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My Trip To Oregon
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| A look upon the portrait of an aged man. And what might one say of the hope, the plan, Or what his chosen part, Or what was in his heart, What way he strode along the path of life, What his great joys, What his sad strife. Was the road great he trod, Or did he turn the sod? There is a time in life when thought Words are futile things |
Calvin Geer |
In the spring of 1847, my Father and Grandfather and
Uncle John Grim had a chronic case of Oregon fever and the only cure was
a trip across the plains to that far off country, Oregon.
So my Grandfather corresponded with one Joel Palmer who was getting up a company
to cross the plains to Oregon, and agreed to meet him at St. Jo where we were to
cross the Missouri river. So they sold the farms and bought ox teams and wagons,
two wagons for each family and three yoke of oxen on each wagon. We had some
cows and I had one mare that I was to ride. About the first of May we bid
good-bye to our neighbors and started for St. Jo.
Our first drive was to Knoxville, and my father was acquainted with a blacksmith
and he gave Father a little cannon he made to celebrate a democratic victory. It
only weighed sixteen pounds and Father called it the young Democrat and we
brought it to Oregon.
The next town that I remember was Quincy where we crossed the Mississippi and was
then in Missouri. It was a slave state and we saw lots of darkies everywhere we
camped. I remember one camp we made was at a big plantation, the man’s name
was Penny and he had lots of slaves, and they came around our camp fires, we had
two violinists in our train and they would play nearly every night, the man was
very religious and thought a violin was a very wicked thing, but the darkies
thought it was fine and danced a little. A darky can't hear music without
marking time with his feet.
I don't remember how long it took us to get to St. Jo but we were there in time.
We had to wait two or three days before we could cross the river, but when we
got across, we were not long in making up the company and starting out. We had
a hundred wagons, lots of loose stock and we had traveled several days, a week
or more, when Cpt. Palmer called a meeting and thought it best to divide the
train and elect another Captain, which they did.
We stayed with Cpt. Palmer and the first stream that we came to, that I remember,
we camped. There was lots of walnut trees and we picked up walnuts that had layed all
winter but they were sound and good.
The next stream was either Blue river or Green river, I don’t remember which one
we came to first. I remember we saw lots of Indians and they were camped close
to the road. We had to block up the wagon beds to cross the river. The next
place I think was Ash Holler. Mother wanted some greens so bad but couldn’t find
anything that she thought would do, so she sowed some mustard and years after a
lady who crossed the plains told Mother that she got mustard greens at Ash
Holler.
I think it was the next day that we were nearing camp when Uncle John Grim's mare
came running into the train with the picket flying in the air and stampeded the
train that had not formed in the corral. A man ran up to me as I was driving one
of our teams and said, “Give me your whip.” He ran ahead of our team and
stopped them. I ran off to one side and looked back and could see teams running
and an ox fell and broke his leg, one team ran against Father’s wagon and
broke a wheel. They finally got them all stopped but didn’t form as good a
corral as usual.
The next day we put most of the load in one wagon and left three men to fix the
wheel and four horses to bring the wagon on, they did not overtake us until
nearly the next morning. They had a long hill to go down but it was dark and
they did not think of a hill but it was more of a hill than they thought and the
team had to run, and they ran a mile on the bottom before they could stop. That
was in the Bear River country, but the wagon was fixed and everything ready for
the next day. When we got in to the buffalo country we could see buffalo heads
and the emigrants would write on them and set them up beside the road so we
could hear from the trains ahead of us and our company would write to the trains
back of us.
One man in our company was hunting
for the company and we had fresh meat, every few days. His name was Post. He and
uncle John Grim started out after some buffalo and rode quite a distance in the
hills and as Post had a fine mare, she could outrun a buffalo. He ran up to a
big one and jumped off his mare and shot it and they skinned out as much as they
could carry on their horses. After they started back, they discovered that they
were lost and did not know which way to go. Father fired the little canon and
Uncle Grim said it was at their backs. He said that is the young Democrat and
turned around. He said they would fire it again, and when they fired it again
they were riding right toward it, and did not get in until after midnight, but
we had buffalo meat for breakfast, and wasn't it good!
Cpt. Palmer told us when we got in the buffalo country there would be places where
there was no wood and we would have to burn buffalo chips. The women said they
could never cook with them but when we had traveled several days in that part of
the country we could see the women out gathering up aprons full of buffalo chips
and they made a good fire. We were traveling up Platte River. I think we were in
the Pawnee or Sioux nation and we got some buffalo robes off them and I got a
pair of moccasins made of buffalo hide with the fur on the inside, they were the
finest things I ever had. While we were in that nation they formed across the
road and were sitting down. There were quite a lot of them and Cpt Palmer
ordered the train to halt and the men to take their guns and they drove up
within a hundred yards of them. The old Chief got up and threw up his hands to
show he had no arms and Cpt. Palmer done the same. They walked up together and
the Indians wanted one dollar a wagon for crossing their country. Palmer told
the Chief we were not going to stop in their country but that we were going to
the big water, so the Chief lit his pipe and gave it three puffs and handed it
to Cpt. Palmer who did the same and the Chief motioned his hands and the Indians
were gone in less than no time.
We were traveling up Flat River. I remember that we traveled one whole day in sight
of chimly rock and camped opposite it that night. Several of the men and some of
the girls started to go out to it, but only one man got there. R.V. Short, I
think got to it but did not get back until after dark.
We had to cross Platte River and Cpt. Palmer told them when they started in to keep
moving or they would not get through, as it was quite sandy. It was not deep and
we had no trouble.
The next place that I remember was Independance Rock and we were there… [Note:
one line of text was lost.] Stars and Stripes and fired the little cannon
and then we camped on Sweet Water. At one of the crossings one boy got his leg
broke, but he got along pretty well as they set it and he got well before we got
through.
I don't remember where we crossed the Snake
River the first time, but I remember we came to Salmon Falls and there were lots
of Indians there fishing and we got some salmon from them. They had lots of
dried salmon and would come up to us and say “me one shirt, you two salmon
swap” and cross their hands.
I think there was another falls on Snake River called American Falls. After we
crossed the river we drove one day and the next day turned off to the right of
the road to a spring where there was fine clover and we layed by one day to rest
the teams and do some washing. They had a dance and the ground got so wet that
they called it the swamp dance. I think that was where Cpt. Palmer's horses were
stolen by the Indians. I think three men started after them, but the company
took part of the load out of Palmer's wagon, put a yoke of Oxen on his wagon and
went on. The men tracked and found them tied in the willows a long ways from
camp, but they did not see any Indians.
I remember we came to the Boise River near where Boise is now. There was an old
French trader living there with the Indians. I don't remember much about the
road from there until we got to the Three Islands on Snake River. The day we got
there was a long drive without water. We came to a road that turned to the right
down a canyon and it went to Snake River, so George Dimick and I took a coffee
pot and started down that road to get some water, but it was farther than we
thought. We got to the river and got a drink and a man hollered to us from
across the river and wanted to know if our train coming there. We told him they
were going to the Three Islands, so he told us we could follow a trail up the
river and it would take us to the Three Islands. So we started up the river and
it was getting late. When we got to where we could look down on the valley we
could see some firelight. George wanted to turn back, he thought it was Indians,
but I said we could go on and see. When we got near enough we could see the
covered wagon, and it was Cpt. Palmer. He had gone on and was camped. He came
out when we rode up and he says where did you come from. We told him how we went
down the road that went to the ferry and followed the trail to the Three
Islands. He sent his man out with our horses and the girl got us something to
eat. He said that the train would not get in until midnight. One of our men was
drown, he went swimming and got into one of the whirlpools, they got an Indian
to try to get him but he swam out to where he had went down and came back and
told how it had happened. He said it would be five or six days before he would
come out.
We had to hitch six yoke of oxen on a wagon and men would go on each side to keep
them straight, but we got across that day. The next day we went near where
Ontario is now, from there we went to the Hot Springs where Vale is now. From
there we went across to Willow Creek and crossed the hills to Burnt River where
Huntington is now. We went up Burnt River quite aways and then crossed into a
valley where Baker City is now. From there we went over into Grand Round Valley
and we thought it was a beautiful country and some of the company had a notion
to stop there but finally went on. We crossed the valley and started up the Blue
Mountains. I remember we camped at what was called Lee’s encampment. It is
called Mecham now, and Cpt. Palmer told us it was the summit of the Blue
Mountains. From there we went down to the upper Yumatilla River and then we
crossed a range of hills to what they called Lower Yumatilla. I think that is
where Pendleton is now. We laid by there one day for the folks to do their
washing. Marcus Whitman met us there. He had been to the Willamette Valley and
he gave us a little talk that night and told us what we could expect when we got
to the Cascade Mountains. He had come through there. It was the Barlow road, the
first road that was ever built across the Cascades.
From Yumatilla we went over in to John Day and from there we went to the Dechutes and
where we had to cork two wagon beds, and ferry that stream. We had to take the
wagons to pieces and it took all day to cross, and it took another day to put
them together. Then we took the stock down the river and they swam over. The
first day they sent me and George Dimick up on the hill to herd the stock. There
was a spring up there where the stock could get water, and we were there all day
without anything to eat. We got a few coke cherries. They never came to relieve
us until after sundown and it was dark before we got to the river, but they
pulled us over. Mother and Mrs. Dimick were worrying about us as they did not
know where we were. When the wagons were all put together we started for the Tye Valley.
I don’t remember much about the road or how long it took us to go to the Tye
Valley but when we got there we were near the Cascade Mountains. The next
morning we started into the mountains and it commenced to rain and the roads
were awful with mud. The rainy season had set in and the emigration ahead of us
had cut the roads up until our wagons would go down to the hubs. When we got to
Laurel Hill it was terrible. They would drag trees to the hind end to hold the
wagons and that plowed up the ground. I think that was where Uncle Cary met us
and he saw how it was and rushed out to the valley to fetch in some fresh cattle
and put one yoke on each wagon and then we made better time. We was in the
mountains fourteen days and only had two messes of bread.
We had some dry peas that we got from the Indians at Grand Round and mother had
saved the bacon rinds and she would cook the peas and season them with the bacon
rinds and they were pretty good. We lost all of our cows at or near Laurel Hill,
The company found a steer that had been lost out and was full of grass and they
killed him and we ate it and called it good.
We traveled every day but only made a few miles a day. We finally got through and
when we got to Oregon City we could not get any flour as the Emigration ahead of
us had taken all of the flour and the French from French Prairie had not brought
down their wheat. Mother had a little sheet iron stove and she traded it to the
Hudson Bay Store for three hundred pounds of shorts and a keg of molasses, We
had pancakes and ‘lasses for supper and they were good enough to set before a
King. Father only had three bits when we got to Oregon City. That was the
financial standing of the Geer family at that time and I think they have just
about held their own ever since.
The next morning we drove over on Moleba Prairie and camped, the next morning
Grandfather and Uncle John Grim left us. John Grim went on to French Prairie and
Grandfather went to Butteville where Uncle Fred lived. We started for the
Waldo Hills where Mother’s Uncle David Culver had settled. The first night we
camped all alone on or near Butte Creek and the next day we crossed the Abiqua.
In the morning, we drove up to a house where a man by the name of Brown lived
and he told us where David Culver lived and told us how to go to get there. We
crossed Silver and Brush Creek and came to another little creek and camped. Next
morning, we drove to Drift Creek and Brown told us that after we crossed Drift
Creek and got on the hill in the open ground to go east between Drift Creek and
another little creek and we would pass a house and keep up the ridge and we
would see the Culver cabin on a little hill. We drove up to it, but there was
nobody there. We unyoked the cattle and made ourselves at home and the old oxen
was filling themselves with the big bunch grass that waved like a grain field. I
remember my Good Old Mother stood in the cabin door looking across the little
valley toward Drift Creek. It was as fine a landscape as the eye could wish to
see and she said we are happy now we have found the promised land, and she never
gave up but what the Waldo Hills was one of the finest places on God's green
footstool.
Now we have crossed the planes from Knox County, Illinois to Marion County,
Oregon, the fever is broke and so are we.
And now as I have plenty of paper I will tell
you how we wintered in the little cabin. There was no floor in the cabin, just a
few clapboards laying on the sleepers, but there was a fireplace and Mother
could bake pancakes and we could eat lots of them. Uncle David was not at home
but we made ourselves at home just the same.
The next morning, father got on the mare and struck out to see if we had any
neighbors and he met Lorenzo Byrd, he told Father v/here Uncle David was. He was
on French Prairie thrashing grain with a flail to get wheat for bread for
winter. Byrd said that the lumber was at his cabin to floor the cabin we were
in, but Father went on and found John Hunt. He had stopped at a spring and was
building a cabin. He crossed the plains, but was ahead of us.
Father went on to Powell’s and on over to Dan Waldo’s and the next morning he
hitched up two yoke of oxen and we went over to Byrd’s cabin and got lumber on
the wagon. He told me to drive the team home and he would go around the hill and
see if he could kill a deer. I started across the prairie and got over half way
and all at once I broke down in my back. I stopped the oxen and crawled up on
the wagon and I could not raise up. I hollered to the oxen but they would feed
along and go so slow. Mother heard me hollering and she saw me on the wagon and
she came down and drove them up to the house and carried me in and layed me on
the bed and unyoked the oxen. Father soon and he wasn’t long laying the floor
as the lumber was wide and we had no nails, just laid it down loose. The next
day he filled up a little trunk with needles, buttons, thread and a little cloth
that we had brought with us as he thought that we could not get anything of the
kind in this country. He took 2 yoke of oxen and the wagon and started out. He
was gone one or two nights and when he came back the wagon was loaded with
potatoes and turnips and cabbage and he had traded for a beef steer and his
trunk wasn't half empty. The Geer’s never went hungry since that. The next day
he drove up the steer and killed it. We didn't have salt enough to salt it all
down but we dried most of it, and it was fine.
I was down with rheumatism and was not able to feed myself for six weeks but a man
told Father to take some white fir boughs and put them in a tub and get me in a
chair and put blankets around me and pour hot water on them and it would relieve
the pain, and it did. They done that every day for quite awhile and I got so I
could walk but was crippled for a long while.
That was a fine winter, no snow, and the grass was green and our cattle was seal fat
before spring. Father was over to Dan Waldo’s and he told Father to plant his
nursery on his place as he had a piece of ground that was in fine fix, so Father
planted the apple seeds there and they came up in the spring and grew fine. I
think it was in February that Father got a plow and broke some ground on Drift
Creek and put in some wheat and it grew fine. He built a bridge across the creek
and then he turned the stock across the creek and they could get back and he did
not have to fence it.
The neighbors wanted Father to teach a school, and Mr. Parker told Father that if he
would come down to his place they would build a house for us to live in. We went
down, they built a log cabin about twelve feet from their cabin and roofed them
over together and then went a mile south, on the Hendrick’s place and built a
log school house. I drove the oxen to haul the logs up out of the woods and
while the men would lay them up, others were cutting more logs and they built
the house in one day. The next day they made boards and covered it and then went
down to Capt. English’s mill to get lumber to floor it and got slabs to make
seats. They had to make long benches, bored holes in the walls and layed a wide
board for a writing desk and then it was ready for the school. So on Monday
morning, Father took up the first district school ever taught in Marion County
and he had something like thirty scholars. Some came from Rowel Prairie and over
by Waldo’s and would come on horseback and stake out their horses on fine
grass. When the school was near out in the fall we moved back up to the Culver
cabin so Father could see to his crop and we walked from there to school.
For about two weeks after school was out we thrashed out the grain and had enough
wheat for bread. As we had left one wagon at Oregon City, Father and I took
three yoke of oxen and started to Oregon City. Father wanted to see Parker so we
drove down there, and Parker wanted to sell Father his place. He said it was a
fine place for his nursery and offered it to Father for 640 dollars and gave him
all the time he wanted to pay for it. So Father bought it and when we got to
Oregon City he filed on it and then we came home and when Father told Mother
what he had done she said good, I always wanted that place. We moved down and
Mother was so happy and Father went to work and fixed up some ground for the
nursery and that winter he moved the trees from Waldo’s and started the
nursery and called the place Fruit Farm.
That winter a man came there and wanted to teach school and they hired him and he was
to board with the scholars. So Flora and Mant and I went to school that winter
and I thought I was laying the foundation for my future greatness, but it never
has materialized.
Now here it is Neva, but I am
ashamed to send it to you. Hope you can make it all out, but if you can’t when I
get home I will help you out. It seems like a jumbled-up mess.
Hope you are getting along fine after the hard winter. We are having fine
weather here and the garden is growing fine. Had a mess of peas and
radishes and the lettuce is grown fine. Will tell you the rest when I get home.
With kind regards to all from, Your Old Father
Cal Geer
Feb. 11, 1925
Note: This is a copy of a letter written by Calvin Geer when he was 87 years old. This website also holds the recollections of Calvin's father, Ralph Carey Geer, and of Ralph's stepmother, Elizabeth Dixon Smith Geer, of their trips on the Oregon Trail.
Additional background on the Geer family's emigration as part of the westward
expansion during the 'manifest destiny' period can be found in T.T. Geer's
Autobiography: Fifty Years
In Oregon. This book can
often be located in used bookstores through
Alibris
which consolidates availability across hundreds of used book stores across the
United States. Specifically:
 | Chapters 1 and 2 describe the Geer family history and the tale of Joseph Carey Geer's trip along the Oregon Trail in 1847. |
| Chapter 3 describes the trail westward taken by T.T. Geer's other grandfather, John Eoff. |
| Chapters 18 and 19 contain the diary of Elizabeth Dixon Smith, my grandmother's grandmother who traveled across the Oregon Trail in 1847. |
| Chapter 20 provides the text of an address that James W. Nesmith delivered in 1876 to the Oregon Pioneer Association which offers some additional perspective on traveling along the Oregon Trail. |
I have also found some information on the Palmer wagon train including a full list of the pioneers in his company. Captain Joel Palmer went to Oregon first in 1845 with a company from Independence. He kept a journal of his travels then and during his return to the East in 1846, at which time he had it published. Few of the copies ordered were completed by the time he was ready to set out for Oregon again in 1847, but it later became widely used. Palmer recruited a large number of people to join his company in 1847. These included the Ralph C. Geer family, the John W. Grim family, the Graham and Collard families and Christopher Taylor. Robert Crouch Kinney and his brother Samuel also stated in later years that they came with the Palmer Company, although Robert Kinney's name is also listed among those in the train of Capt. Jordan Sawyer.
A number of Geers - children, spouses, and some grandchildren - made the journey in 1847 as shown in the table below:
|
Joseph Carey Geer, Sr. (1795-1881) |
||
| Children of Joseph and Mary Geer | Grandchildren of Joseph and Mary Geer | |
|
Ralph Carey Geer (1816-1895) m'd 1837 Mary Catherine Willard |
Calvin Geer (1837-1930) - m'd 1858 Ellen Sylvania Leonard Florinda Geer (1839-1870) - m'd 1854 Timothy Woodbridge Davenport Samantha Geer (1842-1929) - m'd 1858 Phillip Bowers LeGrande Byington (1845-1909) - m'd 1870 Egletine DeHart |
|
| Frances Emeline Geer (1821-1897) m'd 1843 John W. Grim |
Lois Grim (1844- ) Louis Grim (1844- ) Byron J. Grim (1846-1938) Martha Grim (1847- ) |
|
|
Heman Johnson Geer, (1828-1903) m'd 1848 Cynthia Ann Eoff |
 |
Theodore T. Geer (1851-1924) - m'd 1870 Nancy Batte (Maude, Theodosia, Frederick) - m'd 1898 Isabelle Trullinger |
| Mary Geer (1830-1899) m'd 1848 Robert Valentine Short |
||
| Elizabeth Geer (1833 - 1902) m'd 1855 ??? Sandborn m'd 18?? ??? Switzer m'd 18?? ??? Switzer m'd 18?? James Kent |
||
| Juliette Geer (1834- ) | ||
| Iantha Geer (1836- ) m'd 1852 John Kruse |
||
| George T. Geer (-) | ||
| Isaiah Geer ( - ) | ||
| George W. Geer ( - ) m'd 1838 Margaret McRae |
Adelia Geer ( - ) | |
I am interested in your perspective on what you found to be interesting within these recollections. If you could please send me feedback, I would be grateful. Thank you.
There are many other excellent books that are of general interest about the Oregon Trail. The ones listed here are only a few of the best:
|
The Discovery of the Oregon Trail: Robert Stuart's Narratives of His Overland Trip Eastward from Astoria in 1812-13; Robert Stuart |
| The Oregon Trail; Francis Parkman |
| The Oregon Trail: Yesterday and Today: A Brief History and Pictorial Journal Along the Wagon Tracks of Pioneers; William E. Hill |
| The Plains Across: The Overland Emigrants and the Trans-Mississippi West, 1840-60; John D. Unruh, Jr. |
| Traveling the Oregon Trail; Julie Fanselow |
|
A Pioneer's Search for an Ideal Home; Phoebe Goodell Judson, Susan Armitage |
|
Terrible Trail: The Meek Cutoff, 1845; Keith Clark and Lowell Tiller [Note: Out of print but usually available used via Amazon.com Marketplace or Powell's Books.) |
Other interesting books on the Oregon Trail from Amazon.com include:
For more information on the Geer Family, visit the Geer Family website. Return to the Ragen's family history.
Links To Other Oregon Trail Diaries and Information
| Oregon Pioneers - Emigrant Diaries and Journals |
| Oregon Pioneers - Emigrant Rosters |
| Overland Trails Diaries |
| Oregon Trail Archive |
| Oregon-California Trails Association |
|
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