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M ay 19, 2013 Meet the earliest travelers of what would become the Oregon Trail

By Keni Sturgeon Willamette Heritage Center at the Mill

Travel west along the Oregon Trail was heaviest between the mid- to late 1840s through the mid- 1850s, but there were people who took the trail long before it became the main route to Oregon.

The first person who was not Native American to travel the entirety of what would become the Oregon Trail was Fort Astoria’s Robert Stuart in 1812. However, he traveled the route in reverse, beginning in Oregon and ending in Missouri.

Stuart, who worked for the North West Co., was one of several people from NWC who partnered with John Jacob Astor in his Pacific Fur Co.

At age 25, Stuart sailed aboard the Tonquin around South America and north on the Pacific to the Columbia River. The Tonquin crossed the Columbia Bar and made her way up river with supplies, trappers and traders to establish Fort Astoria in 1811. After dropping off cargo, the ship and crew sailed north. While off Vancouver Island, the Tonquin was destroyed. After, Stuart and several men made an overland journey to tell Astor.

Among other early “trailblazers” was entrepreneur Nathaniel Wyeth, who headed out in 1832, leading 20 men along what became the Oregon Trail. Like many who tried to make the 2,000-mile trip, Wyeth suffered a lot of bad luck. By the time he made it to Fort Vancouver, only eight of his men were left.

Before leaving, Wyeth chartered a ship to sail from Massachusetts and meet him in Oregon with supplies. The ship, however, did not survive the trip and the supplies were lost. He returned back east in 1833 and made another trip along the trail in 1834. On this second trip, Methodist missionaries Jason and Daniel Lee contracted with him to travel overland with his party. Supplies again were shipped by sea, but this time the ship and her cargo made it safely to Oregon. Who chose to journey on the Oregon Trail?

Who followed the Oregon Trail is a complex question. Although roughly one half-million people traveled west on the trail beginning in 1843, some segments of the populace were under-represented. On the whole, people older than 50 rarely made the trip because of the dangers, harsh conditions and potential for serious illness.

African Americans came to Oregon along the trail. Some came as freemen who sought a new beginning and a farm of their own. Others had no choice, coming to Oregon as slaves. Even though slavery (and African Americans in general) later be would banned in Oregon by the territorial government and then the state Constitution, these regulations rarely were enforced.

Robin and Polly Holmes were brought to Oregon on the Oregon Trail as slaves by Nathaniel Ford in 1844. Robin Holmes made an agreement that if he accompanied Ford’s relatives to the mines, he and his family would be released. When Holmes returned a year later, he and his wife were given their freedom, but Ford refused to release their three children. He claimed he was holding them not as slaves, but as wards for their protection because the Holmeses had lost one child to disease. Holmes took Ford to court to try to get his children back. After a court battle that was drawn out for http://www.statesmanjournal.com/print/article/20130519/NEWS/305190016/Meet-earliest-travelers-what... 5/19/2013 www.statesmanjournal.com | Printer-friendly article page Page 2 of 2

more than a year, the Holmes family was reunited.

Keni Sturgeon is the curator at the Willamette Heritage Center at the Mill. Contact her at [email protected].

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/print/article/20130519/NEWS/305190016/Meet-earliest-travelers-what... 5/19/2013