The Hardships of Early-Day Winter Travel

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Will one of you please throw another log on the campfire. I want to share with you a grizzly tale of the hardships of winter travel in the early days of the settlement of the central mountain country of the present day State of Idaho. My tale was told around the elk hunting campfires as I grew up and hunted elk on the banks and surrounding ridges of the Lochsa River and its tributaries. This is a true story as recounted by an individual who actually participated in it.

Things and life today are much more comfortable and cushy than they were in yesteryear in the earliest settlement activities of the strong and committed men and women who first entered the interior sections of the Rocky Mountains. Weather patterns and their temperatures were much more severe in the second half of the nineteenth century than they are today. Wintertime and its freezing and prolonged periods of deep snow and subzero temperatures could kill a man in a short period of time. The settlers had no down filled clothing, polar fleece apparel, or insulated hats, gloves, or boots to protect their bodies. Hypothermia was their greatest fear,…their greatest life threatening enemy.

As we are snuggled here close to the crackling fire, I will share a tale of the challenging winter elements and hazardous methods of travel that could so easily take a man’s life in the dead of winter in the Rocky Mountain and Cascade Mountain ranges of North America.

The “teller-of-the-tale” is a man named W. A. Moody. He was born in Illinois, and crossed the American Great Plains to present day Oregon in 1852. He told the tale of a group of eleven mountain miners and their route of travel and the many hardships they encountered during their attempted return trip from the goldfields of Central Idaho to “winter” with their families who were living in the Willamette River Valley of Western Oregon. Their trip began in the gold mining town of fabulous “Florence” located high on top of the main ridge of mountains on the northeastern bank of the main Salmon River. Their starting point was south and slightly east of present day Grangeville, Idaho. Come with me now as we listen to his story, as he spins his yarn,…as follows:

“Hearing of the remarkable stories of the gold discoveries on Salmon River in 1861, I determined to try my fortune in those mines and started for Florence rather late in the traveling season. Winter was fast approaching. Its accompanying snow depth and freezing temperatures would completely shut down any type of human travel. Failing to reach Florence before the wintertime was upon the country, I stopped at what is now called Walla Walla, Washington and built the very first flour mill there for a man named H. P. Isaacs.

On January 3, 1862,…the Columbia River was completely frozen over. So there would be no further travel opportunities into the higher and more eastward mountainous areas from Walla Walla from that time on until the spring thaw was completed. On this very same date, I decided to start out of Walla Walla in company with a group of ten miners, who had just come down from Salmon River and were on their way to their homes in the Willamette Valley. Each of the ten men was carrying from twenty to eighty pounds of gold dust.

The overland stage coach company had agreed to put us through from Walla Walla to The Dalles (Oregon) in two days via the south bank trail down the Columbia River. However, because of heavy snow and sub zero temperatures, after five full days of travel, we had only reached the John 
Day River which happened to be 45 miles further to The Dalles, Oregon, our planned destination. At the John Day River ferry crossing, we found nine other miners awaiting an opportunity to cross, as the river was so full of ice that the ferry boat couldn’t be run.

The snow was three and a half feet deep, on the level all around us. Here we lay for five more days, having only 19 pounds of flour and a beef hide for the whole 20 of us to subsist on.

On the sixth day, 11 of us, including Wells, Fargo & Co’s express messenger, crossed the John Day River, in a swing we had constructed and attached to the ferry rope or cable. Having succeeded in getting over the river, we found that it would be impossible to proceed through the deep snow, carrying all of the money (gold dust) we had along with us. So Jack James (Wells, Fargo’s man) concluded to stop there with another man in a tent, and the most of us left the bulk of our dust with them.

Being joined by the ferryman (Pat Davis), we 11 men started at sunrise, on January 13 to make the journey of 45 miles on foot to The Dalles, without snowshoes; and while the thermometer continuously ranged from 40 to 50 degrees below zero.

Marion Olphin acted as guide, but the snow was so deep that we had to break the trail taking individual turns at leading the march through the deep snow. Mr. Olphin being short in stature could not break trails at all; and found it so difficult and laborious to keep stride with the rest of the party that he gave out about eight o’clock that night. One Doc Gay and myself being old friends of Olphin, assisted him along till he froze to death. His last words being, ‘I could die more contentedly if I only knew that my wife, on Willow Creek, had a sack of flour.’

The ten men remaining formed a circle and, having scraped the snow away, we wrapped him in my overcoat and laid his remains there on the bare ground, covered them with snow and left him in his snowy sepulcher, alone on the hill, six miles from where we had started 18 hours before. Slowly and sadly we worked our way along, for about a mile, when we discovered that Pat Davis, the ferryman, was freezing. We assisted him along, as we had Olphin, for about half an hour when he died, and the remaining nine men buried him as we had Olphin. We then moved on, being then without a guide, for two or three hours, when William Riddle fell dead and was buried by the remaining eight, as the others had been.

Soon after this, we became bewildered and lost, but continued to move along until McDonald expired; and was buried by the seven of us left alive. About 10 o’clock the next day, a New York man, whose name I have forgotten, was buried, by the remaining six who as yet retained their right minds. Next we left one Duffy, who lagged behind and fell; but the other five dared not to return to bury him. The next to fall was one Jagger, a son-in-law of R.R. Thompson, of Portland. He was left unburied by the remaining four, about eight miles from the Deschutes River, 23 miles from The Dalles, on our second night out. Next we left Johnson Mulkey of Benton County, Oregon, about four miles from the Deschutes River. He was not yet dead as we moved away from him.

On the morning of the third day, we left another man dead. Doc Gay and myself came in sight of the house at the Deschutes ferry, which we reached about eleven o’clock, and sent a man back with a mule. He found Mulkey alive, but completely exhausted and sitting on his blanket. He brought him in, but the large amount of gold dust which he had carried in a belt around his waist had so chilled and irritated that portion of his body that mortification set in, and he died two days afterwards.

When we arrived at Deschutes, we found doctors McAteeney and Shields there, who amputated my badly frozen feet at the instep, and gave me as much attention as it was possible for them to do. We laid there five days when we were hauled to The Dalles in sleighs belonging to O.S.N. Co.
(now the O.R. & N. Co.). Jagger’s body was brought in on a board by a mule. It was frozen stiff and was taken to Portland for interment. James, the express man, came in with the gold dust all right and it was turned over to the relatives of the deceased.

When we arrived at The Dalles, Dr. Dennison, a friend and brother mason of Doc Gay, gave up his office to his brother, and his best friend, and performed many acts of kindness which, I believe, were the main reason that both of our lives were saved; for we suffered terribly for weeks. I was afterward presented with a fine new overcoat by Olphin’s brother, to replace the one I had used for a winding sheet when we placed his dead brother in his grave of snow.”…..End of Story.

Maybe now you can better understand why Poppa Bear gets so disturbed at people who whine and moan and complain just because they are a little bit inconvenienced, don’t like the way things are going, or just plain cannot get their own way.

A never spoken, underlying theme, to these early-day pioneer stories I learned around the campfire, was to teach we younger hunters about self preservation and how to survive on your own in the mountains, valleys, and all other natural watersheds,… regardless of the season of the year.

It is always good to know what you need to do, BEFORE, you ever need to do it!

Peace And Love to All of You……………Poppa Bear

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