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OVERLAND ~UBNAL 1 Volume 11, Number 4-Winter, 1993

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3 OVERLAND ~UBNAL 1 Volume 11, Number 4-Winter, 1993 Sesquicentennial of the Great Migration to Oregon 1843-1993 OVBBLAND .J!OUBNAL Volume 11, Number 4 Quarterly Journal of the Oregon-California Trails Association 1993 ISSN: 0738-1093 Editor Lois Daniel CONTENTS Editorial Assistant Elaine McNabney Windwagons West 2 Book Re11iew Editor by Richard and Mary Ann Gehling Harold Smith Prairie schooners with a difference. Editorial Adl'isory Board Ruth Anderson Geography of the California Trails-Part I 12 David Bi gler Donald J. Blakeslee by Richard L. Rieck Donald Buck An new perspective on the California trails by a Susan Badger Doyle professional geographer. Walter Edens Aubrey Haines Thomas H. Hunt Down-and-Back Wagon Trains: Travelers on 23 Larry Jones the Mormon Trail in 1861 Betty Graham Lee by William G. Hartley Charles W. Martin, Sr. Charles W. Martin, Jr. This article tells the story of one of the greatest (if not Merrill J. Mattes the greatest) organi zational feats in trail hi story. Robert L. Munkres Erwin Thompson Jeanne Watson Book Reviews 35 © 1993 by the Oregon-California Trails Association. 01•erland lou mal is published quarterly by the Oregon-California Trail s Association, P.O. Box I 019, In dependence MO 64051-0519. Members of the Association receive each issue of the Overland lou mal as part of their membership privileges. The entire contents are protected by copyright and may not be reproduced without permission. The Association disclaims responsibi lity for statements of facts or opinions expressed in signed contributions to the 0Perland l ou mal. either the editor nor the Association is responsible for unsolicited manuscripts, photographs, artwork or other materials sent for editori­ al consideration. Articles appearin g in the 0Perland Joumal are abstracted and indexed in Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life. Prospective authors should send their articles to: Editor. 0Perland Journal, at the above address. Manuscripts should be typed, double-spaced, wi th endnotes on separate sheets and numbered consecutively. Inquiries concerning suitable topics and author gu idelines are welcome and should be addressed to the editor. Vol. 11, No. 4---1993 Down-and-Back Wagon Trains: Travelers on the Mormon Trail in 1861 William G. Hartley In 1861 , Mark Twain-he was still Samuel Clemens Twenty-five-year-old Twain would have enjoyed talking then-and hi s fellow overland stagecoach passengers oc­ with some of the down-and-back drivers. Many were older casionally passed Mormon covered wagons lumbering west. boys and young men, younger than he was, single fellows, To Twain, in his jaunty recollection, Roughing It, the Mor­ who had volunteered for the six-month round trip. Twain mon parties were of but passing (literally) interest. 1 He men­ would have admired these "Utah Boys" for their youthful tioned but one company of thirty-three wagons which his cleverness-volunteering got them out of farm work at home, coach roared past just east oflndependence Rock. The train's let them drive all summer (macho even then) and allowed passengers he considered "coarse-clad and sad-looking," and them to meet the arriving emigrant girls first before other "dusty and uncombed, hatless, bonnetless and ragged, and Utah males did. they did look so tired!"2 Twain must have seen Job Pingree's independent train, DOWN-AND-BACK PLAN which had thirty-three wagons. Had not hi s mule-drawn Since their first Mormon Trail trek in 1847, Latter-Day coach raced past the emigrants, Twain's love for the curious Saint (LDS) leaders had labored to fulfill a pledge made when might have been fired up. Had he had an opportunity to chat they were forced from Nauvoo, Illinois, by hostile mobs. with teamsters or passengers of the Pingree company, he They promised to assist any and all needy Saints wanting to might have discovered that their train was but one of several gather to Utah with them. Every emigration year proved in a massive, well-organized migration. Members of the train costly and drained the church's Perpetual Emigrating Fund's might have told him that in four particular trains in that year's ability to help those in need. Having to buy oxen and wagons Mormon migration he could have found enticing plot material in the Missouri River valley required more cash than the for one or more good short stories. Viewed quickly from dusty church could provide. So, between 1856 to 1860, the church stagecoach windows, the Mormon wagons must have looked tried handcarts as a low-cost way to move people. That system pretty much like other trains on the overland trails, but what worked quite well overall-eight of ten companies arrived in Twain saw was part of the beginning of a highly successful good order-but became hard to promote because of the innovation in the annals of overland trail travel, a situation of Martin and Willie handcart train disasters in Wyoming snows 3 great historical impact. late in 1856.5 So a new kind of low-cost transportation system Four of the wagon trains, created of donated wagons, was needed. In 1860, Utah Territory was cash poor but oxen originated not in the East but in the West. These went east or rich, so the LDS Church president Brigham Young sent his down from Utah to the Missouri River to bring back Mormon nephew, Joseph W. Young, with Utah oxen and wagons back immigrants too poor to afford outfits. Four large 1861 Mor­ to Florence, Nebraska Territory, to see how the oxen survived mon wagon trains were of this type, called by contemporaries the round trip. The oxen did well, so, because of cost savings, "down-and-back" trains or "church team trains." What Twain the down-and-back wagon trains became the new system for did not realize he was seeing was the first of a half-dozen the future. years of carefully planned, orchestrated and successful down­ In February, 1861 , Brigham Young asked every LDS and-back wagon trains that brought some 20,000 Mormons bishop in Utah Territory to have his congregation, or ward, to Utah Territory-nearly a third of all Mormons who trekked loan one or more wagon outfits for the six-month round trip 4 over the Mormon Trail in its nineteen year existence. in exchange for a church-donations credit. Wagons should be "the best Chicago make," with two-inch iron axletrees, bows The author, a member of the Crossroads Chapter of the and good covers. Oxen should be unshod but sent with eight Oregon-California Trails Association, is associate thin ox shoes per team and sufficient nails. Supplies each 6 professor of history at Brigham Young University and wagon should carry were spelled out. Seventy-five wards, past-president of the Mormon Trails Association. He is nearly every ward in Utah, donated a fully outfitted wagon writing a book about the 1861 Mormon emigration. and two yoke of oxen, and most sent more than two yoke. 23 Overland Journal Wards also provided drivers for the outfits, usuall y a young sailing ships, and a group or eastern states Mormons, includ­ man, and tons of flour. ing 300 from Philadelphia, sixty from Boston and two dozen From communities north and south , donated wagons Germ an converts from New York City. To reach Fl orence moved to the mouth of Parley's Canyon east of Salt Lake City. from New York City by train and by Mi ssissippi and Mi ssouri There, the wagons were grouped into four compani es. Four ri verboats required ten days and several transfers. From New Mormon Trail veterans were assigned as captains: John R. York City, LOS agents funneled each of the four groups- Murdock, age thirty-four; Joseph Horne, fo rty-nine; Ira 2,900 Mormons total--onto harbor barges to Jersey City, Eldredge, forty-one, and Joseph W. Young, thirty-two, who where chartered train cars moved them northwest and west al so served as general captain of all the trains. On April 23, via Dunkirk in western New York and on to Chi cago and then 1861 , the day after news of Fort Sumter's fall reached the Quincy, Illinois. The last group, from the Monarch oft he Sea , territory, the trains left the city and started foll owing the left New York on June 20. At Quincy, riverboats moved the Mormon Trail in reverse, heading down to the Platte River groups twenty miles downri ver to Hannibal, Mi ssouri , where valley, then on to Fl ore nc e to bring back needy LOS train s bumped th em due west to St. Joseph . Passengers be­ emigrants. came alarmed to see armed soldi ers guarding bridges and The four companies left Utah with 203 wagons, 2 17 towns along the tracks, evidence of Ameri ca's Ci vil War. At teamsters, I ,699 oxen and some eighteen guards. Together St. Joseph the groups, at different times, took a two- or they transported 136,000 pounds of Utah fl our, which they three-day riverboat trip up the Missouri Ri ver to Fl orence. unloaded at four stations along the trail for u e on the trip War cu11ail ed Mi ssouri Ri ver traffi c, forcing the Mormon back: Rocky Ridge, North Platte Bridge, Deer Creek and travelers to overl oad avail able steamboats. "The people pil ed Wood River Center. The Utah trains took two months to reach in end ways, sideways, crossings and every way all as thi ck as Florence.7 hops," emi grant George Ottinger wrote. 9 Florence, now part of Omaha, was the site of the Mormons' 1846-47 Winter Quarters, from whi ch the first FLORENCE OUTFITTINGS Mormon pioneers headed west in 1847.
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