Ten percent of travelers attempting the Oregon Trail died along the way, often from disease, infection, or injury, although there were plenty of weird, disgusting and otherwise ghastly deaths, as well. Here are some of the stranger stories.
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00:0010% of travelers attempting the Oregon Trail died along the way, often from infection,
00:05wagon wheel, or — say it with me — dysentery. Here are some of the stranger stories.
00:11In 1846, Edwin Bryant hit the Oregon Trail. He had a few medical training classes, which
00:16made him the closest thing to a doctor available. As his party traveled along the Platte River
00:21in what's now Nebraska, a family sought him out to treat their boy. While riding on a
00:25wagon tongue, the child fell off and his leg was crushed under a wheel.
00:28If her wounds don't fester, she might gonna have a fighting chance.
00:33By the time Bryant was called in, the boy's injury was nine days old and poorly dressed.
00:38We don't mean loose wrappings poorly dressed. We mean — well, let's let Bryant tell you
00:43from his own journal.
00:44It was discovered that gangrene had taken place, and the limb of the child was swarming
00:48with maggots. The child's leg from his foot to his knee was in a state of putrefaction.
00:53Well, that explains the wiggling the boy felt on his leg. Bryant attempted the amputation
00:59using a butcher's knife, a handsaw, and an awl, which is that pointy thing that looks
01:03like a needlepoint screwdriver used for lobotomies. The boy wasn't even anesthetized, but didn't
01:08react to the pain of surgery. The reason was what you'd expect. They got the leg off, but
01:13the boy didn't survive.
01:14The 1850s were among the most active periods along the Oregon Trail, but that era tragically
01:19coincided with an increase in cholera in many parts of the world. A highly contagious disease,
01:24cholera's symptoms include diarrhea and vomiting so severe that it can lead to fatal dehydration
01:29within days. Because Oregon Trail pioneers tended to use water from the same sites, particularly
01:34the North Flats and Flat Rivers, cholera spread quickly and easily.
01:38I knew it, Monsieur Todd. Grabbed the martinis. I made them extra dirty. The stagnant pond
01:45water I found beside the road.
01:47Quickly isn't an understatement.
01:49John L. Hughes received a letter from his nephew by the last name of Friel in 1852.
01:55The man described how cholera had ravaged his family, writing,
01:58"'First of all, Francis Friel died June 4, 1852, and Maria Friel followed the 6th. Next
02:03came Polly Kastner, who died the 9th, and Lafayette Friel soon followed. He died the
02:0811th, and her baby died the 17th. You see, we have lost seven persons in a few short
02:13days. All died of cholera.'"
02:16Pioneers rarely rode in wagons along the Oregon Trail. They usually walked alongside
02:20their vehicles, although children could sit inside if they got tired. The wagons weighed
02:24an average of a ton and were difficult to maneuver.
02:27Nearly half a million pioneers traveled west, carving ruts so deep they're still visible
02:32almost 200 years later.
02:34It was easy to lose control when traversing rocky paths or hills. If someone got in the
02:39way of an unsecured wagon, it could result in serious injuries or a particularly grisly
02:43and painful death, like that little boy we talked about earlier with the maggot leg.
02:47Eight-year-old child Richard Harvey didn't have to suffer that fate. But that didn't
02:51make it any better.
02:53A diary entry from Oregon Trail traveler Absalom Hardin reads,
02:56"'Mr. Harvey's young little boy, Richard, eight years old, went to get in the wagon
03:01and fell from the tongue. The wheels run over him and mashed his head and kill him stone
03:05dead.'"
03:06The Oregon Trail game really understole the dangers of wagon wheels. Here we are all going
03:11on about dysentery, but the real danger was just hitching a ride for a bit.
03:16In 1852, John and Josephine Bristow left Illinois and set out on the Oregon Trail. They got
03:20as far as Fort Kearney, a stopping point near that too-familiar cholera dispensary known
03:25as the Black River.
03:26You'll never believe what happened next. Josephine died of cholera on April 6th, after drinking
03:31contaminated water just three days earlier. The Bristows had their baby Susanna with them,
03:36who was somewhere between 9 and 15 months at the time of her mother's death.
03:40Susanna was still breastfeeding, so John entrusted her care to a female relative in a different
03:44wagon train. Five weeks later, Susanna was dead.
03:47The probable explanation is that travelers fed Susanna untreated cow's milk, seen as
03:51a viable emergency alternative. Turns out, the cows from which the milk was obtained
03:56had likely been grazing on toxic plants, including snake root and poison ivy. That made the cow's
04:01milk toxic, so pretty much anything you drank on the trail could kill you.
04:05But wait, it wasn't even just drinking liquids that could kill you. Water was the supervillain
04:10of the Oregon Trail.
04:11One of the most common ways to die on the Oregon Trail was drowning. The path from the
04:15Midwest to the West Coast involved crossing numerous bodies of water. And even as bridges
04:20and ferries sprang up, people continued to attempt to cross rivers on their own. That's
04:24called fording a river, which is as dangerous as it sounds.
04:27We're here first, and we're crossing first.
04:30You're wrong, mister. You think you're crossing first.
04:33Historical records from 1853 mention one such traveler who thought he could safely
04:37and quickly pass through Buffalo Creek in what is today Colorado. He convinced the wagon
04:42operator to ford the creek, neglecting to account for a recent heavy rainfall that made
04:46the creek much deeper than normal. The operator drove the wagon right into the creek, where
04:50it quickly sank, killing them both. In the operator's defense, he was drunk. See? Any
04:56liquid could kill you.
04:58Out on the Oregon Trail, the average covered wagon was equipped with at least a few firearms,
05:02useful for both hunting animals for food and as protection against potential attacks
05:06from Native Americans.
05:07Look around you. Everything out here that's not you wants to kill you.
05:11And with so many guns around, mishaps were common.
05:14After a disease, accidental shooting was the biggest cause of death on the Oregon Trail.
05:18A man with the ironic name of John Shotwell has been identified by historians as the first
05:22Oregon Trail gunshot fatality. Pioneer John Bidwell, who witnessed the 1841 accident,
05:27wrote in his journal,
05:28A young man by the name of Shotwell, while in the act of taking a gun out of the wagon,
05:33drew it with the muzzle towards him in such a manner that it went off and shot him near
05:36the heart. He lived about an hour and died in full possession of his senses.
05:41In early October 1846, the Donner Party made it to the Humboldt River and the start of
05:46the Oregon Trail offshoot known as the California Trail. While some members of the group continued
05:50on, a few families — the Reeds, Graves, and Breens among them — were so exhausted
05:54that they slowed down and became separated.
05:57On October 5th, growing hostilities among some of the pioneers boiled over into a brawl
06:01that left one person dead. Wagon driver John Snyder got his reins tied up, by accident,
06:07with James Reed's pack animals. Reed didn't like that one bit, so he instigated an argument
06:11with Snyder, who responded by cracking his bullwhip at Reed's head, making contact.
06:16Reed pulled out his hunting knife, and the men attacked each other. Reed stabbed Snyder
06:20in the chest, killing him instantly.
06:22The other families considered hanging Reed or holding a trial after they reached their
06:25final destination in California, but ultimately decided to banish him from the wagon train.
06:30The Hembree family of McMinnville, Tennessee, Joel and Sarah, and their eight children,
06:34hit the Oregon Trail via the traditional point of departure at Independence, Missouri in
06:38May 1843.
06:40About two months later, on July 18th, right after passing Bedtick Creek in what's now
06:44Wyoming, they encountered rocky terrain that violently shook its wagon. Six-year-old Joel
06:49Jasper Hembree, who was riding on the tongue of the wagon, went,
06:52"'Oh no, it's going to be a wagon wheel again.'"
06:55Yep, it was. The child died on July 19th, and his family buried him just off the Oregon
07:00Trail on July 20th.
07:02Hembree's grave and gravestone, made by carving the child's last name and year of death into
07:06a literal stone, were uncovered in 1961. Due to an encroaching reservoir, Hembree's body
07:11was exhumed. He was initially buried in a dresser drawer, which would have been common
07:15at the time to just use whatever you had at your disposal. The child's remains were
07:19reinterred on private land less than a mile away. Hembree's grave is the oldest ever found
07:24along the Oregon Trail.
07:25When the Oregon Trail began to be used in the decade of the 1840s, deadly altercations
07:30with Native American groups were rare, with only about 50 deaths attributed to such skirmishes.
07:34Fifty is nothing to scoff at, but dysentery and wagon wheels were a bigger threat than
07:39traversing through tribal lands. But by 1860, large numbers of immigrants were making their
07:44way west to acquire lands already legally owned by tribes, and those groups decided
07:48to fight back. Some of the violence was shocking.
07:51On August 20th, 1854, Alexander Ward stopped his multi-wagon, 20-member caravan for a midday
07:57break along the river in the Boise Valley, in what's now Idaho. While the Ward Party
08:01relaxed, a member of the Shoshone tribe approached the camp and stole a horse. One of the emigrants
08:06shot the thief dead. Not long after, more Shoshone, along with some members of the Snake
08:10Group, retaliated, attacking the Ward Party. Many were fatally shot with arrows. Some children
08:15were captured and burned to death over fires, while the women were sexually assaulted before
08:20they were killed. Of the 20 people in the group, 18 died that afternoon. The two survivors,
08:25Ward's teenage sons William and Newton, pretended to be dead from arrows shot into vital organs,
08:30then crawled 20 miles to safety at the nearest government outpost, Fort Boise.
08:35By the time the Utter Van Ornum Party reached Castle Creek, near what is now the Oregon-Idaho
08:40border, in September 1860, it included 44 people. But on September 9, 1860, the wagon
08:46train was attacked by a group of Shoshone who attempted to set loose the travelers'
08:50livestock. The party gave the Shoshone a large stock of food to persuade them to leave, but
08:54were attacked again by about 100 Shoshone and Bannock a mile further down the trail.
08:59Three adults died in the fighting, which lasted into the next evening, at which point the
09:03emigrant party tried to escape. After leaving behind four well-stocked wagons for the Shoshone
09:08and Bannock, they drove the wagons right through the attackers. Another group member died,
09:12and the fighting escalated. Leader Elijah Utter was mortally wounded. A Shoshone delivered a
09:17fatal shot as he lay dying, and Utter's wife and children were also slaughtered.
09:21The 27 remaining members of the group, not counting a few who got separated,
09:25managed to get a few miles down the trail before the wagon-pulling oxen collapsed from exhaustion,
09:30forcing them to flee with almost no possessions or supplies.
09:33Heave! Heave!"
09:39For a week, the survivors walked along the Snake River at night to avoid detection by Shoshone.
09:43On September 18, having traveled 75 miles, the party made a hidden camp at the Owyhee
09:48River to await rescue. If you think we're about to drop a happy ending here on you, well, we're not.
09:54On September 22, 1860, Goodsell Munson and Christopher Trimble ran into some members
09:59of the Utter Van Ornum party who had been separated from the main group.
10:03Charles Chaffee and Joseph and Jacob Reith. Trimble returned to the survivor camp carrying
10:08some horse meat, but shortly after he arrived, so did some Shoshone. While the Shoshone traded
10:12some salmon, they also confiscated the travelers' weapons and kidnapped Trimble.
10:16One pioneer, starvation-weakened Daniel Chase, ate so much of the salmon that it killed him.
10:21As for the scouts, Munson and Chaffee died of starvation before they found help,
10:25but the Reiths successfully reached the Umatilla Agency on October 2nd to request a rescue team.
10:30For the seven-member Van Ornum family, the two surviving Utter kids,
10:34an adult Samuel Gleeson took matters into their own hands and tried to escape to safety.
10:38Just miles in, they were attacked by Shoshone, and four of the children were taken hostage,
10:42while the rest were quickly and brutally killed. Abigail Van Ornum was whipped and scalped,
10:47Charles and Henry Utter shot with arrows, and Alexis Van Ornum, Marcus Van Ornum,
10:52and Samuel Gleeson all died from having their throats slit. Things weren't better back at the
10:57camp. You could easily say it was much worse. Four children died of starvation during October
11:021860. The surviving adults, desperate and at risk of starvation themselves, ate the bodies.
11:08Finally, on October 24th, an Army relief group found the survivors, but only 10 people remained
11:13alive. Of the Van Ornum children taken prisoner by Shoshone, Reuben Van Ornum was rescued by the
11:18California Army in 1862, so he was kept captive by the Shoshone for two years. His three sisters
11:24died of starvation in captivity. We'd love to tell you that Reuben Van Ornum lived happily
11:28ever after, but a separate report claims that the rescued boy was not Reuben after all,
11:33and he was long dead, probably suffering the same fate as his sisters.