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Historic Trails Blogs

Short accounts of historic trails of the world and the people who traveled them for trade or migration.




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Margaret Frink reaches Sacramento

11/30/2020

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Picture
PictureAlkali flats on the Forty Mile Desert.
Roger M McCoy


    Crossing the driest part of present day Wyoming required carrying enough water to last the seventy miles to the Green River. Margaret Frink wrote that they began the first hazardous twenty-one mile stretch at five in the afternoon so they could travel in the cool of the evening and through the night. She described traveling at night: “the moon shone bright as day and we were in good spirits. A violinist played while others sang, and the long night passed very pleasantly.” They reached a small flowing tributary of the Green River about two A.M. They filled their five-gallon water bottles and stayed there until morning.
    They still faced a forty-mile stretch of land with no water. Margaret Frink wrote, “At six o’clock [A.M.] we started being anxious to get to the Green River as soon as possible.” The wagons reached the west edge of the desert late in the day. From there they could see the Green River several miles ahead. But first they had to get all the wagons down from the bluffs and onto the river plain below. This feat required lowering the wagons cautiously with ropes while the people and animals walked down through narrow gorges on a layer of dust twelve to twenty inches deep. Clouds of blinding, choking dust rose as they passed through the gorges down to the river plain.
    The plain below the bluffs was crowded with immigrants waiting to be ferried across the Green River by one of the two flatboats and rowed across by the ferrymen. Mrs. Frink tells that the poor horses had to swim across, and the water was “high, deep, swift, blue, and cold as ice.” The animals were reluctant to enter the water and one of the Frink’s animals utterly refused. The ferryman finally agreed, against his better judgement, to ferry that one horse across. The other animals had to be led behind the boat. After the crossing all the animals were allowed to rest and graze.
    A disturbing development occurred the next day. Mr. Frink became ill with what she called “mountain fever” and could not walk. He climbed into the wagon with great difficulty and stayed in the bed. They could not make it onto the ferry and their wagon had to wait alone through the night. Margaret Frink told of her feeling of loneliness and helplessness a thousand miles from civilization. For the first time Mrs Frink mentions being frightened. The next morning Mr. Frink had improved somewhat but was still confined to his bed. They crossed the river in the afternoon, but were unable to proceed. After three days Mr. Frink began to improve, but Mrs. Frink called it “the darkest period of our whole journey.” After five days they began to travel again and went twelve miles, and their rate of progress returned to a “normal” twelve to twenty miles per day. In time they were able to rejoin the wagon train.
    In two more weeks they passed a pool of soda water on a mound about five feet high near the site of present day Soda Springs, Idaho. They drove beside it and Mrs. Frink dipped a cup of soda water “without leaving my seat in the wagon. She learned later from other travelers that the soda water made a very light biscuit. [Note: the soda springs the immigrants encountered is a natural spring of carbonated water that is rich in sodium bicarbonate, i.e. baking soda, along with several other minerals derived from an underlying aquifer in lava beds.]
    After several days of travel beyond the soda springs, Margaret Frink wrote about finally reaching the headwaters of the Humboldt River, the migrants highway across what is present day Nevada. Springs flowed from the ground and the grass was plentiful so they encamped for the night. From this point they knew water would be available for most of the 250 miles to the Humboldt Sink, an immense, barren, dry lake bed that they must cross…the so-called Forty Mile Desert.
    After a few days following the Humboldt River, Mrs. Frink told what happened to the young boy, Robert, who traveled with them. “Robert took up a horse near the road, it having the appearance of being lost, and by so doing got separated from us.” Mrs. Frink was very anxious about the boy, but hoped he would find his way back to them. “I was almost frantic for fear the Indians had caught him.” This fear was increased when she heard from others that five hundred natives were camped nearby. When evening came, a man named Aaron Hill unhitched one of his horses and went back to look for Robert. By this time Margaret was distraught with fear that they would never find the boy. Soon after dark Aaron returned with Robert and Margaret wrote, “My fears turned into tears of joy.”
    The trail along the Humboldt River sometimes detours away from the river because of obstructing bluffs. As the wagons moved away from the river they encountered choking dust and little grass. Other times they had no choice but to cross the river and travel on the other side. In one such instance Margaret told of some men who had cleverly made a raft using a wagon turned upside-down with some some empty kegs at each corner as floats. They loaded all the contents of their wagon on the makeshift raft and pulled it back and forth with ropes.
     When they had finished, the raft builders kindly let the Frinks use the raft. Margaret wrote, “We piled our provisions, bedding, cooking utensils, hay, and all the other stuff, and after many trips got everything safely over. When I crossed, I sat with my feet in the wash-tub to keep them dry.”  After harnessing the horses and loading the wagons, the Frinks traveled five miles farther before camping for the night.
    Mrs. Frink told about encountering some Hungarians who had not eaten  for two days. The Frinks could offer them little help as they were carefully rationing their own food supply, “…the situation looked gloomy to every one of us. They were crossing an extensive area of sand hills with no vegetation. They continued traveling until ten o’clock that night before the trail returned to the river. When they stopped for the night Margaret described, “a terrible scene, the earth was strewn with dead horses and cattle.” That night the horses poked their heads into the wagon and ate all the beans and dried fruit. “The poor animals had had nothing to eat except the short allowance of hay we had hauled with us.”
    After traveling the Humboldt Valley for about 230 miles, Mrs. Frink wrote that they passed many dead animals and late in the day they arrived at an area called Big Meadows where they finally found some grazing for their livestock. Fortunately they found good grass for the next several miles. They stopped among many other immigrants all taking a short break to cut extra grass, make hay, and get ready to cross the dreaded Humboldt Desert, sometimes called the Forty Mile Desert. They expected to reach this dangerous stretch of trail—the worst of the entire journey—in the next two days. Today highway I-80 allows us to zip across this barren land in an easy hour of air-conditioned comfort, but I cannot make that trip without trying to imagine what it would be like in a covered wagon. Their only relief was to travel at night to avoid the August sun.
    
     To add to the Frink’s anxiety were many stories of horrible things that had happened to previous travelers across this waterless wasteland. They heard stories about great losses of horses, mules, and oxen during the dangerous crossing. Naturally they had no certainty that their own animals would survive the crossing. By the time the Humboldt River reached this area the water became brackish and discolored from alkali. Margaret Frink described the water as having the color and taste of “dirty soap-suds.” Nevertheless, people and animals drank it out of necessity. They now must leave the river and travel about seventy miles without replenishing their water.

    They began the feared crossing of the immense dry lake bed long before sunrise and at six they stopped to rest for four hours. At ten o’clock they started again and soon began see horrible sights. Margaret wrote that “Horses, mules, and oxen suffering from heat, thirst and starvation staggered along until they fell and died. Both sides of the road for miles were lined with dead animals and abandoned wagons. Around them were strewn yokes, harnesses, guns, tools, bedding, clothing, cooking-utensils all in utter confusion.” Many immigrants had left everything except what they could carry on their backs and pushed ahead to try to save themselves.
    No one in the Frink group stopped to look or help. It was all anyone could do to save themselves and their animals. As they proceeded, the situation became more dreadful and dead animals became more numerous. The stench of their carcasses filled the hot August air.
    Careful forethought and planning saved the Frinks. They avoided the mistakes made by many immigrants who tried to travel too fast and exhausted their animals. The Frinks had cut a good supply of grass and made hay in the meadows before the sink. They carried a few gallons of water for each animal, traveled slowly and rested often. Many other immigrant parties traveled the worst part at night to avoid traveling in the heat.
    Surprisingly, the Frinks met a wagon carrying barrels of pure, sweet water from a spring about five miles south of the road. The Frinks bought one gallon of the water for $1.00 (about $33 in today’s dollars) and deemed it a refreshing luxury.
    At eleven o’clock at night on August 17th, the Frinks reached the Carson River after thirty-seven hours crossing the most treacherous desert of their journey. They had come through without any loss of animals or property, but thoroughly exhausted. The Carson River valley was abounding in good water and pastures, and those who reached this point were then only one hundred miles from Sutter’s Fort. Many of the immigrants at this point were clothed in tatters and many traveled on foot, having lost their animals. Most of the people they met were in ragged clothing and near starvation. Mrs. Frink told of one man they met who had lost everything. “He was without shoes and his feet were tied up in rags. The only food he had was one pint of corn meal. I made him a dish of gruel with some butter and other nourishing things.”    
    Of course the Sierra Nevada Mountains still stood between them and their destination. Although the mountains require very strenuous labor they are not a serious hazard if crossed early enough. The Donner party had already demonstrated the potential danger with serious loss of life when they tried to cross the mountains in late October, 1846.
    Crossing the mountains involved steep, rough roads, and in many places deep, hard-packed snow still covered the ground. In especially steep places immigrants joined effort by loaning horses to one another so they could double team over the most difficult parts. In these places long ropes were tied to the tongue of the wagon and the men helped pull along with the horses. Others worked beside the wheels and pulled on the spokes. They also had to be prepared to block the wheels when the wagon stopped to prevent it from rolling back. In places the immigrants had to unharness their horses and hoist the wagons over a bluff while the horses walked around it on a path too rough or too narrow for wagons.
    By five o’clock that day they had reached the main ridge of the Sierra Nevada after ten hours of struggle. “The worst is now over,” wrote a relieved and exhausted Margaret Frink. Now they were in settled country again. Mrs. Frink wrote of passing trading posts with fruits and vegetables at exorbitant prices. They passed Sutter’s Fort just east of Sacramento. At last! They had arrived! Margaret noted that they had traveled 2418 miles in five months and seven days.
    In case you missed the first blog about the Frink’s housing plan, the following is a recap of Mr. Frink having a ready-to-assemble house built in Indiana and shipped to San Francisco:
    His (Mr. Frink’s) pre-cut lumber went by boat down the Wabash River to the Ohio, then to the Mississippi, all the way to New Orleans where it was loaded on a ship headed around the horn to San Francisco. Travel time by water from Indiana to San Francisco around the Horn in 1850 was at least one hundred days plus time for transferring the load from a river boat to a sailing ship.
    The pre-cut lumber for their house was waiting for them when they arrived in California and it was erected in a few days. Margaret Frink died in 1893 at the age of seventy-five. In 1897 Mr. Frink decided to have her extensive diary published as a book.


    

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Margaret Frink, Part 2

11/9/2020

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Picture
From Ft Kearny to the Continental Divide at South Pass.
PictureUnknown couple taking a noon break on the trail in 1850.
Roger M. McCoy

Update: In the previous blog the Frinks left Martinsville, Indiana on the 27th of March, 1850. Two months later they began their trek westward along the Platte River over the prairies of Nebraska.


May 21, 1850, traveling the south bank of the Platte River west of Fort Kearney.
    “This morning some of the men in our company spotted a small herd of buffalo nearby and began to chase after them on horseback. When they returned Mr. Frink gave the men a harsh reprimand for exhausting the horses.” Even though it was bad for the horses, Mrs. Frink confessed she could not blame the men for the wanting the thrill of a chase. “The animation and excitement of the moment beat anything I ever saw, and I would not for anything have missed the sight of that great chase over that grand plain. Someone brought us a piece of buffalo steak, so we were not without a share of the prize.”
    As they progressed on the plains, Margaret observed that, “Our chief inconvenience here is the want of firewood. There is no timber except the few cottonwoods and willows along the river. It often happens that we find hardly enough to cook our meals. Mr. Frink adopted the plan of gathering up all fragments of wood and hauling them with us until time of need.”
     Margaret Frink occasionally wrote on the amount of work involved each day when they camped. Wagons, harness, and clothing all show signs of wear and tear, and whenever they stopped, especially an all-day stop on Sunday, many of these items must be mended. Also animals must be changed and guarded and “innumerable small things must looked after.”
    “Our organization has fallen to pieces. Those who were in so much of a hurry have driven ahead reducing our number to about twenty-five. Mr. Frink feels the only sure way to get to California with our animals still alive was to drive slowly.” Also the Frinks “found it best to travel in small parties on account of the scarcity of grass and water.”
    River crossings are full of danger and required great care. At one point Margaret Frink described her anxiety while crossing the Platte River.

              Of all the excitements I have ever experienced the crossing
              of the river was the greatest. …mule teams, horse teams,
              ox teams, men on horseback, men wading and struggling
              against the quicksands and current, many of them with long
              poles in their hands feeling their way. Sometimes they would
              be in shallow water only up to their knees; then suddenly
              some unlucky one would plunge into four feet of water.
              …Our horses would sometimes be in water no more than
              afoot deep; then in a moment they would go down to their
              collars. …when some wagons crowded in front of us during
              a crossing we were compelled to stop for several minutes.
             Our wagon at once began to settle and it took four men to
             assist the horses to pull out. Where we crossed, the river
             was a mile wide, and we were three-quarters of an hour
             getting over. We are now nine-hundred miles from home.

 
    A few days after their river crossing, word came to the group that the grass was all burned off ahead of them. The fretful Mrs. Frink feared there would be nothing for the horses to eat. “What is to become of us…we are unable to go either forward or backward?” As often happened on the trail, this dilemma was based on a believable but untrue rumor. Nevertheless the incident illustrates just how much was at risk every day on the trail.
    Margaret writes of passing a Sioux village of about seventy tents. They came to the wagon train in a very friendly manner with food to trade. Mrs. Frink gave them a supply of needles and thread and some small mirrors. In trade she got fresh fish, buffalo, and antelope meat.
    On the next day their wagon train passed an important landmark for migrants—Courthouse Rock. The following day she reported seeing Chimney Rock in the distance ahead of them. She remarked that Chimney Rock was six miles away, but the air was so clear it seemed no more than a mile. These two famous landmarks are about twenty miles apart on the Platte River. Like hundreds of other migrants, Mr. Frink carved both their names on Chimney Rock.
    The Frinks progressed to Fort Laramie, now in eastern Wyoming, which had been purchased by the U.S. government from the American Fur Company. She noted the fort was bound by adobe walls fifteen feet high and 180 feet long on each side. Margaret wrote that this would the last outpost until they reached Fort Hall, about 500 miles farther west in present day Idaho. Mrs. Frink apparently had one of the available trail guidebooks from which she often quotes their exact distance traveled, the distance yet to go, their elevation, and occasionally the latitude and longitude of their location.
    In early June an accident occurred which caused much grief for Mrs. Frink. Her cherished sheet-iron stove, mentioned in the previous blog, was tied securely on the rear of their wagon, and she used it every day. Suddenly her good cookstove became a piece of junk. Surprisingly she wrote in a very understated tone considering how enraged she might have been. “Some careless person, in a hurry, drove his team up too close behind, and the pole of his wagon ran into the stove, smashing it and ruining it.” After that each day the Frinks had to dig a small fire trench and cook on the ground with her cooking pots set over it. She commented, “we found it a very good substitute for a stove.”
    The Frinks’ wagon train finally left the Platte River after following it until it turned abruptly south. They had a fifty-mile dry run toward the Sweetwater River which would take them to South Pass, the low and easy route over the
Rocky Mountains. The gap between the two rivers was covered with pools of alkali water, dried ponds crusted with salt or soda several inches thick, some sagebrush, but no grass. “The horses and our wagon wheels broke through the crust with each step as if it were ice.” The salt crust slowed their progress to a crawl. During this bad stretch of land a mid-June snowstorm blew in, “At dark while I was cooking supper a heavy storm of wind and snow came up. There was no shelter and we ate our supper while it was snowing and blowing” The next day was bright and sunny. “We snowballed each other till ten o’clock…”

    Another day’s travel brought them to another major landmark on the trail, Independence Rock—a dome-shaped feature about one-third of a mile long and 130 feet high. Several years earlier a party of immigrants happened to pass this site on the Fourth of July and so named this massive granite rock rising from a flat plain. The massive rock became a record of immigrant names with “hundreds of names painted with black paint made of gunpowder and bacon grease.”
    In late June a man named Mr. Avery became impatient with the rate of progress. Mr. Avery felt he could get to California sooner on foot than by going at the plodding rate of the wagons. He took as much food, blankets, and clothing as he could strap on his back and started alone toward California (1500 miles ahead) - with hope and a great amount of pluck. One might say dumb pluck! Margaret Frink made no further mention of Mr. Avery in her diary, but one can guess several possible outcomes for him. There is little likelihood that Avery could finish the trek alone, perhaps he eventually gave up and joined another wagon train. The other possible outcomes are more dire: starvation, thirst, exhaustion, or capture.
    On June 24th the Frinks finally reached the famous South Pass and crossed the Continental Divide. The approach to South Pass is a long gentle slope and the divide is “so much like a prairie that it is not easy to tell when we reached the exact line of the divide.” At the summit an American flag was flying to mark the private post office established by James Estelle so immigrants could send letters to family and friends back home. This small post office along with Fort Kearny and Fort Laramie were the only outposts of the United States west of Omaha.                     Margaret again expressing her feeling of separation and loneliness wrote, “to see the old flag once more strongly reminded us of home.” The Frink’s group decided to celebrate their arrival at the Great Divide. “Music from a violin with tin-pan accompaniment contributed to the general merriment of a grand frolic.” Perhaps they danced to the violin/tin-pan combo and drank a toast with their stash of cider. That afternoon Margaret wrote letters to friends which the postmaster sent back to the States by the next messenger. Margaret had to pay $1.00 each to send her letters. One dollar in 1850 is estimated to be equivalent to $33.37 today—a dear price for a letter.
    The next day they “began the long descent to the Pacific Ocean 1,433 miles away.”
TO BE CONTINUED

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    Incan Royal Roads  10/4/20​20
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