Over spring break last week, we headed west to visit both sets of granparents in Idaho. For the first time we took the southern route: through Iowa, Nebraska, and Wyoming. Much of I-80 follows the Oregon Trail and the Mormon Pioneer Trail. Since Sean and I both have ancestors that travelled along the trail, we thought we'd make a hotel stop at Winter Quarters (located in modern day Omaha, Nebraska).
First, a bit of history:
Winter Quarters was the stopping spot for Mormons preparing to travel farther west 150 years ago. At the time it was in indian territory, not the United States, which is why the members felt safe there. (The US government and mobs had recently forced members from their homes in Missouri and Illinois.) Within 6 weeks, it had 700 cabins plus shops. (A blacksmith shop, grist mill, basket shops, chair shops, etc.) They started a singing school and held dancing parties as they prepared to head west.
This is a painting done by a pioneer (C.C.A. Christensen, a Danish immigrant) who stayed in Winter Quarters.
Between 1847 and 1869 over 70,000 Mormon pioneers left from Winter Quarters. There were at least 329 wagon companies and 10 handcart brigades that passed through here, heading to the Salt Lake Valley. Some pioneers were arriving from Europe, other had left their homes in Nauvoo, Illinois. (For
more on Nauvoo, see our two previous family trips on the blog:
July 2008 Nov. 2011)
(This is one of my favorite paintings of the pioneers crossing the Mississippi, leaving Nauvoo, heading to Winter Quarters.)
After a long drive and late night at the hotel, we wandered into the visitor center and told them we needed some hands on activites for our kids before we hopped in the car for another eight hours that day. They showed us where we could dress up like pioneers, and pull a handcart around the building.
After bribing Asher with some ice-cream, he put on an apron, vest and hat, and pulled a cart with Sylvia and Ephraim. Noel and Mattias were not dressing up for any amount of icecream!
Ephraim made a very mischevious passenger, and tried to smack Sylvia with his cowboy hat.
It was interesting to see how heavy 300 pounds of gear would have been, and how awkward it would have been to pull these carts accross the plains, up hills, through sand, snow and icy rivers. Between 1856 and 1860 over 3,000 of the poorer emmigrants from Scotland, England, Wales, and Scandinavia travelled to Utah in handcarts. They couldn't afford the more expensive teams of oxen and wagons after passage across the Atlantic, so the president of the church came up with idea of hancart companies to move them west.
One set of my mom's ancestors, Janet and George Crowther, came from Scotland and purchased a handcart for $60. They traveled to Utah during the summer of 1857. They had a 7 year old daughter who walked all the way, and a 15 month old baby who rode in the cart, like Ephraim did.. (Their other two boys had died in New Orleans after they arrived from Scotland.)
The journey to Winter Quarters from Nauvoo (300 miles) in the winter rains and cold were a challenge. Another set of my mom's ancestors, Martin and Elizabeth Bushman, left Nauvoo in Sept 1846 "leaving their grain and all they posessed, except for what they could take in one wagon...Nearly all of their family became victims of chills and fever."
The writer of this journal entry was their son, John . The family lost two children as they crossed Iowa during a rainy and cold October. "Enroute on 12 Oct 1846 their nine-year-old daughter Elizabeth died just before they camped for the night. Elizabeth was buried the next morning without a coffin and the family continued their journey with the company. Just one week later on 19 Oct 1846 their beautiful dark-eyed baby, Esther Ann, not yet a year old, died and she was buried in the same way as the older daughter."
This family stopped to build a log cabin with a dirt floor in Highland
Grove, just outside of Winter Quaters/ Council Bluffs. By comparing the
creeks on the map at the visitor's center to today's google maps, I can
see that the hotel we slept at was only 2 miles from their log cabin!
The Bushman family stayed there for five years, trying to save enough money to
buy supplies to cross the plains. Each year the father and his
oldest son, would travel 100 miles down to Missouri to get work
splitting rails or working in fields. The wife would stay home and take
care of the farm and the younger children. The last winter, their oldest daughter taught school for the Highland Grove
families, with her younger brothers "giving her more trouble than all
the rest".
The Bushman family eventually saved enough to buy two yoke of oxen, two yoke of cows, and one wagon. They left for Salt Lake in June of 1851. The little boys, one of whom was eight years old, helped their father drive the team, because he was nearsighted. "En route, they met bands of indians and great droves of buffalo. There were several stampedes."
Some fo us were surprised at how huge oxen were. They had a pair of suffed oxen in the visitor's center, pulling a wagon. They were supposed to have another pair yoked in front of them, since it usually took several sets to pull a wagon, but the architects did not realize how large oxen were, and did not make the platform large enough. Here are Sylvia's animals, posing with the oxen who
did fit in the building.
There was a replica cabin the kids could explore at the Visotors
Center. The boys played a good prank on me there! They know I have to
glance at every room of a museum, and stick my nose into every exhibit,
at least briefly.
So, although we were getting ready to leave, I noticed
the log cabin in at the back of a room we hadn't explored yet. It had a closed door. I asked the tour guide if I could peak
in. She said, "Sure!" and that the door was usually open, she didn't know why it was closed. I hurry over, and open the heavy wood door. In the dimly lit cabin I see....
In the dim light.. it looked so real! It looked like one of those museum mannequins sitting at a table! I was shocked! It caught me by surprised, but than I laughed and laughed. Asher held perfectly still for another half minute while I laughed. He looked so real! The best part about it was the set-up. Mattias was standing right by me, as I was "getting ready to go", and didn't give anything away. They knew that before we left, I had to poke my nose into every corner! Clever job, boys!
The Bushman family jounal says "There were usually penty of wild fuits and nuts in that area; plums, cherries, blackberries, strawberries, hazelnuts, hicry nuts, and black walnuts. Up to that time there were no cooking stoves around. The mothers did all the cooking in the large bake ovens and large iron kettles on the open fireplaces." Here is Syliva making dinner for her stuffed animal companions in the replica cabin.
After that prank, we really did go outside to look around. Across the street is an empty space of ground with a monument in the middle. It was the pioneer's graveyard. Only one gravestone remained, but by looking at records, and measuring from the corner markers, you can figure out where people were buried.
At the time we didn't know that my mom had other relatives who came through Winter Quarters. (The Bates and Turleys). The Theodore Turley famly moved from Nauvoo into Winter Quarters in 1846, where he lost 7 family members in 10 months. They are buried in this cemetary. The only relative we actually looked for while we were there was one from Sean's side of the family, Robert Harris III.
This is the older missionary who helped us with his wheeling tape measure to find the burial site.
Robert Harris, a 5 month old baby, was buried near the center of the cemetary, which now has a monument standing on it. He was buried off to the side, right under where Asher is standing in the picture.
They had a list of names of the people buried there. Here is Sylvia pointing to Robert Harrias, 5 months. He was born to Robert and Maria Harris in Winter Quarters. Unfortunately, Robert the father had left before the birth to march to Santa Fe and L.A., California with the rest of the the Mormon Battallion (when the church enlisted to help the US during the Mexican War). He never saw his son.
He returned, and with money earned from the enlistment, bought "two wagons, two yoke of oxen, one yoke of three-year-old steers, and one yoke of broken oxen."
Sean and I thought it was very interesting to see the rolling hills by the river on a windy day, and understand why the pioneers would have chosen this spot to shelter from the weather. I am glad we chose to stop here. I think the kids may have preffered traveling by wagon train that in a van with a one year old. Ah, the woes of modern inventions.
