will transpire in our own lifetime???
@Don C
😂😂😂😂
Thank you for sharing history to a lot of people that are uneducated about history my best subject when I was in school was history a+ all through my school years rest of my grades were really bad because I was interested in the history of the pioneer settlers and even Jesse James Billy the kid Wyatt Earp and doc Holliday we live up in the Appalachian mountains of Perry county Kentucky there's unmarked Graves all up in these hills that we know nothing about they probably date back during the 1700s of course my ancestors are up here on these cold mountains also. It's a shame less people in today's era can give a hoot about our history thank you so much for sharing your videos God bless you and your family and happy holidays
Greetings up in the Appalachian Mountains from Canada 🇨🇦!
@@ianstuart5660greetings to Canada from the Appalachian mountains of Kentucky,.....stay! Safe my friend...... Canada is a beautiful place.....
@William Brown Thank you William, what a lovely message to wake up to. Also waking up to the coldest morning of winter so far, zero degrees Fahrenheit. I have traveled through some parts of the Appalachians, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia has a part that goes way far north bordering North parts of Ohio and Pennsylvania! Love to study History and Geography too. You stay safe and warm as well!
Greetings from the Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania, born and raised and have some recently moved west to the Rockies. Can't keep mountain folk away from the mountains. Have a good year.
@Lost In Transit Greetings to you from Canada as well. Forgot to mention to William that I also went through the Pennsylvania mountains traveling from Buffalo en route to South Carolina!
It was not the settlers but the buffalo hunters who caused the Native Americans to become hostile, because the hunters almost exterminated the bison for their skins and left the meat to rot! The Sioux wars that culminated in the destruction of Custer's 7th cavalry was started by a stray Mormon cow and an over zealous army officer. Marie Sandoz did a wonderful job of portraying those times in her book "Crazy Horse - the strange man of the Oglalas'.
You didn't mention how they collected water across the great prairies withe few streams. They would drag wool blankets to collect dew that had formed on the grass then wring them out to recover the water.
What did you say? "Here kids. have a drink of water that tastes like grandma's feet."
The old Apache man that taught me to track and hunt Antelope in Colorado told me how it was done and didn't believe it until showed me. He taught me many things. He was a poor lonely old man that lived in a shack in town. When I made a trip in town I met him really for the first time at 14 yrs old. He fascinated me and I found a job for him and got him moved into the old bunk house. He fixed it up really cool. At first my hard core Dad didn't approve but I made it happen any way and mother intervened as?she was a Christian and they became good friends as she had lots of little chores for him so he had some money. I spend 5 years on the prairie with him learning what he knew and the knowledge was priceless as i later learned in life. He died in bed with a flu at 78 and he was sorely missed. Even my hard core old man cried at his funeral. That was 50 years ago and I still think of him almost every day.
@@ashemgold lol! I'm sure they boiled it and strained it.
@@ashemgold it's ok you wait til it's bottled lol.
A LOT of people actually got seasick from the swaying and jolting, women got pregnant and suffered horribly. If someone was sick, they occasionally had to be left behind since there was only so much time to get across country before the winter weather. There were many children and accidents were common. Often a child might wander off, and there are families that had to leave them behind if they couldn't find them. Many old diaries and letters talk about the tragedy of families missing children and having to move on without them. It happened more often that I ever realized.
That’s the part that gets left out of the movies.
That is so so horrible
When I was younger I was always awestruck at the hardships our ancestors undertook. Now as I've gotten older and started yearning to move out west I have a much more understanding perspective. I'd gladly walk that journey. Hell on top of the fact that I'm gonna hike the Appalachian trail I've regularly thought about doing a forest gump walk from coast to coast.
As I've gotten older I've just realized the hollowness of modern society. I'd rather roam the country, take in the sights, and live a worthwhile life, than spend my life on hamster wheel.
Pretty cool. Some of my family came from Pennsylvania to Kansas, late 19th c. This is why my favorite "western" is Wagontrain.
My great granny came from Georgia to East Texas in a covered wagon in the late 1800s. The land. The free land drove them
My friend's parent met and married on the wagon train from Louisiana to Arizona. The trip took 18 months. Wow. The Kelly clan.
@@nancid5265 what's your question?
@@nancid5265 I am no relation to the person in my story. She told me her story of her folks on the wagon train.
Independence rock is just shy of an hour drive from Casper. In 1856 Fort Seminoe (located adjacent to Devil's Gate on the Sweetwater River, Wyo.) was abandoned due to risk of Indian unrest and lack of protection for the traders who established the trading post. A replica of Fort Seminoe stands today near the original Sun Ranch now referred to as Martin's Cove where the Edward Martin handcart company was rescued from dire straits in late 1856.
It is amazing if you are ever in Wyoming and you are able to see some of the deep ruts left by the wagons. I was on a business trip with my supervisor and, after a morning and lunch spent with each of three districts, we'd move on to our next, which left us some time for sightseeing every afternoon. We were OK with not getting to our next motel stop before 7 or 8 in the evening. Independence Rock was one stop, as well as anything else worth seeing. Very enjoyable business trip.
Your channel is fantastic ,the work you put into it is very appreciated , thank you
But he does not really represent the truth when he said that it was a widely debunked myth that Native Americans were a scourge to the wagon trains and pioneers. 50,000 men, women, and children died from attacks and often horrible deaths at their hands. There are many well-documented books on this history. Gregory Michno is known as the best living historian of the American West. His books can be found for sale online at all the usual places.
In the 1970s I had a college professor who said his father had come to California in a horse team-drawn covered wagon in the 19th Century after the Civil War. This professor was the youngest son of a very old father and that professor was close to retirement age himself.
That sounds about right. I was a late baby boomer and yet my grandfather, my dad's dad, was born in the 1870s.
Can you imagine walking 16 miles a day!!
Hot clothes and shoes so worn out!!
Amazing to say the least 🙏🏻🇺🇸
I know right! They probably stuffed cotton balls on the bottoms of their shoes. They didn't have our comfortable shoes back then.
And after a long day of walking, the children had to gather Buffalo dung for the cooking fire, the wife had to cook the evening meal, and the men had to take care of their livestock and all the harnesses and repairs of the wagons, etc. If the pioneer wagon train was unlucky enough to be passing through some area of land that was being contested between the Indians and US government, there was the additional burden of who stayed up to guard, and the worry of being set upon by Indians and tortured by them. It all sounds just exhausting!
😱They had such an unbelievable struggle ,an extremely difficult journey 👍 Thanks
The amount of stuff discarded was so numerous that the train could literally navigate by following the trail of items.
Speaking of visible ruts, the Donner Party's trek across what is now the Salt Flats is still visible to this day...Despite Hollywood, horses were never used: horses are more susceptible to disease, and hauled less than oxen.
I have actually found a few of those spots along the Overland trail. One such wagon dumping site 2 ft deep under the soil in a cornfield, revealed a complete busted up wood stove, oxen shoes, barrel band hoops, broken china, 1 wagon hub, shell buttons and a load of busted Drake's 1860x plantation bitters bottles. Every artifact I find has a story to tell, if only they could talk.
True but it’s easier to use horses for Hollywood s depiction because they are already trained unlike oxen.
My great uncle's drove freight wagons between Nebraska and Wyoming with horses. When they started going to Oregon they continued to use horses. They led eight wagon trains of family members out the Oregon trail all using horses. My father was on the last one as a child with his parents.
The Donner Party tragedy occurred because they split off from the main wagon party, and left the trail, in order to take an unestablished short cut. The suffering of the Donner Party pioneers…absolutely heart wrenching. I always wonder where God is at these times of crisis.
Or we’re only used by the I’ll prepared, as oxen were hardier and stronger.
I found this very interesting, All respect to those who made the long trek to the Pacific Northwest.
My grandparents travelled by covered wagon from the USA to northern Alberta in the early 1900s.
Lucky you they crossed the border
Why?
@@neldonah2833 I don't look down on the United States. I love the USA. My roots there go back to 1700 in Virginia, but God's purposes for my life required me to be born and raised in Canada, and I love Canada, too. I think it is a great privilege for people to be born in either of these nations.
@@faithworks217 I lived and worked in Canada. I believe it's much easier than the U.S. it's not overrun by, according to real stats, 28 million poor latin Americans willing to work for 7$ an hour. Canada takes care of it's people. Canadian jobs are for Canadians, free clinics, hospital etc. Just look how Canada dealt with taking care of people with checks starting a year ago. No comparison between quality of life in the 2 countries. Canada's usually in the top 5 countries when not number 1 or 2 for best places to live.
Good for them.
@@faithworks217 Born Toronto 1944. My mother's family crossed into Canada by wagon train. My husband was born in Darien, CT, in 1940. Governor of Virginia, late 1700s on his mother's side. Still have his dresser & mirror from Governor's Mansion. He's dying from Parkinson's now in a nursing home here in Kingston, ON. I can't see him because of the lockdown. I sometimes wonder what God's purpose could possibly be.
It must have been incredibly difficult and arduous. God bless them!
My beloved Grandmother Mary two feathers ( Whiteted ) Blackfoot Indian crossed from The plains of Montana to the Appalachians in swords Creek Virginia The trip to 6.years , she told me stories that I'll cherish for the rest of my life ❤️‼️
My great great grandparents on two sides of my family came to Oregon on the trail. Tough breed my folks.
Maybe the Indians were largely friendly. However, I have a letter in which my Great Great Grandfather says otherwise. He stated that as they came across in a covered wagon he clearly remembers the many "skirmishes" they had with Indians. This was in 1850.
they would kill you just for being there and scalp you alive when it's life or death and your just trying to pass thru someone is charging to try to kill you and your wife kids dog whatever your start shooting till the threat is over 10/4 there were no rules other than try to see the sunrise
Adults were killed children were often adopted especially if tribe had lost children do to death.
@@cynthiarothrock4255 adopted???
Im 1/8th Choctaw my grandma on my dads side but we are from Louisiana thanks for sharing 😆
Beginning with the 1849 Gold Rush traffic increased enormously: that's when it really got bad.
My grandmother was born in 1890. I remember her saying that she had gone from horse and buggy to seeing a man walk on the moon. She stayed up all night watching the astronauts. She said she has seen it all and could now die.
That's a beautiful story!
Haha.
I also thought, while taking care of my Gma who lived from 1907 to 2010, that she lived during the most interesting times. From the horse and buggy and outside bathrooms to the telephone, television, internet, etc. But her favorite invention was electric lights. So much so that she always liked to have a nightlight in her room all night.
Cool you have those memories of your grandmother. My grandfather said the same thing just about. He grew up riding in a wagon in Eastern Oregon with a ex wagon train Master for a dad and an Indian woman for his mom.
We stayed in Michigan after leaving the Netherland (Holland) in the 1840's. When it was safe we left by car in 1946. Sometimes it's best to be tardy !
I read about those Dutch people traveling and settling in Michigan.
There was a group from my hometown in the Netherlands that traveled to Michigan. They're family's are still there.
Hahahahhahhaa
The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese. Ever heard that one?
@@mbca007 .....Saw your comment about The Dutch in Michigan. The area they settled in is what we call West Michigan. It is close to the coast of Lake Michigan. The towns( cities) in that area are Grand Rapids, Holland, Zeeland, New Gronigen,Vreisland,Graafschop & more. The area is a fruit & dairy farming region. Grand Rapids was the furniture capitol of the US for years. People are still quite religious & Conservative. The phone directories are nothing but, Dutch names!!
I wonder how they react to Kids asking "Are We There Yet?" Every 15 min lol
😂😂😂😂😂
😂😂😂
👋🏻 SLAP !!!!
You want another one ?
Then you keep your mouth shut 🤐 when you’re talking to me !!
Probably weren’t as bored as they had to walk not sit on their holes.
Their kids usually died on the journey. At least one or two 😆
My favorite book on this is "Ox-team Days on the Oregon Trail" by Ezra Meeker who does a great job explaining how life was back then. This guy was an adventure addict. Decades after he traveled on the Oregon Trail, he retraced his journey and described how much everything along the trail had changed.
Thanks, gonna try and find that book!
@@track1219 It's available on Amazon in both book and Kindle forms. It was fun reading about areas just a few miles away from me before many people were here.
@Scott Larson Thanks, gonna try the library first, then Amazon
he took the last Oregon trail migration in the 1900's
@@harleyhawk7959 ??? Meeker's first trip to Oregon was in 1852. He traveled from his home in Puyallup, Washington to Washington D.C. in 1906 to publicize and remember the pioneers who had traveled on the Oregon Trail.
I had a grandmother who, with her sister, was in the Oklahoma Land Rush..They were successful ..She was one of the nicest, gentlest woman I knew. But she was tough as boot, business wise, settling in Dalles ..
Ahhh the good ole Oregon Trail game. I know I would have not survived based on that game alone. Great video very informative. Love history!
I always died from dysentery.
But the big lie in this documentary is about the myth of depredations by "Native Americans." (If you're born here, you're a native). 50,000 men, women, and children often died horrible deaths trying to get to California or Oregon at the hands of "Native Americans." There are many factual histories on the issue, available. Gregory Michno's "Circle the Wagons" is a great place to start.
What do you want on your tombstone?
"peperoni and chease"
@@jab3593 I never did make it to Oregon when playing that game. It's a good thing I already lived here. (Descended from those who did survive the trip by ship and wagons.)
my great grandma came to Oregon when she was three years old. I have a photo of my dad holding me, less than a year old, my grandmother, and great grandma. Since I was born in 1940 she was alive when I was alive and she came by wagon train. Still find it hard to believe.
Outstanding historical review. Thank you for sharing.
You can clearly see the deep ruts at bessemer bend (north Platte river)Wyoming ...yes
- Hard times create strong men
- Strong men create good times,
- Good times create weak men.
- Weak men create hard times.
. . .
That statement is true , it cuts right straight to the bone . If it hurts feeling then so be it . Thank you for sharing your opinion.
Never a truer statement.....thx
rags to riches & back again , in 3 generations.
woman's version.
Sir, you are absolutely correct. Whilst a 😔 reality, I could not help but 😊 ☺ 🙂.
Welcome to the 2020's
Or maybe 20/20...
Seeing things clearly.
I highly recommend watching "The Girl Who Got Rattled," the best episode in "Buster Scruggs." The Coen Brothers really got the trail right...
Loved this!
That is a good one. But my favorite is Meeks Cutoff. It really shows what the mind numbing daily drudgery of trail life is like. At least it was like that for me when I walked it....
I appreciate this is just solid history and not trying to surprise people by twisting the facts. As is so often done with Old West videos.
I am just so happy that we can now have a clear picture of what happened...I think series like 1883 helped bring the bad things to light....say dying from a snake bite because you were on the prairie and did not know a thing about snakes....relieving yourself and then running and spreading the poison even worse...and the fact that if your wagon train fought with native Americans for any reason...the arrows were dipped in some bad stuff...shall we say...this was very informative! Great to read! Write some more and I'll sure read it......
Some company needs to re-make this game back in the day love playing this game for hours back in the day!
@Vinyl Dad -- Bot of my sons did, but we didn't have a computer so they couldn't play it at home, only during computer time at school.
@@alycewich4472 the only time I got to play if I remember correctly is when my cousin would bring it over or we went to there place
There's a board game version.
In 2020 during my Great American travels from Florida to Oregon, I saw signs about the Oregon Trail, and I stopped at many sites, including the Bozeman Trail and other famous trails along the way.... I visited Independence Rock in Wyoming, a famous pit-stop of the pioneers.
Unfortunate that after such an eye opening adventure, with so many chances to broaden your world view you still managed to come up with that name.
I feel the same way.
The clanging of pots and pans, on the married couples first night ,was called a chivary( shiv-a-ree). They did that to my mom and my step father in the early 1974. Very noisey
Magnificent video. Wish I’d visited Great Dixter when I lived in England but this has given me so many ideas.
To Ela Vke, no, we traveled by UHaul towing our car! I was a young woman with a toddler and a new baby moving to Duluth MN, in 1968 away from my hometown of Takoma Park, MD. So when my husband talked of perhaps moving to Colorado, I told him I pioneered once, and that was it. We did relocate to lower Michigan 34 years ago.
I watch Wagon Train the old tv series alot and I believe the show is based on true events. I knew it was the hardest road of them all! Good Story, Signed, Greg the egg
I grew up in Oregon City just off Holcolm road & Moss Hill, which is last hillside to last wagon roundup an mouth of Clackamas River flows into Willamette River. During Oregon Trail Reenactment we just had to walk down pass couple houses to watch horse drawn wagons pass, all excited that they had finally made it to End of Oregon Trail! So they built a McDonald's there, how wonderful!
do they use horsemeat ? 😃
When was that?
America!!
I have traveled the Oregon trail with 14' wagon with a 4 up hitch of mules , 2 1/2 times .... you did a good job on this video !
Wait how? Now?
Wow! Love to hear more.
I watch things like this and wonder if I could have even survived it.
Watched a c/o build chuckwagons over a year youtube
& they drove them to washington using a donkey / mule team some festivile anniversary was Epic to watch
Reminds me of being a young lad in the 50's having to walk too school 20 miles up hill both ways.
You should consider yourself lucky - At least you didn't live in Florida where it snowed a foot a day for 9 months a year.
🤣🤣🤣 I agree , you were lucky. My walk was 35 miles , uphill in both directions, underwater with gale force winds!
0⁹00⁰0⁰⁰⁰00
000
0
I find it interesting that the pioneers carved graffiti on the rock and the Native Americans carved wonderful petroglyphs. Newspaper rock in Utah is covered in ancient Indian graffiti, or petroglyphs. Some of our current rattle can graffiti work is being renamed art in recent years. Ok now that I’m off my soapbox this was a great concise video of the trail especially explaining the wagon and livestock situation. An amazing number of people think via TV movies ect that horses were used to pull the wagons, you did an excellent job of explaining the problems associated with moving the household supplies.
Very strong people to make that journey.
I talked to a man whose great grandmother took two of her four children by herself in a wagon from Long Island NY to Arizona when the children had tuberculosis. She was there for a few years until they both died then she took the wagon with their bodies and came back to New York. I still go to their family cemetery and look at those graves and wonder about that long trip out west and back again.
Their bodies would of quickly rotted just like dead bodies do currently in graves. She would of gotten very sick n soon died as well with them in coffins etc. Also if she had formaldehyde in them. Juices still would rollout, stink to high heaven, bring disease, bugs n certain wild animals. No airconditioning. Oh so gross. No way is this story true
@@darrellmortensen9805 She was in AZ for a few years the first child died soon after arriving and the other child died a few years later.
So how did these families in the Civil War go out to battle fields and recover their loved one and bring the body home to be buried.
There is a grave in a local cemetery of a Revolutionary War soldier who died in New Jersey and was brought home to Long Island and buried. Please do tell us how they brought the body home in the middle of of one of the hottest summers.
My grandmother came across the Oregon Trail she told us many times she walked all the way. She caught many of the diseases lived through them all. She was very disappointed she's never saw an Indian the whole way
Very interesting since the train was dwindling in the 1870s. You must be really old yourself. Why don’t you publish a story about her trip? Walking? She had to be a very little child, what a feat that must have been. This would make a great story to relate to our youngsters.
An Indian might have been the last thing she saw.
Your ancestors we're slaves Mike Anthony Foster from Rockford, Illinois! Always b.s'ing
All the pioneers were hero's. Even those who got sick and died without crossing the Mississippi.
My great great grandmother went on another trail, the trail of tears
My great grandfather told about coming West to Kansas when he was six. He was born in 1849. He said a group of Indians approached the wagons. Women and children took to the rocks. The Indians were looking for water. His mother became pregnant, and the family stayed in Iowa for a year before moving on. He also told of a river crossing where family members (cousins) had an accident on the barge. A horse became unruly, the barge toppled over. No one knew the outcome as the people were never heard from again. As they all knew the destination was near Iola Kansas it was assumed the people had died in a horrible accident. When he was in his 80's he flew in a bi plane to Texas to visit his son. When asked about the flight, he said it was smoother than a wagon on the trail.
That was so interesting. Thank you.
My great aunt was sent out west (Portland, OR from Illinois) when she told her parents (my great grandparents) she was pregnant (and unmarried). She was about 19 though, and the young man wanted to marry her. However, my G-grandparents wouldn't hear of it (a shame to the family!...times were different for sure) so they set her on a wagon and sent her away, probably hoping for her to miscarry the baby. The time frame was approx. 1910, were autos had been invented, but not everybody had one, or if they did, they still used the wagon for chores, hauling, ect. When I tracked the story down that my dad had told over the years, I found that she was on the Oregon Trail.
Very interesting, Bonnie. She must have endured great hardship in her young life, both emotional and physical. Does she have descendants you keep in touch with?
Hope she and her baby survived! Times were indeed different then.
@@marydonohoe8200 ... I found a grave in our ancestors cemetery with a 2 yr. old child (1910-1912) that gives the parents initials that match. as does the baby's name match the man she met on the trail...and married. She went on to live one week shy of her 67 birthday, and had 5 other kids that lived to adulthood. My dad does not remember ever seeing the 2 yr olds grave before....until finally one trip about 20 yrs ago. Dad thinks his aunt must have had her child's coffin moved much later in life to be near other family members. F'or every question answered by Genealogy... there's always a new ? that pops up!!...but it's fun!
@@annbolyn4910 ... sadly, with all the Privacy Issues out now, it's very difficult to track those who may still be alive. I was able to find those that were alive when I was young (1950-60's). But you have encouraged me to search some more, I'll check to see if I can find obits of her children. Thank You! I have been working ALL my family lines, but became very disabled 3.5 years ago and had to stop doing what I loved.
@Lauren DuVall ~ curse is a pretty strong word Lauren, it basically means you wish they would've gone to hell when they died. I would never wish that on anyone. Also, she stopped in Montana for a couple years before going on to Oregon. You have to remember that back in 1900-1910 time frame, especially in southern Illinois and vast other areas of the US, it was not respectable to get pregnant before marriage, and in teeny tiny little towns with a population of about 200-300, everybody made it their business to know your business and make life unbearable for you. I have no idea why the boy did not follow her out there, I wasn't born for several more decades. Her husband that she met soon after though was a very nice man, and father to her child for the couple short years he lived. She even gave the child his name. She went on to have 5 more kids, a couple of them traveled with her back to southern Illinois when my grandpa (her little brother) died. She had a very well to do lifestyle having married a man who worked construction. I'm sure if my Great Grandparents were alive today, things probably would have turned out different. She didn't hate her parents...so why should you?
The Canadian Band Lighthouse wrote 1849, all about what it was like to do this journey, a great tune!
As a child we traveled the roads the pioneers took and my dad told me stories about our family coming to Arizona in the 1800s
Can you even imagine how many people are buried along the trail in unmarked graves? Rough life we owe them all 💜💜
Native Americans ?
@@trkddy No
The burials were marked at the time and another video said there was a grave every 70 yards. Like ancient mile markers.
My great great grandpa told me that his family brought 2 dozen live chickens with them. Most layed eggs.
They didnt want to weigh down the wagon and take up space with cages. So they chained the chickens around their necks all in a row and forced them to walk, single file. It was not an easy trip for the chickens.
Incredible they laid eggs under that stress. And chickens don't do well under stress. Surprised they survived one day walking single file. Hard to believe.
I'm related to the Applegates, and I live in the Willamette Valley.
I recommend a book titled "Skookum" about the Applegate family, written by Shannon Applegate.