 CHAPTER XXI. Our youthful dream of becoming farmers was now realized in fullest measure. The clearing was gradually enlarged and abundant crops came to reward our efforts. The comfort and plenty we had hoped and struggled for was attained. Next came a development in the family fortunes that we had not dreamed of. Never had we thought to see the meeker family conducting a business that would require a London office. This unexpected prosperity came to us through the hop growing industry upon which we entered with all our force. The business was well started by the time of my father's death in 1869 and in the fifteen years following the acreage planted to hops was increased until the crop yield of 1882 a yield of more than 71 tons gave the Puyallup Valley the banner crop as to quantity of the United States and some persons asserted of the world. The public generally gave me the credit of introducing hop culture into the Northwest. Therefore it seems fitting to tell here the story of the beginnings of an industry that came to have great importance. In March of 1865 Charles Wood of Olympia sent about three pecs of hop roots to Silicombe for my father Jacob R. Meeker who then lived on his claim in the Puyallup Valley. John V. Meeker my brother passed by my cabin when he carried the sack of roots on his back from Silicombe to my father's home a distance of about twenty miles and from the sack I took roots enough to plant six hills of hops. As far as I know these were the first hops planted in the Puyallup Valley. My father planted the remainder and in the following September harvested the equivalent of one bale of hops a hundred and eighty pounds. This was sold for eighty-five cents a pound or a little more than a hundred and fifty dollars for the bale. This sum was more money than had been received by any of the settlers in the Puyallup Valley except perhaps two from the products of their farms for that year. My father's near neighbors obtained a barrel of hop roots from California the next year and planted them the following spring four acres. I obtained what roots I could get that year but not enough to plant an acre. The following year 1867 I planted four acres and for twenty-six successive years thereafter we added to the area planted until our holdings reached past the five hundred acre mark and our production was more than four hundred tons a year. None of us knew anything about the hop business and it was entirely by accident that we engaged in it but seeing that there were possibilities of great gain I took pains to study hop culture and found that by allowing our hops to mature thoroughly curing them at a low temperature and bailing them while hot we could produce hops that would compete with any product in the world. Others of my neighbors planted them and so did many people in Oregon until soon there came to be a field for purchasing and shipping hops but the fluctuations in price were so great that in a few years many growers became discouraged and lost their holdings. Finally during the failure of the world's hop crop in the year 1882 there came to be unheard of prices for hops and fully one-third of the crop of the Puyallup Valley was sold for a dollar a pound. I had that year nearly one hundred thousand pounds which brought an average of seventy cents a pound. My first hop house was built in 1868 a log house it still stands in Pioneer Park in Puyallup. We frequently employed more than a thousand people during harvest time. Many of these were Indians some of whom would come for a thousand miles down the coast from British Columbia and even the confines of Alaska. They came in the great cedar log canoes manned with twenty paddlers or more. For the most part I managed my Indian workers very easily. Once I had to tie up two of them to a tree for getting drunk their friends came and stole away the prisoners which was what I intended they should do. It was in 1870-18 years after my arrival from across the plains that I made my first return journey to the States. I had to go through the mud to the Columbia River then out over the bar to the Pacific Ocean and down to San Francisco. Then there was the seven days journey over the Central and Union Pacific and connecting lines. This meant sitting bolt upright all the way for there were no sleeping cars then and no diners either. About 1882 I had come to realize that the important market for hops was in England and E. Meeker and Company began sending trial shipments. First seven bales then the following year five hundred bales then fifteen hundred. Finally our annual shipments reached eleven thousand bales a year or the equivalent in value of half a million dollars set at that time to be the largest export hop business of any one concern in the United States. At one time I had two full train loads between the Pacific and the Atlantic on their way to London. I spent four winters in London dealing in the hop market. Little as I had thought ever to handle an international business still less had I thought ever to write a book. My first publication was an 80 page pamphlet descriptive of Washington Territory printed in 1870. My first real book, Hop Culture in the United States, was published in 1883. I mentioned this fact simply as one instance out of the many that could be given of the unexpected lines of development that life in the new land opened out to the pioneers. The hop business could not be called a venture it was simply a growth. The conditions were favorable to us in that we could produce hops for the world's market at the lowest prices. We actually pressed the English growers so closely that more than fifteen thousand acres of hops were destroyed in that country. Our great prosperity was not to last. One evening in 1892 as I stepped out of my office and cast my eyes toward one group of hop houses it struck me that the hop foliage of a field nearby was off color did not look natural. One of my clerks from the office said the same thing the vines did not look natural. I walked down to the yards a quarter of a mile away and there first saw the hop louse. The yard was literally alive with lice and they were destroying at least the quality of the hops. I issued a hop circular sending it to more than 600 correspondents all along the coast in California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. And before the week was out I began to receive samples from them and letters asking what was the matter with the hops. It appeared that the attack of lice was simultaneous in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia extending over a distance coast wise of more than 500 miles and even inland of the Skagit River where there was an isolated yard. This plague was like a clap of thunder out of a clear sky to us. I sent my second son, Fred Meeker, to London to learn the English methods of fighting the pest and to import some spraying machinery. We found to our cost, however, in the course of time that the English methods did not suit our different conditions. For while we could kill the lice we had to use so much spraying material on the dense foliage that in killing them we virtually destroyed the hops. Instead of being able to sell our hops at the top price of the market we saw our product fall to the foot of the list. The last crop I raised cost me eleven cents a pound and sold for three under the hammer at Sheriff's sale. At that time I had advanced to my neighbors and others upon their hop crops more than a hundred thousand dollars which was lost. These people simply could not pay and I forgave the debt taking no judgments against them and I have never regretted the action. All my accumulations were swept away and I quit the business or rather the business quit me. After a long struggle with a hop plague nearly all the hops were plowed up and the land in the Puyallup Valley and elsewhere was used for dairy farming, fruit growing, and general crops. It is actually of a higher value now than when it was bearing hops. CHAPTER 22 TRYING FOR A FORTUN In Alaska After the failure of the hop business I was left more or less at sea for some years. I tried various other projects, among them the raising of sugar beets. The country we soon found was not adapted to this industry. Then I tried banking likewise with little success. Finally I decided to strike out for the minds of Alaska. This adventure, taken when I was nearly three score and ten years of age, was full of exciting experiences. Indeed it left me richer only in experience. I lived in the old Oregon country forty-four years and had never seen a mime. Mining had had no attraction for me. But when my accumulations had all been swallowed up I decided to take a chance. In the spring of 1898 I made my first trip over the Chilkoot Pass, went down the Yukon River to Dawson in a flat boat, and ran the famous White Horse Rapids with my load of vegetables for the Klondike miners. One may read most graphic descriptions of Chilkoot Pass, but the difficulties met by those earlier fortune-seekers who tried it were worse than the wildest fancy-ken picture. I started in with fifteen tons of freight, and got through with nine. On one stretch of two thousand feet I paid forty dollars a ton. Some others paid even more. The trip part of the way reminded me of the scenes on the plains in 1852, when the people and teams crowded each other on the several parallel trails. At the pass most of the travel came upon one track, and that so steep the ascent could be made only by cutting steps in the ice and snow, fifteen hundred steps in all. Frequently every step would be full while crowds jostled each other at the foot of the ascent to get into the single file, each man carrying a hundred pound pack on his back. After all sorts of trying experiences I finally arrived in Dawson, where I sold my fresh potatoes at thirty-six dollars a bushel, and other things at proportionate prices. In two weeks I started up the river, homeward bound, with two hundred ounces of clondite gold in my belt, but four round trips in two years satisfied me that I did not want any more of such experiences. Once, fortunately, I was detained for a couple of days, and thereby escaped an avalanche that buried fifty-two other people in the snow. I passed by the morgue the second day after the catastrophe on my way to the summit, doubtless over the bodies of many unknown dead, and bet it so deeply in the snow that it was utterly impossible to recover them. The good ducking I received in my first passage through the White Horse Rapids made me resolve I would not go through there again. But I did it on the very next trip that same year, and came out of it dry. Again, when going down the thirty-mile river it did seem that we could not escape being dashed upon the rocks, but somehow or other we got through safely, though the bank was strewn with wrecks, and the waters had swallowed up many victims. When the Yukon proper was reached, the current was left swift, but the shoals were numerous. More than once we were hung up on the bar, each time uncertain how we should get off. No mishap resulted except once when a hole was jammed into the scow and we thought we were goners for sure, but we affected a landing so quickly that we unloaded our cargo dry. While I now blame myself for taking such risks, I must admit that I enjoyed it. I was sustained no doubt by high hopes of coming out with my pile, but fate or something else was against me, for mining ventures swept all my gains away slick as a mitten, as the old phrase goes. I came out over the rotten ice of the Yukon in April of nineteen-ought-one to stay, and devout I never wanted to see another mine, or visit another mining country. In two weeks after my arrival home, my wife and I celebrated our golden wedding. There was nothing but a golden welcome home, even if I had not returned with my pockets filled with gold. Since I was then past my allotted three-score years and ten, it naturally seemed that my ventures were at an end. But for many of these years I had been cherishing a dream that I felt must come true to round out my days most satisfactorily. I longed to go back over the old Oregon trail and mark it for all time for the children of the pioneers who blazed it, and for the world. How that dream was made to come true is the story to be told in the succeeding part of this book, of pioneer stories. CHAPTER XXIII OF OX TEAM DAYS ON THE ORAGON TRAIL This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. CHAPTER XXIII RETRACING THE OLD ORAGON TRAIL With the development of railroad construction it was thought that roads would go out of use except for local communication. But since the advent of motor vehicles, transcontinental highways have again become of great importance. For many reasons it is highly desirable that there should be good roads clear across the continent. Two have been proposed, and in sections meet the requirements of a great transcontinental highway, but neither is yet completed. One is the Oregon highway, which follows the old Oregon trail. This is the route over which Ezra Meeker traveled by Oxteam in 1906, and on which many monuments have been erected to commemorate the pioneers of the 1840s and 50s. The other is the Lincoln highway, shown by the lighter line on this map. CHAPTER XXIII A PLAN FOR A MEMORIAL TO THE PIONEERS The ox is passing. In fact, has passed. The old-time spinning wheel and the handloom, the quaint old cobbler's bench with its handmade lasts and shoe pegs, the heavy iron mushpot on the crane in the chimney corner, all have gone. The men and women of sixty years or more ago are passing too. All are late aside for what is new in the drama of life. While these old-time ways and scenes and actors have had their day, yet the experiences and the lessons they taught are not lost to the world. The difference between a civilized and an untutored people lies in the application of experiences. The civilized man builds upon the foundations of the past, with hope and ambition for the future. The savage has neither passed nor aspiration for the future. To keep the flame of patriotism alive, we must keep the memory of the past vividly before us. It was with these thoughts in mind that the expedition to mark the old Oregon trail was undertaken. There was this further thought that on this trail heroic men and women had fought a veritable battle, a battle that rested half a continent from the native race and from another mighty nation contending for mastery in unknown regions of the West. To mark the field of that battle for future generations was a duty waiting for someone. I determined to be the one to fulfill it. The journey back over the old Oregon trail by Oxteam was made during my seventy-seventh year. On January twenty-ninth, 1906, I left my home in Puyallup, Washington, and on November twenty-ninth, 1907, just twenty-two months later to the day, I reached Washington, our national capital, with my cattle and my old prairie schooner. Not all of this time was spent in travel, of course. A good deal of it was taken up in furthering the purpose of the trip by arranging for the erection and dedication of monuments to mark the trail. To accomplish the purpose of marking the trail would have been enough to make the journey worthwhile to me, besides all the interest of freshening my recollections of old times and reviving old memories. There is not space in this book to dwell on all the contrasts that came to my mind constantly, of the unclear forests with the farms and orchards of today, of the unbroken prairie lands with the ranches and farms and cities that now border the old trail from the Rockies to the Mississippi. There is nothing like an ox-team journey I maintain to make a person realize this country, realize its size, the number of its people, and the variety of conditions in which they live, and of occupations by which they live. I wish I could share with every boy and girl in the country the panorama view that unrolled itself before me in this journey from tidewater to tidewater. The ox-team was chosen as a typical reminder of pioneer days. The Oregon trail, it must be remembered, is essentially an ox-team trail. No more effective instrument, therefore, could have been chosen to attract attention, arouse enthusiasm, and secure aid in forwarding the work than this living symbol of the old days. Indeed, too much attention in one sense was attracted. I had scarcely driven the outfit away from my own dooryard before the wagon and wagon cover, and even the map of the old trail on the sides of the cover began to be defaced. First I noticed a name or two written on the wagon bed. Then a dozen more, all stealthily placed there until the hole was so closely covered that there was no room for more. Finally the vandals began carving initials on the wagon bed and cutting off pieces to carry away. Eventually I put a stop to such vandalism by employing special police, posting notices, and nabbing some offenders in the very act. Give me Indians on the plains to contend with. Give me fleas or even the detested sagebrush ticks to burrow into the flesh, but deliver me from cheap notoriety seekers. I had decided to take along one helper, and a man by the name of Herman Goble went as far as the dals with the outfit. There William Martin joined me for the journey across the plains. Martin stayed with me for three years and proved to be faithful and helpful. And now a word as to my oxen. The first team consisted of one seven-year-old ox, twist, and one unbroken five-year-old range-steer, Dave. When we were ready to start, twist weighed fourteen hundred seventy pounds and Dave fifteen hundred sixty. This order of weight was soon changed, and three months time twist gained a hundred and thirty pounds and Dave lost eighty. All this time I fed them with a lavish hand, all the rolled barley I dared give and all the hay they would eat. Dave would hook and kick and perform every other mean trick. Besides he would stick his tongue out from the smallest kind of exertion. He had just been shipped in off the Montana cattle range and had never had a rope on him, unless it was one he was branded. Like a great overgrown booby of a boy, he was flabby in flesh and he could not endure any sort of exertion without discomfort. At one time I became very nearly discouraged with him. Yet this was the ox that made the round trip. He bore his end of the yoke from the tide waters of the Pacific to the tide waters of the Atlantic. At the battery, New York City, and on to Washington City to meet the President. He finally became subdued, though not conquered. At times he became threatening with his horns, and I never did trust his heels. The other ox, twist, died suddenly on August 9th, 1906, and was buried within a few rods of the trail. It was two months to a day after his death before I could find a mate for the Dave ox, and then I had to take another five-year-old steer off the cattle range of Nebraska. This steer, Dandy, evidently had never been handled, but he came of good stock, and with the exception of awkwardness gave me no serious trouble. Dandy was purchased out of the stockyard at Omaha. He then weighed 1,470 pounds, and the day before he went to see the President, he tipped the scales at the 1,760 pound notch. Dandy proved to be a faithful, serviceable ox. On the journey Dave had to be shod 14 times, I think, and he always struggled to get away. Once on the summit of the Rocky Mountains, we had to throw Dave and tie him hard and fast before we could shoe him. It takes two shoes to one foot for an ox, instead of one as for a horse, though the fastening is the same, that is, by nailing into the hoof. At one time Dandy's hoofs became so worn that I could not fasten a shoe on him, and so I had what we called leather boots put on. That left a track like an elephants, but he would not pull well with them on. Besides the oxen, we had a dog, Jim. More will be told of him later. An authentic prairie schooner, a true veteran of the plains, was out of the question. In building the new one, use was made of parts of three old wagons. The woodwork of the wagon had to be new throughout except for one hub, which had done service across the plains in 1853. This hub and the bands, boxes, and other iron parts were from two old-time wagons that had crossed the plains in 1853. They differed somewhat in size and shape, hence the hubs of the fore and hind wheels did not match. The axles were of wood with old-time lynch pins and steel schemes, which called for the use of tar and the tarpucket instead of axle grease. Why? Because if grease were used, the spokes would work loose, and soon the whole wheel would collapse. The bed was of the old prairie schooner style, with the bottom boat-shaped and the ribs on the outside. My first camp for the return journey over the old trail was made in my own dooryard at Palais. This was maintained for several days to give the wagon and team a trial. After the weak points had been strengthened and everything pronounced to be in order, I left home for the long trip. The first drive was to Seattle through the towns of Sumner, Auburn, and Kent. In Seattle I had a host of friends and acquaintances, and I thought that there I could arouse interest in my plan and secure some aid for it. Nothing came of the effort. My closest friends, on the contrary, tried to dissuade me from going. And I may say actually tried to convince others that it would be an act of friendship not to lend any aid to the enterprise. I knew, or thought I knew, that my strength would warrant undertaking the ordeal. I felt sure I could make the trip successfully. But my friends remained unconvinced. So after spending two weeks in Seattle, I shipped my outfit by steamer to Tacoma, only to meet the same spirit there. One pleasant incident broke the monotony. Henry Hewitt of Tacoma drove up alongside my team and said, Seeker, if you get broke out there on the planes, just telegraph me for money to come back on. No, I said, I'd rather hear you say to telegraph for money to go on with. All right, came the response. Have it that way, then. Henry drove off, perhaps not giving the conversation a second thought until he received my telegram two months later, telling him that I had lost an ox and wanted him to send me two hundred dollars. The money was immediately wired to me. Somehow no serious thought of turning back ever entered my mind. When I had once resolved to make the trip, nothing but utter physical disability could deter me. I felt on this point just as I did when I first crossed the planes in 1852. From Tacoma, I shipped again by steamer to Olympia. The end of the old trail is but two miles distant from Olympia at Tumwater, the extreme southern point of Pugent Sound. Here the first American party of home-seekers to Washington rested and settled in 1845. At this point I set a post, and afterwards arranged for a stone to be placed to mark the spot. On the twentieth of February I went to Tonino, south of Olympia, on the train. My outfit was drawn to this place by a horse-team, the oxen being taken along under yoke. Dave was still not an ox, but an unreleased steer. I dared not entrust driving him to other hands, yet I had to go ahead to arrange for the monument and the lecture. The twenty-first of February was a red-letter day. At Tonino I had the satisfaction of helping to dedicate the first monument erected to mark the old trail. The stores were closed, and the school children in a body came over to the dedication. The monument was donated by the Tonino Quarry Company. It is inscribed Old Oregon Trail, 1843 through 57. In the evening I addressed a good-sized audience, and sixteen dollars was received to help on the good work. The spirit of the people, more than the money, was encouraging. At Jehalus, Washington, the commercial club undertook to erect and dedicate a monument. John R. Jackson was the first American citizen to settle north of the Columbia River. One of the daughters, Mrs. Ware, accompanied by her husband, indicated the spot where the monument should be erected and a post was planted. A touching incident was that Mrs. Ware was requested to put the post in place and hold it while her husband tamped the earth around it. At Toledo, the place where the pioneers left the Cowlitz River, on the trail to the sound, another marker was placed by the citizens. From Toledo I shipped the whole outfit by steamer down the Cowlitz River and took passage with my assistance to Portland, thus reversing the order of travel in 1853. We used steam instead of the brawn of stalwart pioneers and Indians to propel the boat. On the evening of March the first, I pitched my tent in the heart of the city of Portland on a grassy vacant lot. On the morning of the 10th of March, I took steamer with my outfit, bound up the Columbia for the Dalles. How wondrous the change! Fifty-four years before, I had come floating down this same stream in a flatboat with a party of poor, heart-sick pioneers. Now I made the trip enjoying cushioned chairs, delicious foods, fine linens, magazines and books, every luxury of civilized life. That night I arrived at the Dalles and drove nearly three-quarters of a mile to a camping-ground near the park. The streets were muddy and the cattle were impatient and walked very fast, which made it necessary for me to tramp through the mud at their heads. We had no supper or even tea as we did not build a fire. It was clear that night, but raining in the morning. Prior to leaving home I had written to the ladies of the Landmark Committee at the Dalles. What should they do but provide a monument already inscribed and in place and notify me that I had been selected to deliver the dedicatory address? The weather of the next day treated us to some hardships that I had missed on the first Overland journey. Ice formed in the camp half an inch thick, and the high wind joined forces with the damper of our stove, which had got out of order to fill the tent with smoke and make life miserable. The fierce cold wind also made it necessary to postpone the dedication for a day and finally to carry it out with less ceremony than had been planned. Nevertheless I felt that the expedition was now fairly started. We had reached the point where the real journey would begin, and the interest shown in the plan by the towns along the way had been most encouraging. CHAPTER 24 ON THE OVERLAND TRAIL AGAIN It was the 14th of March when I drove out of the Dalles to make the long Overland journey. By rail it is 1,734 miles from the Dalles to Omaha, where our work of marking the old trail was to end. By wagon road, the distance is greater, but not much greater, probably 1,800 miles. The load was very heavy and so were the roads. With a team untrained to the road and one of the oxen unbroken, with no experienced ox driver to assist me, and the grades heavy, small wonder if a feeling of depression crept over me. On some long hills we could move only a few rods at a time, and on level roads, with the least warm sun, the unbroken ox would poke out his tongue. We were passing now through the great farming district of Eastern Oregon. The desert over which we had dragged ourselves in those long ago days had been largely turned into great wheat fields. As we drew into camp one night, a young man approached, driving eight harnessed horses. He told me that he had harrowed in thirty-five acres a week that day, and that it was just a common day's work to plow seven acres of land. I recalled my boyhood days when fathers spoke approvingly if I plowed two acres a day, and went to harrow ten acres was the biggest kind of a day's work. I also recalled the time when we cut the wheat with a sickle, or maybe with a hand cradle, and thrust it out with horses on the barn floor. Sometimes we had a fanning mill, and how it would make our arms ache to turn the crank. At other times, if a stiff breeze sprang up, the wheat and chaff would be shaken loose and the chaff would be blown away. If all other means failed, two stout arms at either end of a blanket or a sheet would move the sheet as a fan to clean the wheat. Now we see the great combination harvester garner thirty acres a day, and thrust it as well, and sack it ready for the mill or warehouse. There is no shocking, no stacking or housing. All in one operation, the grain is made ready for market. As we journeyed eastward, the blue mountains came into distant view. Half a day's brisk travel brought us well up toward the snow line. The country became less broken, the soil seemed better, the rainfall had been greater. We began to see red barns and comfortable farmhouses, still set wide apart, though, for the farms are large. In the Walla Walla Valley the scene is different. Smaller farms are the rule, and orchards are to be seen everywhere. We now passed the historic spot where the Whitman Massacre occurred in 1847. Soon afterward we were in camp in the very heart of the thriving city of Walla Walla. It was near here that I had met my father when I crossed by the Natchez Pass Trail in 1854. Another day's travel brought us to Pendleton, Oregon. Here the commercial club took hold with a will and provided funds for a stone monument. On the last day of March it was dedicated with appropriate ceremonies. That evening I drove out to the Indian school in a fierce rainstorm to talk to the teachers and pupils about the Oregon Trail. A night in the wagon without fire, and with only a scant supper, sent my spirits down to zero. Nor did they rise when I learned next morning that the snow had fallen 18 inches deep in the mountains. However, with this news came a warm invitation from the school authorities to use a room they had allotted to us with a stove and to help ourselves to fuel. That cheered us up greatly. There was doubt whether we could cross the Blue Mountains in all this snow. I decided to investigate, so I took the train. About midnight I was landed in the snow at Meacham, with no visible light in the hotel and no track beaten to it. Morning confirmed the report of the storm. Twenty inches of snow had fallen in the mountains. An old mountaineer told me, Yes, it is possible to cross, but I warn you it will be a hard job. It was at once arranged that the second morning thereafter his team should leave Meacham on the way to meet me. But what about a monument, Mr. Burns? I said. Meacham is a historic place, with Lee's encampment in sight. It was in 1834 that the Reverend Jason Lee had crossed the continent with Weiss' second expedition. We have no money, came the quick reply, but we've got plenty of muscle. Send us a stone and I'll warrant you the foundation will be built and the monument put in place. A belated train gave opportunity to return at once to Pendleton, where an appeal for aid to provide an inscribed stone for Meacham was responded to with alacrity. The stone was ordered and a sound night's sleep followed. I quote from my journal. Camp number 31, April 4, 1906. We are now on the snow line of Blue Mountains, 8 p.m. and am writing this by our first really out-of-doors campfire under the spreading boughs of a friendly pine tree. We estimate we have driven 12 miles started from the school at 7 a.m., the first three or four miles over a beautiful farming country. Then we began climbing the foothills, up, up, up, four miles, reaching first snow at three o'clock. True to promise, the mountaineer's team met us on the way to Meacham, but not till we had reached the snow. We were axle-deep in it and had the shovel to use to clear the way when burns came upon us. By night, we were safely encamped at Meacham and the cheering news that the monument had arrived and could be dedicated the next day. The summit of the mountain had not been reached, and the worst tug lay ahead of us. But casting thoughts of this from mind, all hands turned to the monument, which by eleven o'clock was in place. Twist and Dave stood near it, hitched up, and ready for the start as soon as the order was given. Everybody in town was there, the little school coming in a body. After the speech, we moved on to battle with the snow and finally went our way over the summit. The sunshine that was let into our hearts at Le Grand was also refreshing. Yes, we will have a monument, the people responded, and they got one, too, dedicating it while I tarried. We had taken with us an inscribed stone to set up an intersection near the mouth of Lad's Canyon, eight miles out of Le Grand. The school nearby came in a body. The children sang, Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean, after which I talked to the assemblage for a few moments, and the exercises closed with all singing America. Each child brought a stone and casted upon the pile surrounding the base of the monument. The citizens of Baker City lent a willing ear to the suggestion to erect a monument on the high school grounds, although the trail is six miles off to the north, and a fine granite shaft was provided for the high school grounds and was dedicated. A marker was set on the trail. Eight hundred school children contributed an aggregate of sixty dollars to place a children's bronze tablet on this shaft. Two thousand people participated in the ceremony of dedication. News of these events was now beginning to pass along the line ahead. As a result, the citizens in other places began to take hold of the work with the will. Old Mount Pleasant, Dyrke, Huntington, and Vale were other Oregon towns that followed the good lead and erected monuments to mark the old trail. A most gratifying feature of the work was the hardy participation in it of the school children. End of Chapter 24. Chapter 25 of Ox Team Days on the Oregon Trail. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Bologna Times. Ox Team Days on the Oregon Trail by Ezra Maker and Howard R. Driggs. Chapter 25. Trailing on to the South Pass. The Snake River was crossed just below the mouth of the Boise, about where almost fifty years before we had made our second crossing of the river. We were landed on the historic site of Old Fort Boise, established by the Hudson's Bay Company in September 1843. This fort was established for the purpose of preventing the success of the American venture at Fort Hall, a post established earlier in 1834 by Nathaniel J. Wyeth. Wyeth's venture proved a failure and the fort soon passed to his rival, the Hudson's Bay Company. Thus for the time being, the British had rule of the whole of that vast region known as the Inland Empire, then the Oregon Country. Some relics of the Old Fort at Boise were secured. Arrangements were made for planting a doubly inscribed stone to mark the trail and the site of the fort. And afterwards, through the liberality of the citizens of Boise City, a stone was ordered and put in place. At Boise, the capital of Idaho, there were nearly twelve hundred contributions to the monument fund by the pupils of the public schools. The monument stands on the statehouse grounds and is inscribed as the children's offering to the memory of the pioneers. More than three thousand people attended the dedication service. The spirit of cooperation and goodwill towards the enterprise that was manifested at the capital city prevailed all through Idaho. From Parma, the first town we came to on the western edge, to Montpellier, near the eastern boundary, the people of Idaho seemed anxious to do their part in marking the old trail. Besides the places already named, Twin Falls, American Falls, Pocatello, and Soda Springs all responded to the appeal by erecting monuments to mark the old trail. One rather exciting incident happened near Montpellier. A vicious bull attacked my ox team, first from one side and then the other. Then he got in between the oxen and caused them nearly to upset the wagon. I was thrown down in the mix-up, but fortunately escaped unharmed. This incident reminds me of a scrape one of our neighboring trains got into on the plat in 1852 with a wounded buffalo. The train had encountered a large herd of these animals, feeding and traveling at right angles to the road. The older heads of the party, faring a stampede of their teams, had ordered the men not to molest the buffaloes, but to give their whole attention to the care of the teams. One impulsive young fellow would not be restrained. He fired into the herd and wounded a large bull. The maddened bull charged upon a wagon filled with women and children and drawn by a team of mules. He became entangled in the harness and it was caught on the wagon tongue between the mules. The air was full of excitement for a while. The women screamed, the children cried, and the men began to shout. But the practical question was how to dispatch the bull without shooting the mules as well. Trainmen forgot their own teams and rushed to the wagon in trouble. The guns began to pop and the buffalo was finally killed. The wonder is that nobody was harmed. From Cokeville to Pacific Springs, just west of the summit of the Rocky Mountains, at South Pass, by the road and trail we travelled is 158 miles. Ninety miles of this stretch is away from the sound of the locomotive, the click of the telegraph, or the voice of the hello girl. The mountains here are from six to seven thousand feet above sea level with scanty vegetable growth. The country is still almost a solitude, save as here and there a sheepherder or his wagon may be discerned. The sly coyote, the simple antelope, and the cunning sage hen still hold sway as they did when I first traversed the country. The old trail is there and all its grandeur. Why mark that trail, I exclaimed. Miles and miles of it are worn so deep that centuries of storm will not efface it. Generations may pass and the origin of the trail may become a legend, but these marks will remain. We wondered to see the trail worn fifty feet wide and three feet deep, and we hastened to photograph it. But after we were over the crest of the mountain, we saw it a hundred feet wide and fifteen feet deep. The tramp of thousands upon thousands of men and women, the hooves of millions of animals, and the wheels of untold numbers of vehicles, had loosened the soil and the fierce winds had carried it away. In one place we found ruts worn a foot deep into the solid rock. The mountain region was as wild as it had been when I first saw it. One day, while we were still west of the rocky mountains in Wyoming, two antelopes crossed the road about a hundred yards ahead of us, a buck and a doe. The doe soon disappeared, but the buck came near the road and stood gazing at us in wonderment as if to ask, Who the mischief are you? Our dog, Jim, soon scented him, and away they went up the mountain side until Jim got tired and came back to the wagon. Then the antelope stopped on a little eminence on the mountain, and for a long distance we could see him plainly against a background of sky. At another time we actually got near enough to get a shot with our codex of two antelopes, but they were too far off to make good pictures. Our road was leading us obliquely up a gentle hill, gradually approaching nearer to one of the antelopes. I noticed that he would come toward us for a while and then turn around and look the other way for a while. Then we saw what at first we took to be a kid or young antelope, but soon we discovered that it was a coyote wolf prowling on the track of the antelope and watching both of us. Just after the wagon had stopped I saw six big fat sage hens feeding not more than twice the length of the wagon away, just as I had seen them in 1852. The dog, Jim, had several other adventures with animals on the way. First of all he and Dave did not get along very well. Once Dave caught Jim under the ribs with his right horn, which was bent forward and stood out nearly straight and tossed him over some sage brush nearby. Sometimes if the yoke prevented him from getting a chance at Jim with his horn, he would throw out his nose and snort, just like a horse that has been running at play and stops for a moment's rust. But Jim would manage to get even with him. Sometimes we put loose hay under the wagon to keep it out of the storm and Jim would make a bet on it. Then woe betide Dave if he tried to get any of that hay. I saw Jim one day catch the ox by the nose and draw blood. You may readily imagine that the war was renewed between them with greater ranker than ever. They never did become friends. One day Jim got his foot under the will of our wagon, and I was sure it was broken, but it was not, yet he nursed it for a week by riding in the wagon. He never liked to ride in the wagon except during a thunderstorm. Once a sharp clap of thunder frightened Jim so that he jumped from the ground clear into the wagon while it was in motion and landed at my feet. How in the world he could do it, I never could tell. Jim had some exciting experiences with wild animals too. He was always chasing birds, jackrabbits, squirrels, or anything in the world that could get into motion. One day a coyote crossed the road just a few rods behind the wagon, and Jim took after him. It looked as if Jim would overtake him, and, being dubious of the result of a tussle between them, I called Jim back. No sooner had he turned than the coyote turned to and made chase, and there they came, nip and tuck, to see who could run the faster. I think the coyote could, but he did not catch up until they got so near the wagon that he became frightened and scampered away up the slope of a hill. At another time a young coyote came along, and Jim played with him a while, but by and by the little fellow snapped at Jim and made Jim angry, and he bounced on the coyote and gave him a good trouncing. Before we shared him, Jim would get very warm when the weather was hot. Whenever the wagon stopped, he would dig off the top earth or sand that was hot to have a cool bed to lie in, but he was always ready to go when the wagon started. Cokeville was the first town reached in Wyoming. It stands on Smith's Fork, near where that stream empties and a bare river. It is also at the western end of the sublet Cut-Off Trail, from Bear River to Big Sandy Creek, the cut-off that we had taken in 1852. The people of the locality resolved to have a monument at this fork in the old trail, and arrangements were made to erect one out of stone from a local quarry. This good beginning made in the state. We went on, climbing first over the rim of the great basin, then up and across the Rockies. I quote again from my journal. Pacific Springs, Wyoming. Camp No. 79, June 20, 1906. Odometer, 958. Miles, registered from the Dallas, Oregon. Arrived at 6 p.m. and camped near a halter stove and the post office. Ice found in camp during the night. On June 22 we were still camped at Pacific Springs. I had searched for a suitable stone for a monument to be placed on the summit of the range, and, after almost despairing of finding one, had come upon exactly what was wanted. The stone lay alone on the mountainside. It is granite, I think, but mixed with quartz, and is a monument hewed by the hand of nature. Immediately after dinner we hitched the oxen to Mr. Halter's wagon. With the help of four men we loaded the stone. After having dragged it on the ground and over the rocks a hundred yards or so down the mountainside, we estimated its weight at a thousand pounds. There being no stone cutter at Pacific Springs to inscribe the monument, the clerk at the store formed the letters on stiff pasteboard. He then cut them out to make a paper stencil, through which the shape of the letters was transferred to the stone by crayon marks. The letters were then cut out with a cold chisel, deep enough to make a permanent inscription. The stone was so hard that it required steady work all day to cut the 20 letters and figures. The Oregon Trail 1843-57. We drove out of Pacific Springs at a little afternoon and stopped at the summit to dedicate the monument. Then we left the summit and drove 12 miles to the point called Oregon Slow, where we put up the tent after dark. The reader may think of the south pass of the Rocky Mountains as a precipitous defile through narrow canyons and deep gorges. Nothing is farther from the fact. One can drive through this pass for several miles without realizing that the dividing line between the waters of the Pacific and those of the Atlantic has been passed. The road is over a broad open undulating prairie. The approach is by easy grades and the descent going east is scarcely noticeable. All who were tolling west in the old days looked upon this spot as the turning point of their journey. There they felt they had left the worst of the trip behind them. Poor souls that we were. We did not know that our worst mountain climbing lay beyond the summit of the Rockies over the rugged western ranges. End of Chapter 25 Reviving Old Memories of the Trail The sight of Sweetwater River, 20 miles out from South Pass, revived many pleasant memories and some that were sad. I could remember the sparkling clear water, the green skirt of undergrowth along the banks, and the restful camps as we trudged along up the stream so many years ago. And now I saw the same channel, the same hills, and apparently the same waters swiftly passing. But where were the campfires? Where was the herd of gaunt cattle? Where the sound of the din of bells, the hooloing for lost children, or the little groups off on the hillside to bury the dead? All were gone. An oppressive silence prevailed as we drove to the river and pitched our camp within a few feet of the bank where we could hear the rippling waters passing and see the fish leaping in the eddies. We had our choice of a camping place just by the skirt of a refreshing green brush with an opening to give full view of the river. It had not been so 54 years before, with hundreds of camps ahead of you. The traveler then had to take what he could get, and in many cases that was a place far back from the water and removed from other conveniences. The sight and smell of carrion, so common in camping places during that first journey, also were gone. No bleached bones even showed where the exhausted dumb brute had died. The graves of the dead pioneers had all been leveled by the hoofs of stock and the laps of time. The country remains as it was in 52. There the trail is to be seen miles and miles ahead, warm, bare, and deep, with but one narrow track where there used to be a dozen, and with the beaten path the vegetation has not yet recovered from the scourge of passing hooves and tires of wagons years ago. As in 1852, when the summit was passed, I felt that my task was much more than half done, though half the distance was scarcely compassed. On June 30th, at about 10 o'clock, we encountered a large number of big flies that ran the cattle nearly wild. I stood on the wagon tongue for miles to reach them with the whip stock. The cattle were so excited that we did not stop at noon but drove on. By half past two, we camped at a farmhouse, the Split Rock Post Office, the first we had found in 100 miles of travel since leaving Pacific Springs. The Devil's Gate, a few miles distant, is one of the two best known landmarks on the trail. Here, as at Split Rock, the mountain seems to have been split apart, leaving an opening a few rods wide, through which the Sweetwater River pours in a veritable turn. The river first approaches to within a few hundred feet of the gap, then suddenly curves away from it, and after winding through the valley for a half a mile or so, a quarter of a mile away, it takes a straight shoot, and makes the plunge through the canyon. Those who have had the impression that the emigrants drove their teams through this gap are mistaken, for it's a feat no mortal man has done or can do any more than he could drive up the falls of the Niagara. This year, on my 1906 trip, I did clamor through on the left bank over Boulder's head high under shelving rocks. I ate some ripe gooseberries from the bushes growing on the border of the river, and plucked some beautiful wild roses, wondering the while why those wild roses grew where nobody would see them. The gap through the mountains looked familiar as I spied it from the distance, but the roadbed to the right I had forgotten. I longed to see this place, for here, somewhere under the sands, lies all that was mortal of my brother Clark Meeker, drowned in the Sweetwater in 1854. Independence Rock is the other most famous landmark. We drove over to the rock, a distance of six miles from the Devil's Gate, and camped at ten o'clock for the day. This famous boulder covers about thirty acres. We groped our way among the inscriptions, to find some of them nearly obliterated, and many legible only in part. We walked all the way around the stone, nearly a mile. The huge rock is of irregular shape, and it is more than a hundred feet high, the walls being so precipitous, that a scent to the top is possible in only two places. Unfortunately, we could not find Fremont's inscription. Of this inscription, Fremont writes in his journal of the year 1842, August 23. Yesterday evening, we reached our encampment at Rock Independence, where I took some astronomical observations. Here, not unmindful of the custom of early travelers and explorers in our country, I engraved on this rock of the far west, and its symbol of the Christian faith. Among the thickly inscribed names, I made on the hard granite the impression of a large cross. It stands amidst the names of many, who have long since found their way to the grave, and for whom the huge rock is a giant gravestone. On Independence Day 1906, we left Independence Rock. Our noon stop was on Fish Creek, eleven miles away. The next night, we camped on the North Platte River. Fifty-four years before, I had left the old stream about fifteen miles below, here on my way to the west. Next day, while nooning several miles out from Casper, we heard the whistle of a locomotive. It was the first we had heard for nearly three hundred miles. As soon as lunch was over, I left the wagon and walked to Casper ahead of the team to select a camping ground, secure feed, and get the mail. A special meeting of the Commercial Club of Casper was held that evening, and I laid the matter of building a monument before the members. They resolved to build one, opened the subscription out once, and appointed a committee to carry the work forward. Since then, a monument twenty-five feet high has been erected at a cost of fifteen hundred dollars. Glen Rock is a small village, but the ladies there met and resolved they would have, as nice a monument as Casper's. One enthusiastic lady said, We will inscribe it ourselves if no stone cutter can be had. At Douglas, also an earnest, well-organized effort to wreck the monument was well in hand before we drove out of town. As we journeyed on down the Platte, we passed thrifty ranches and thriving little towns. It was hang time, and the moors were busy cutting alfalfa. The hay was being stacked. Generous ranchers invited us to help ourselves to the garden stuff. All along the way was a spirit of good cheer and hearty welcome. Fort Laramie brings a flood of reminiscences to the western pioneer and his children. This old post, first a trapper stockade, then in 1849 a soldier's encampment, stood at the end of the Black Hills and at the edge of the plains. Here the Laramie River and the Platte meet. The fort was a halfway station on the trail. From the time we crossed the Missouri in May 1852, until we reached the Old Fort, no place name was so constantly in the minds of the emigrants as that of Fort Laramie. Here in 52 we eagerly looked for letters that never came. Perhaps our friends and relatives had not written. Perhaps they had written, but the letters were lost or sidetracked somewhere in the states. As for hearing from home, for that we had to wait patiently until the long journey should end. Then a missive might reach us by way of the isthmus or maybe by sailing vessel around Cape Horn. There is no vestige of the Old Traders camp or the first United States fort left. The new fort, not a fort, but an encampment, covers a space of 30 or 40 acres, with all sorts of buildings and ruins. One of the old barracks, 300 feet long, was in good preservation in 1906, being utilized by the owner, Joseph Wilde, for a store, post office, hotel, and residence. The guardhouse, with its grim iron door and 20 inch concrete walls, is also fairly well preserved. One frame building of two stories we were told was transported by Ox Team from Kansas City at a cost of $100 a ton. The old place is crumbling away, slowly disappearing with the memories of the past. From Fort Laramie, onward into Western Nebraska, we pass through a succession of thriving cities. The plan has been turned to splendid service through the process of irrigation. Great canals lead its life-giving waters out to the thirsty plains that now blossom as the roads. Rich fields of grain and hay and beets cover the valley. Great sugar factories, railroads, business blocks, and fine homes tell of the prosperity that has leaped out of the parched plains we trailed across. Scott's Bluff, however, is one of the old landmarks that has not changed. It still looms up, as of old, on the south side of the river, about 800 feet above the trail. The origin of the name Scott's Bluff is not definitely known. Tradition says, a trapper named Scott, while returning to the states, was robbed and stripped by the Indians. He crawled to these bluffs and there famished. His bones were afterwards found and buried. These quoted words were written by a passing emigrant on the spot, June 11, 1852. Another version of the tale is that Scott fell sick and was abandoned by his traveling companions. After having crawled almost 40 miles, he finally died near the bluff that bears his name. This occurred prior to 1830. From the bluff, we drove as directly as possible to a historic grave, two miles out from the town and on the railroad right away. In this grave lies a pioneer mother who died August 15, 1852, nearly six weeks after I had passed over the ground. Some thoughtful friend had marked her grave by standing a wagon tire upright on it. But for this, the grave, like thousands and thousands of others, would have passed out of sight and mind. The tire bore this simple inscription, Rebecca Winters, aged 50 years. The hoofs of stock tramped the sunken grave and trod it into dust, but the arch of the tire remained to defy the strength of thoughtless hands that would have removed it. Finally, the railroad surveyors came along. They might have run the track over the lonely grave but for the thoughtfulness of the man who wielded the compass. He changed the line, that the resting place of the pioneer mother should not be disturbed, and the grave was protected and enclosed. The railroad officials did more. They telegraphed word of the finding of this grave to their representative in Salt Lake City. He gave the story to the press. The descendants of the pioneer mother read it and they provided a monument, lovingly inscribed, to mark the spot. About 20 miles from Scott's Bluff stands old chimney rock. It is a curious freak of nature and a famous landmark on the trail. It covers perhaps 12 acres and rises cone-shaped for 200 feet to the base of the spire-like rock, the chimney, that rests upon it and rises a full 100 feet more. A local story runs that an army officer trained a cannon on the spire shot off about 30 feet from the top and for this was court-martialed and dishonorably discharged from the army. I could get no definite confirmation of the story, though it was repeated again and again. It seems incredible that an intelligent man would do such an act, and if he did it, he deserved severe punishment. It is saddening to think of the many places where equally stupid things have been done to natural wonders. Coming through Idaho, I had noticed that at Soda Springs the hand of the vandal had been at work. That interesting phenomenon, Steamboat Spring, the wondermen of all of us in 1852, with its intermittent spouting, had been tampered with and had ceased to act. End of Chapter 26 Chapter 27 of Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Jim Ladd of Asheville, North Carolina Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail by Ezra Meeker and Howard Driggs Chapter 27 A Bit of Bad Luck Old Oregon Trail Monument Expedition, Brady Island, Nebraska, August 9, 1906 Camp number 120, odometer 1536 and 5 eighths Yesterday morning twist date is breakfast as usual and showed no signs of sickness until we were on the road two or three miles when he began to put his tongue out and his breathing became heavy. But he leaned on the yoke more heavily than usual and determined to pull the whole load. I finally stopped, put him on the offside, gave him the long end of the yoke, and tied his head back with that halter strap to the chain, but to no purpose, for he pulled by the head very heavily. I finally on yoked, gave him a quart of lard, a gill of vinegar, and a handful of sugar, but all to no purpose, for he soon fell down and in two hours was dead. Such is the record in my journal of this noble animal's death, I think he died from eating some poisonous plant. When we started, twist weighed 1,470 pounds. After we had crossed two ranges of mountains, had wallowed in the snows of the blue mountains, followed the tortuous rocky canyon of Burnt River, and gone through the deep sands of this snake, this ox had gained 137 pounds, and weighed 1,607 pounds. While laboring under the short end of the yoke that gave him 55% of the draft, and an increased burden, he would keep his end of the yoke a little ahead, no matter how much the mate might be urged to keep up. There are pronounced individualities in animals, as well as in men. I might have said virtues too, and why not? If an animal always does his duty, and is faithful and industrious, why not recognize this character, even if he is nothing but an ox? To understand the achievements of this ox, it is necessary to know the burden that he carried. The wagon weighed 1,430 pounds, had wooden axles and wide track, and carried an average load of 800 pounds. Along with an unbroken four-year-old steer, a natural-born shirk, twist had hauled the wagon 1,776 miles, and he was in better working trim just before he died than when the trip began. And yet, am I sure that at some points I did not abuse him? What about coming up, out of Little Canyon, or rather up the steep, rocky steps of stones like stairs, when I used the goad, and he pulled a shoe off his feet? Was I merciful then, or did I exact more than I ought? I can see him yet, in my mind, on his knees, holding the wagon from rolling into the canyon, till the wheel could be blocked and the brakes set. Then, when bidden to start the load, he did not flinch. He was the best ox I ever saw, without exception, and his loss nearly broke up the expedition. His like I could not find again. He had a decent burial. A headboard marks his grave, and tells of the aid he rendered in this expedition to perpetuate the memory of the old Oregon Trail. What should I do, abandon the work? No. But I could not go on with one ox. So a horse team was hired to take us to the next town, Gothenburg, 13 miles distant. The lone ox was led behind the wagon. Again, I hired a horse team to haul the wagon to Lexington. At Lexington, I thought the loss of the ox could be repaired by buying a pair of heavy cows, and breaking them into work. So I purchased two out of a band of 200 cattle. Why, yes, of course they will work, I said in reply to a bystanders question. I have seen whole teams of cows on the plains in 52. Yes, we will soon have a team. I declared with all the confidence in the world, only we can't go very far in a day with a raw team, especially in this hot weather. But one cow would not go at all. We could neither lead her nor drive her. Put her in the yoke, and she would stand stock still, just like a stubborn mule. Hitched the yoke by a strong rope behind the wagon with a horse team to pull, and she would brace her feet and actually slide along, but would not lift a foot. I never saw such a brute before, and I hope I never shall again. I have broken wild fighting kicking steers to the yoke and enjoyed the sport, but from a sullen tame cow deliver me. Won't you take her back and give me another, I asked the seller. Yes, I will give you that red cow, one I had rejected as unfit, but not one of the others. What is this cow worth to you? $30. So I dropped $10, having paid $40 for the first cow. Besides, I had lost the better part of a day and experienced a good deal of vexation, if I could only have had Twist back again. The fact gradually became apparent that the loss of that fine ox was almost irreparable. I could not get track of an ox anywhere, nor even of a steer large enough to mate the Dave ox. Besides, Dave always was a fool. Twist would watch my every motion, and mine by the wave of a hand, but Dave never minded anything except to shirk hard work. Twist seemed to love his work, and would go freely all day. It was brought home to me more forcibly than ever that in the loss of the Twist ox, I had almost lost the whole team. When I drove out from Lexington behind a hired horse team that day, with the Dave ox tagging my own behind and sometimes pulling on his halter, and when it's an unbroken cow in leading, it may easily be guessed that the pride of anticipated success died out, and deep discouragement seized upon me. I had two yolks, one a heavy ox yolk, the other a light cow's yolk, but the cow I thought could not be worked alongside the ox in the ox yolk, nor the ox with the cow in the cow yolk. I was without a team, but with a double encumbrance. Yes, the ox has passed, for in all Nebraska I was unable to find even one yolk. I trudged along, sometimes behind the lead cattle, wondering in my mind whether or not I had been foolish to undertake this expedition to perpetuate the memory of the old organ trail. Had I not been rebuffed at the first by a number of businessmen who pushed the subject to side with, I have no time to look into it. Hadn't I been compelled to pass several towns where not even three persons could be found to act on the committee? And then there was the experience of the constant suspicion that there was some graft to be discovered, some lurking speculation. All this could be borne in patience, but when coupled with it came the virtual loss of the team, is it strange that my spirits went down below a normal point? Then came the compensatory thought of what had been accomplished. Four states had responded cordially. Back along the line of more than 1500 miles already stood many sentinels, mostly granite, to mark the trail and keep alive the memory of the pioneers. Moreover, I recall the enthusiastic reception in so many places, the outpouring of contributions from thousands of school children, the willing hands of the people that built these monuments, and the more than 20,000 people attending the dedication ceremonies. These heartening recollections made me forget the loss of twist, the recalcitrant cow, and the dilemma that confronted me. I awakened from my reverie in a more cheerful mood. Do the best you can, I said to myself, and don't be cast down. My spirits rose almost to the point of exaltation again. We soon reached the beautiful city of Karni, named after old Fort Karni, which stood across the river, and were given a fine camping place in the center of the town. It was under the shade trees that lined the streets, and we had a fresh cut greensward upon which to pitch our tents. People came in great numbers to visit the camp and express their appreciation of our enterprise. Later, a monument was erected in the city. At Grand Island, I found public sentiment in favor of taking action. It was decided, however, that the best time for the dedication would be in the following year, upon the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the settlement. I was a little disappointed in the delay, but felt that good seed was sown. Grand Island, with its stately rows of shade trees, its modest, tasteful homes, the bustle and stirrer on its business streets, with the constant passing of trains, shrieking of whistles, and ringing of bells, presented a striking contrast to the scene I saw that June day in 1852, when I passed over the ground near where the city stands. Vast herds of buffalo then grazed on the hills, or leisurely crossed our track, and at times obstructed our way, and herds of antelope watched from vantage points. But now the buffalo and antelope have disappeared. The Indian likewise is gone. Instead of the parched plain of 1852, with its fierce clouds of dust rolling up the valley and engulfing whole trains, we saw a landscape of smiling, fruitful fields, inviting groves of trees and contented homes. From Grand Island I went to Fremont, Nebraska, to head the procession in the semi-centennial celebration in honor of the founding of that city. In the procession I worked the ox and cow together. From Fremont I went on to Lincoln. All the while I was searching for an ox or a steer large enough to mate the Dave ox, but without a veil. Finally, after looking over a thousand head of cattle in the stockyards of Omaha, I found a five-year-old steer, dandy, which I broke in on the way to Indianapolis. This ox proved to be very satisfactory. He never kicked or hooked, and was always in good humor. Dave and Dandy made good teammates. As dumb as an ox is a very common expression, dating back as far as my memory goes. In fact, the ox is not so dumb, as a casual observer might think. Dave and Dandy knew me as far as they could see. Sometimes when I went to them in the morning, Dave would lift his head, bow his neck, stretch out his body, and perhaps extend a foot as if to say, good morning to you, glad to see you. Dandy was driven on the streets of 100 cities and towns, and I never knew him to be at a loss to find his way to the stable or watering trough once he had been there and was started on a return trip. I arrived at Indianapolis on January 5, 1907, 11 months and 7 days from the date of departure from my home at Puyallup, 2600 miles away. End of Chapter 27. Chapter 28 of Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Gary McFadden. Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail by Ezra Meeker and Howard Driggs. Chapter 28. Driving on to the Capital After passing the Missouri and leaving the trail behind me, I somehow had the foreboding that I might be mistaken for a faker, looked upon as an adventurer, and I shrank from the ordeal. My hair had grown long on the trip across, my boots were somewhat the worst for wear, and my old fashion clothes, understood well enough by pioneers along the trail, were dilapidated. I was not the most presentable specimen for every sort of company. Already I had been compelled to say that I was not a corn doctor, or any kind of doctor, that I did not have patent medicine to sell, and that I was not soliciting contributions to support the expedition. The first of March 1907 found me on the road going eastward from Indianapolis. I had made up my mind that Washington should be the objective point. For my main purpose, to secure the building of a memorial highway, Congress, I felt, would be a better field to work in than out on the hopelessly long stretch of the trail, where one man's span of life would certainly pass before the work could be accomplished. But I thought it well to make a campaign of education to get the work before the general public so that Congress might know about it. Therefore a route was laid out to occupy the time until the first of December, just before Congress would again assemble. The route lay through Indianapolis, Dayton, Cleveland, Columbus, Buffalo, Albany, New York, Trenton, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, to Washington. For the most part, I received a warm welcome all along the route. Dayton treated me generously. Mayor Badger of Columbus wrote, giving me the freedom of the city, and Mayor Tom Johnson wrote to his chief of police to treat Mr. Meeker as the guest of the city of Cleveland, which was done. At Buffalo, a benefit performance for one of the hospitals, in the shape of a circus, was in preparation. A part of the elaborate program was an attack by Indians on an immigrant train, the Indians being representative young men of the city. At this juncture I arrived in the city and was besot to go and represent the train, for which they would pay me. No, not for pay, I said, but I will go. So there was quite a realistic show in the ring that afternoon and evening, and the hospital received more than a thousand dollars benefit. Near a night, someone said that I had better take to the towpath on the canal to save the distance and to avoid going over the hill. It was against the law, he added, but everybody did it and no one would object. So when we came to the forks of the road, I followed the best beaten track and was soon traveling along on the level, hard but narrow way, the towpath. All went well that day. We were not so fortunate the next day, however, when a boat with three men, two women, and three long-eared mules was squarely meant, the mules being on the towpath. The mules took fright, got into a regular mix-up, broke the harness, and went up the towpath at a 240 gate. As I had walked into a night of the night before, I did not see the sight or hear the war of words that followed. The men ordered Martin to take that outfit off the towpath. His answer was that he could not do it without upsetting the wagon. The men said if he couldn't, they would do it quick enough. They started toward the wagon, evidently intent upon executing their threat, meanwhile swearing at the top of their voices, while the women scolded in chorus, one of them fairly shrieking. My old muzzle-loading rifle that we had carried across the planes lay handy. When the men started toward him, Martin picked up the rifle to show fight, and called on the dog-jim to take hold of the men. As he raised a gun to use it as a club, one of the boatmen threw up his hands, bawling at the top of his voice, Don't shoot, don't shoot! He forgot to mix in oaths and slunk out of sight behind the wagon. The others also drew back. Jim showed his teeth, and a truce followed. With but little inconvenience, the mules were taken off the path, and the ox-game was driven past. The fun of it was that the gun that had spread such consternation hadn't been loaded for more than twenty-five years. The sight of it alone was enough for the three stalwart braves of the canal. It took New York to cap the climax, to bring me all sorts of experiences, sometimes with the police, sometimes with the gaping crowds, and sometimes at City Hall. Mayor McClellan was not in the city when I arrived, but the acting mayor said that, while he could not grant me a permit to come in, he would have the police commissioner instruct his men not to molest me. Either the instructions were not general enough, or else the men paid no attention, for when I got down as far as 161st Street on Amsterdam Avenue, a policeman interfered and ordered my driver to take the team to the police station, which he very properly refused to do. It was after dark, and I had just gone around the corner to engage quarters for the night when this occurred. Returning, I saw the young policeman attempt to move the team, but as he didn't know how, they wouldn't budge a peg, whereupon he arrested my driver and took him away. Another policeman tried to coax me to drive the team down to the police station. I said, no, sir, I will not. He couldn't drive the team to the station, and I wouldn't, and so there we were. To arrest me would make matters worse, for the team would be left on the street without anyone to care for it. Finally the officer got out of the way, and I drove the team to the stable. He followed, with a large crowd tagging after him. Soon the captain of the precinct arrived, called his man off, and ordered my driver released. It appeared that there was an ordinance against allowing cattle to be driven on the streets of New York. Of course, this was intended to apply to loose cattle, but the policeman interpreted it to mean any cattle, and they had the clubs to enforce their interpretation. I was in the city and couldn't get out without subjecting myself to arrest, according to their view of the law, and in fact I didn't want to get out. I wanted to drive down Broadway from one end to the other, and I did, a month later. All hands said nothing short of an ordinance by the Board of Aldermen would clear the way, so I tackled the Aldermen. The New York Tribune sent a man over to City Hall to intercede for me. The New York Carol did the same thing. And so it came about that the Aldermen passed an ordinance granting me the right of way for thirty days, and also endorsed my work. I thought my trouble was over when that ordinance was passed, not so. The Mayor was absent, and the Acting Mayor could not sign an ordinance until after ten days it elapsed. The City Attorney came in and said the Aldermen had exceeded their authority, as they could not legally grant a special privilege. Then the Acting Mayor said he would not sign the ordinance, but if I would wait until the next meeting of the Aldermen, if they did not rescind the ordinance, it would be certified, as he would not veto it. Considering that no one was likely to test the legality of the ordinance, he thought I would be safe in acting as though it were legal. Just thirty days from the time I had the bother with the policeman, and having incurred two hundred and fifty dollars of extra expense, I drove down Broadway from one hundred and sixty first street to the battery, without getting into any serious scrape, except with one automobilist who became angered, but afterwards was as good as pie. Thirty days satisfied me with New York. The crowds were so great that the congestion of traffic always followed my presence, and I would be compelled to move. One day, when I went to City Hall Park to have my team photographed with the Greeley statue, I got away only by the help of the police, and even then with great difficulty. A trip across Brooklyn Bridge to Brooklyn was also made, and then, two days before leaving the city, I came near to meeting a heavy loss. Somehow I got sandwiched in on the east side of New York in the congested district of the foreign quarter, and at nightfall drove into a stable, put the oxen in the stalls and, as usual, the dog Jim in the wagon. The next morning Jim was gone. The stableman said he had left the wagon a few moments after I had, and had been stolen. The police accused a stableman of being parties to the theft, in which I think they were right. Money could not buy that dog. He was an integral part of the expedition, always on the alert, always watchful of the wagon during my absence, and always willing to mind what I bade him do. He had had more adventures on this trip than any other member of the outfit. First he was tossed over high brush by the ox Dave, then shortly after he was pitched headlong over a barbed wire fence by an irate cow. Next came a fight with a wolf. Following this came a narrow escape from a rattlesnake in the road. Also a trolley car ran on to him, rolling him over and over again until he came out as dizzy as a drunken man. I thought he was a goner that time for sure, but he soon straightened up. Finally in the streets of Kansas City, he was run over by a heavy truck while fighting with another dog. The other dog was killed outright, while Jim came near to having his neck broken. He lost one of his best fighting teeth and had several others broken. I sent him to a veterinary surgeon, and curiously enough he made no protest while having the broken teeth repaired or extracted. There was no other way to find Jim than to offer a reward. I did this and feel sure I paid twenty dollars to one of the parties to the theft. The fellow was brazen enough, also, to demand pay for keeping him. That was the time when I got up and talked pointedly. But I had my faithful dog back, and I kept him more closely by me while I was making the rest of my tour. Six years later a chance that I lost him. While we were waiting at the station I let him out of the car for a few minutes. The train started unexpectedly and Jim was left behind. A good reward was offered for him, but nobody ever came to collect it. The end of the long trail. I was glad enough to get out of the crowds of New York. It had given me some rich experiences, but that big city is no place for ox teams. It was good to get away from the jam in the hurry out onto the country roads. On the way to Philadelphia, between Newark and Elizabeth City, New Jersey, at a point known as Lyons Farm, the old Meeker Homestead stood. Built in the years 1676. Here the meeker tribe, as we call ourselves, came out to greet me, nearly 40 strong. On the way through Maryland we saw a good many oxen, some of them driven on the road. The funny part of it was to have the owners try to trade their scrawny teams or Dave and Dandy, offering money to boot, or two yoke for one. They had never before seen such large oxen as Dave and Dandy, and for that matter I never had myself. Dandy was of unusual size, and Dave was probably the largest trained ox in the United States then. He was sixteen hands high, and eight feet in girth. I reached Washington, the capital, just twenty-two months to the day from the time I had left home in Washington, the state. As soon as arrangements could be made, I went to see President Roosevelt. Senator Piles and Representative Cushman of the Washington Congressional Delegation introduced me to the President in the Cabinet Room. Mr. Roosevelt manifested a lively interest in the work of marking the trail. He did not need to be told that the trail was a battlefield, or that the Oregon pioneers who moved out and occupied the Oregon country while it was yet in dispute between Great Britain and the United States were heroes. When I suggested that they were the winners of the further West, he fairly snatched these words from my lips. He went even further than I had dreamed of or hoped for, in invoking government aid to carry on the work. Addressing Senator Piles, the President said with emphasis, I am in favor of this work to mark this trail. If you will bring before Congress a measure to accomplishment, I am with you and will give my support to it thoroughly. Mr. Roosevelt thought the suggestion of a memorial highway should first come from the states through which the trail runs. However, it would be possible to get congressional aid to mark the trail. In any event, he felt it ought to be done speedily. Unexpectedly, the President asked, Where is your team? I want to see it. Upon being told that it was nearby, without ceremony and without his hat, he was soon alongside, asking questions faster than they could be answered. Not idle questions, but such as showed his intense desire to get real information, bottom facts. President Roosevelt was a man who loved the pioneers and who understood the true West. His warm welcome remained in my heart as one of the richest rewards of the many that have come his compensation for my struggle to carry out my dream. On the 8th of January, 1908, I left Washington, shipping my outfit over the Allegheny Mountains to McKeesport, Pennsylvania. From McKeesport I drove to Pittsburgh, and there put the team into winter quarters to remain until the 5th of March. Then I shipped by boat on the Ohio River to Cincinnati, stopping in that city but one day, and from there I shipped by rail to St. Louis, Missouri. My object now was to retrace the original trail from its beginnings to where it joined the Oregon Trail over which I had traveled. This trail properly ran by water from St. Louis to Independence. Thence westward along the Platt to Fort Laramie. At Pittsburgh and adjacent cities, I was received cordially and encouraged to believe that the movement to make a great national highway had taken a deep hold in the minds of the people. I was not so much encouraged in St. Louis. The city officers were unwilling to do anything to further the movement. But before I left the city, the automobile club and the Daughters of the American Revolution did take formal action endorsing the work. St. Louis had really been the head and center of the movement that finally established the original Oregon Trail. It was from here that Louis and Clark started on the famous expedition of 1804 to 105 that opened up the Northwest. Here was where Weif, Bonneville, and others of the early travelers on the trail had outfitted. The drive from St. Louis to Jefferson City, the capital of the state of Missouri, was tedious and without result other than that of reaching the point where the actual driving began in early days. Governor Folk signified his approval of the work and I was given a cordial hearing by the citizens. On the 4th of April, I arrived at Independence, Missouri, which is generally understood to be the eastern terminus of the Santa Fe Trail. I found, however, that many of the pioneers had shipped further up the Missouri, some driving from Atchison, some from Leavenworth, others from St. Joseph. At a little later period, multitudes had set out from Canesville, now Council Bluffs, where Whitman and Parker made their final break with civilization and boldly turned their faces westward for the unknown land of Oregon. The Santa Fe and Oregon trails from independence in Kansas City were identical for 40 miles or thereabouts, out to the town of Gardner, Kansas. From there, the Santa Fe Trail bore onto the west and finally to the southwest, while the Oregon Trail bore steadily onto the northwest and encountered the Platte Valley below Grant Island in what is now Nebraska. At the forks of the road, the historian Chittenden says, a simple signborn was seen which carried the words road to Oregon, thus pointing the way for 2,000 miles. No such signborn ever before pointed the road for so long a distance, and probably another such never will. I determined to make an effort to find the spot where this historic sign once stood, and if possible, to plant a marker there. Friends in Kansas City, one of whom I had not met for 60 years, took me by automobile to Gardner, where, after a search of a couple of hours, two old residents were found who were able to point out the spot. These men were Mr. V. R. Ellis and Mr. William J. Ott, age respectively, 77 and 82 years, whose residents in the near vicinity dated back nearly 50 years. The point is at the intersection of Washington Street and Central Street in the town of Gardner. I plan to drive up the Missouri and investigate the remaining five prongs of the trail, Leavenworth, Atchison, St. Joseph's, Canesville, and Independence. I drove to Topeka, the capital city of Kansas, where I arrived on the 11th of May, 1908. There the trail crosses the Kansas River under the very shadow of the Statehouse, not three blocks away, yet only a few know of it. On the 23rd of May, the team arrived at St. Joseph, Missouri, a point where many pioneers had outfitted in early days. While public sentiment was there in hardy accord with the work of marking the trail, yet plainly it would be a hard tug to get the people together on a plan to erect a monument. Times were very tight to undertake such a work, came the response from so many that no organized effort was made. The committee of Congress in charge of the bill appropriating $50,000 to mark the trail, by this time had taken action, and it made a favorable report. Such a report was held to be almost equivalent to the passage of a bill. So, all things considered, the conclusion was reached to suspend operations, ship the team home, and for the time being take a rest from the work. I had been out from home 28 months, lacking but five days. Hence it a small wonder that I concluded to listen to the inner longings to get back home, and home life. On the 26th of May, I shipped the outfit by rail from St. Joseph to Portland, Oregon, where I arrived on the 6th day of June 1908, and went into camp on the same grounds I used in March 1906 on my outward trip. As I returned home over the Oregon short line, I crossed the old trail in many places. This time, however, it was with Dave and Dandy quietly chewing their cut in the car, while I enjoyed all the luxuries of an overland train. I began vividly to realize the wide expansive country covered, as we passed first one, and then another of the camping places. I was led to wonder whether or not I should have undertaken the work, if I could have seen the trail stretched out, as I saw it like a panorama from the car window. I sometimes think not. All of us at times undertake things that looked bigger after completion than they did in our vision of them. We go into ventures without fully counting the cost. Perhaps that was the case to a certain extent in this venture. The work did look larger from the car window than from the camp. Nevertheless, I have no regrets to express or exaltation to proclaim. The trail has not yet been fully or properly marked. We have made a good beginning, however, and let us hope the end will soon become an accomplished fact. Monumenting the old Oregon trail means more than mere preservation and memory of the Great Highway. It means the building up of loyalty, of patriotism, as well as the teaching of our history in a form never to be forgotten. Words cannot express my deep feeling of gratitude for the royal welcome given me by the citizens of Portland. I was privileged to attend the reunion of the two thousand pioneers who would just assemble for their annual meeting. The drive from Portland to Seattle is also one long to be remembered. My friends and neighbors met me with the kindliest welcome. On the 18th day of July 1908, I drove into the city of Seattle and the long journey was ended. My dream of retracing the way over the old trail had come true. End of Chapter 29 End of Oxteen Days on the Oregon Trail by Ezra Meeker and Howard Driggs Recording by James Christopher JxChristopher at yahoo.com September 2009