FRONTIERSPIECE 



How many died of those who started westward dur- 

 ing this sixteen years of migration or how many eventu- 

 ally arrived at the Ultima Thule will never be known. 

 But there is a record of a single column, fifty thousand 

 strong, and five hundred miles in length. The old em- 

 igrant road, like the Saharan trails, may be said to be 

 paved with the bones of wayfarers. 



In 1852 was the fatal cholera. Between two cross- 

 ings of the Snake River eleven of twenty-three people 

 died in one wagon train, while one day and two nights 

 saw forty people of another train buried opposite the 

 trail. Seven persons of one family were interred in a 

 single grave. At least five thousand emigrants found 

 their last resting-place on the prairies in that fatal 

 year. The dead lay in rows of fifties and groups of 

 seventies; and many claim ten per cent is too low an 

 estimate for a single twelvemonth. 



A scout, following over the trail from the Platte to 

 the Laramie, reported that on one side of the river 

 alone he counted six fresh graves to the mile for the 

 entire distance of four hundred miles. When it is 

 born in mind that on the north bank was a parallel col- 

 umn where the same conditions prevailed, some concep- 

 tion of the fatalities may be had. How many died? 

 Even the approximate number of the total toll paid 

 by these pioneers of the plains will never be known; 

 the roll call was never made. 



The march of the Oregon pioneers was a vast move- 

 ment of families, a romance of adventure, enterprise, 

 patriotism and lofty ambition peculiarly characteristic 

 of America. We of this more effete generation, of 

 this day of steam heat, hot water and upholstered 

 Pullmans, may well pause a moment in our excession 

 of the human economic speed limit and pay tribute to 



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