RALPH L. MILLIKEN
Collection

STORY OF THE CROW
EMIGRANT TRAIN
OF 1865

Written by Ralph LeRoy Milliken from
several conversations held with Mr. F. M.
Watkins of Los Banos, California

(Copyrighted, 1935, by Ralph L. Milliken)

Re-printed as Published in The Livingston Chronicle
January, 1935

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It was no easy matter when I was a boy in Iowa seventy years ago to get to 
California.  There were only three ways to get here.  One was to take a steamer 
in New York and go by way of the Isthmus of Panama.  Another was to cross the 
plains as a passenger on the Overland Stages.  The third was to come in an 
emigrant train.  That is the way, in the summer of 1865, that I arrived in 
California.


Our family lived six miles north of Alba, the county seat of Monroe County, 
Iowa.  Father was anxious to leave Iowa and get into a better climate.  Two 
neighboring families were also anxious to emigrate.  All three of the families 
got together and talked matters over.  The result of it all was that all three 
families decided to set out together and go to California.

It cost a lot of money those days to get fitted up in first class shape to 
cross the plains.  Some of father's mule teams cost him as much as seven 
hundred dollars a span.  It was just at the close of the Civil War and 
everything was high.  He bought three brand new wagons for the trip.  Two of 
them were for four horse teams.  The third wagon was a lighter one and we 
called it the family wagon.  It had only two horses and was the wagon mother 
and us children rode in.  None of our wagons was loaded so heavy that a two 
horse team couldn't pull it, but father wanted to be on the safe side and he 
put four horses on them.  He knew there would be lots of bad places to cross 
going through the mountains.  He took along about twenty head of horses and 
mules so that he could change off teams.  All the harness also was brand new 
for he didn't want anything wearing out and giving way on the journey.

The two heavy wagons were loaded up with our provisions and supplies.  Father 
took along enough provisions to last for four months.  We had at least fifteen 
hundred pounds of flour alone. Bacon and hams and lard were brought along in 
large quantities as were also dried apples, peaches and pears.  Father even had 
the family doctor fix up a box of medicines, such as quinine, etc., that we 
might need on the trip.  Everything that we had any idea we might require 
during the next four months was put on board.

Father sold his farm for twelve thousand dollars.  When we were all ready to 
start father still had three thousand dollars in cash which he took on the 
journey.  He thought he had bought everything we would need and that he would 
have no more expense until we reached California.  We started the first day of 
April, 1865, and when we got located at Petaluma, California, the last part of 
August- four months later- he had just twenty-five dollars in cash left.

I was born in 1855 and was named Francis Marion Watkins.  My mother was a great 
admirer of the famous Revolutionary hero, General Francis Marion and named me 
after him.  When we started for California I was nearly ten years old.  My 
sister Emma was eight.  I had five older brothers.  Two of them were married 
and had their families with them.  One had two children-a girl about four and 
my nephew, Charles Watkins, aged two.  This was the Charlie Watkins who used to 
be city marshal here in Los Banos.  Another pioneer of Los Banos was also with 
us. She was Miss Lizzie Carmen who later became Mrs. C. M. Wiley.  My other 
three brothers were Frank who was thirteen, Henry who was twenty and George, 
twenty-two.

One of the families traveling with us was named Brannon.  They had three 
children- one boy and two girls.  The older girl was about fifteen.  The other 
family was named Bordeau.  Their children were older.  There were three girls 
and two boys if I remember right.  The older girls were already grown up.

Father wanted to have two drivers for each of our five wagons.  He knew that 
when we got out in the Indian country we would have to take turns standing 
guard at night and he wanted to make it as easy as possible for the drivers. 
There were two young men in our neighborhood who wanted to come to California. 
Father told them that if they were willing to do their share of the work just 
for their grub they could come along.  They were tickled to death to get the 
chance. One was an Irish boy named Mike Folen.  The other was an American by 
the name of John Burns.  Lots of people crossing the plains had young men 
traveling with them and helping do the work.

There were ten wagons in our train as we left Alba.  Each of my married 
brothers had his own wagon.  Father had three wagons and our two neighbors had 
five wagons between them.  We traveled as a small emigrant train the hundred 
and twenty-five miles to Council Bluffs.  We crossed the Missouri River on a 
ferry boat and landed in Omaha.  Here we expected to meet up with other 
emigrants and form a large train to travel through the Indian country.  We fell 
in with a train from Missouri.  It went under the name of the Blodgett train 
and consisted of about fifty wagons.  They took us in and we traveled together 
as one train until we got to Fort Laramie, in Wyoming.

The emigrant trains followed the same road along the Platte River that the 
Overland Stages traveled.  We often saw the stages going by on the gallop.  The 
stage stations were about twelve to fifteen miles apart, close enough together 
so that the horses could travel at a stiff gallop all the way.  When a stage 
rolled into a station the exhausted horses stopped abruptly.  The driver threw 
the lines to the ground.  The attendants hitched fresh horses right in, handed 
the lines up to the driver and away the stage would go again on the dead run.  
There were lots of people traveling on the stages.

A bunch of about twenty-five soldiers were kept at every stage station.  Every 
hundred miles or so a whole company of soldiers were stationed at a regular 
fort.  They were to protect the stages and emigrants from the Indians.  
Whenever there was a stagecoach coming you would always see eight cavalrymen 
galloping along beside it.  Four rode in front and four more followed behind.  
In case the stage was attacked it was the duty of the cavalrymen to fall back 
and fight the Indians while the stage driver whipped up his horses and got to 
the nearest military post- if possible.

The government orders to the emigrant trains were to shoot any Indians seen 
skulking on the north side of the emigrant road.  All on that side of the road 
were considered as enemies and no risks were to be taken.  On the south side of 
the road the government orders were to keep a sharp lookout for Indians but not 
to shoot them if they came up peacefully.  The year 1865 was the worst year of 
all for Indians on the plains.  It was just at the close of the war and any 
number of bad men who hod been driven out of the war zone had gotten out among 
the Indians and were stirring them up.

No doubt there were Indians hiding along the north side of the road as we 
passed along but all kept out of sight and none were ever killed by any of our 
train.  Indian warfare is different from that of white men.  Their way of 
fighting is to rush in on their ponies and then for a little while just make 
the arrows fly.  Then they run their horses for all they are worth and get out 
of gun shot as quickly as possible.  They won't stand and fight like white men.

I'll bet our train threw a ton of bullets into the Platte River.  We always 
camped about a hundred yards from the river in order to have water.  It was the 
rule for everybody to take all his guns after supper and go down to the river 
and shoot.  All guns were kept loaded.  Some snag perhaps a couple of hundred 
yards away would be selected and everybody would shoot at it.  Another test was 
to shoot upstream to see how far a gun would carry.  There was lots of betting 
going on as to whose gun would carry the farthest.  Each would shoot in turn 
and all would watch to see which bullet splashed the farthest.

At that time everybody used loose ammunition.  Revolvers, rifles and shotguns 
were all muzzle loading and were cap and ball affairs.  Powder was poured down 
the muzzle and then a ball rammed home.  To fire the gun a cap was put on the 
tube to explode the charge.  Even the six-shooters were muzzle loading.  This 
target practice every evening was to make sure each gun was fresh loaded and 
that the cap would be sure to go off and not just snap.

The newest kind of rifle was the Henry.  It would shoot sixteen times.  There 
were not more than a dozen of them in our whole train.  The Henry rifles were 
not so well thought of as other guns.  They didn't shoot so accurately and when 
a fellow got one of them empty it took too long to get it loaded again.  You 
had to pull out a long rod and put in the cartridges and then work to get the 
rod back again so that the spring would throw the cartridges up to you.  It was 
as big a job as winding up a Waterbury watch.

We always had lots to eat.  Mother was a fine cook and it didn't worry her a 
bit to cook over a camp fire.  As she rode along in the wagon during the day 
she would be looking over a mess of beans for supper.  Then just as soon as we 
got into camp a trench was dug and a camp fire started.  She would have a 
kettle of these beans together with a big hunk of fat pork cooking over the 
fire in no time.  By supper time they were cooked perfectly.  Sometimes we had 
wood for fuel and sometimes buffalo chips.  As soon as there was a bed of coals 
ready she would have the Dutch oven filled with bread and covered over, top and 
bottom, with hot coals.  There is no better, sweeter bread in the world than 
that cooked in a Dutch oven over a camp fire.  We always had plenty of sauce 
made out of dried fruit.  When supper was ready we all sat clown on the ground 
around the camp fire and ate like starved Injuns.

At breakfast time mother would always make a double shot of soda biscuits.  As 
soon as the first batch was done we had them for breakfast while another batch 
was baking in the Dutch oven to be taken along on the road for dinner.  At 
noon, of course, we didn't stop long enough to cook anything.  The beans that 
were left over from the night before would get thick and jelly-like by morning.  
For lunch she would cut this in slices and lay them across chunks of bread or 
biscuits.  It made our mouths water this fat pork tasted so good to us 
children.  There is something about camping out that I like.  Nothing would 
suit me better even now than to go up in the mountains way back from everybody 
and camp out again.

On a long trip it is necessary to take a day off occasionally.  We always aimed 
to stay in camp one day each week.  That was to wash up our clothes and give 
our stock a rest.

The soldiers along the road were very strict.  Their orders were to stop all 
small squads of emigrants that came along who were too small an outfit to take 
care of themselves in case of an Indian attack.  They would hold them in camp 
until enough more came along to make a sufficiently large force.  People in 
small squads got so they knew where the soldiers were stationed.  They would 
leave the road and circle around them.  They didn't want to join in the big 
trains and have to do guard duty and be under military rules.  They wanted to 
be independent and go as they pleased.  The Indians slaughtered such people by 
the hundreds.  They would attack the helpless train and tomahawk the people.  
Then they would take the horses and whatever they wanted from the wagons.  They 
would burn the rest and leave the people lying there dead.  When the soldiers 
would find them they would have to bury them.  Over the graves one would see a 
board reading: "Slaughtered by the Indians."  The wagon irons and tires would 
be all that was left of the train.  I have seen as many as fifteen newly made 
graves in one place.

Every once in a while the soldiers themselves got cleaned out.  We came along 
about five or six days after the stage station and soldiers quarters at Plum 
Creek were wiped out.  The Indians had massacred everyone in the whole place.

Just the day before we got into Julesburg the Indians had burned that 
settlement up.  There were a lot of soldiers stationed there and they had put 
up a hard fight.  An ox freight train going to Utah happened to be in camp 
there at the time.  The Indians kept the soldiers surrounded in an adobe house 
where they had taken refuge.  Lots of Indians got put under, but they finally 
overpowered the whites.  They burned the wagon train and the cavalry stables.  
Then they took all the stock and ran it off into the hills.  When we got there 
the fight was over and everybody was gone.  All the dead had been buried.  The 
manure of the stables was still burning and some of the wagon timbers were 
still on fire.  The freight train had been loaded with pancake smashers- steel 
burrs to grind quartz- and these were lying all about on the ground where they 
had fallen from the burning wagons.  The present Julesburg is built right on 
the spot where this happened- about a mile from the railroad, down at the head 
of a kind of canyon.

I got the scare of my life the morning we crossed the South Platte River.  We 
camped there the night before and in the morning started moving across.  It 
took us all day.  While we were still in camp waiting our turn to be ferried 
over I was playing around our wagons.  The orders were for us kids not to go 
outside of camp at all.  I got outside like a kid would, running and playing, 
and I guess I was a hundred yards from camp.  I looked up in terror.  There, 
coming right towards me at a jog trot on their little ponies were six or seven 
Indians- all decked out in their feathers and war paint.  My only thought was: 
If you don't get back to camp before they can catch you your scalp won't be 
worth the taking off!  I ran as fast as my little legs would go.  God knows how 
fast a kid can run when he is scared.  It seems like I got clear off the ground 
and just flew.  I gained on the Indians and reached camp first.  When they rode 
into camp they were fairly laughing their sides off.  They knew what I was 
afraid of.  It tickled them immensely to see me run.

Father bought two quarters of antelope meat from them.  Antelope on the Platte 
River were as thick as sheep.  I have seen five hundred of them in one bunch.  
The Indians had come to sell us fresh meat.  Father traded them sugar and 
coffee.  It was hard for the Indians to get these things and they were crazy 
for them.  A pint of sugar would go farther than a dollar would in trading with 
the Indians.  They were also anxious to get tobacco.

It took our train all day to get across the river.  We partly forded and partly 
ferried across.  The wagons were hauled out into the river one at a time.  The 
water was only about knee deep until we got out into the middle of the river.  
There the water was deep.  It took four horses to pull each wagon through the 
sand and water.  Out in the middle of the stream where the water began to get 
deep there was a landing place or platform to drive the wagons up on.  Only one 
team could be taken on the ferry along with the wagon.  The other team would be 
unhitched and made to swim the rest of the way across the river.  The ferry 
boat came up to the platform and the wagon and team were driven on board the 
boat.  It was about three hundred yards across this stretch of the river and it 
cost five dollars to ferry each wagon over.  Two men on the ferry pulled the 
boat across the stream.  There was a long rope attached to the opposite bank.  
One man in the head of the boat would take hold of the rope and start pulling 
and walking towards the back end of the boat.  As soon as he reached the stern 
of the boat the other man up in front would begin pulling on the rope and walk 
with it to the back end of the boat.  In this way they kept the boat moving and 
soon reached the opposite shore.

When we left the Platte River and got up in the mountains we began to get into 
the territory where the Sioux Indians were.  They were the most vicious- the 
worst Indians of all.  We knew there was a very large emigrant train traveling 
just a few days ahead of us.  We were very anxious to catch up with this big 
train for the bigger the train the less likelihood there was of being attacked 
by the Indians.  This other train also knew that our train of fifty wagons was 
following close behind them.  The Overland Stages traveled faster than the 
emigrant trains did and the drivers kept people informed where the other 
emigrant trains were.  We traveled each day a little longer and finally 
overtook them at Fort Laramie.  They were as anxious to have us join them as we 
were and had been waiting for us for two days.  It was the Crow train.  It was 
a very large outfit under the command of Brad Crow.  There were the five Crow 
brothers and their families in the train.  A great many other emigrants were 
also traveling with them.  The Crows were bringing out forty jackasses from 
Missouri- big Maltese jacks to raise mules on the San Joaquin River in 
California.  They said they were going to a place called Crows Landing in 
Stanislaus County.

We joined up with the Crows.  All told there were two hundred fourteen wagons 
in the new train.  Everything was organized under military rules.  All men over 
twenty-one and under forty-five were enrolled for military duty.  There were 
four hundred fighting men.  I don't know how many more there were older and 
younger, but probably in case of attack there would have been at least six 
hundred fighting men.  It was said that we were the largest and strongest train 
that ever crossed the plains.

All wagons were divided up into companies of twenty each.  Every wagon had the 
letter of the company to which it belonged painted on both sides of the canvas 
cover.  Each company was under the command of a wagon master who was 
responsible for the twenty wagons in his company.

The leadership of the train centered on Brad Crow.  Each company elected its 
own wagon master.  Father was elected wagon master of Company A.  There was a 
lame man by the name of Bassett and he was given charge of enrolling all the 
men in the train and of posting the guards each night.

While we were getting organized a band of Indians made a raid on the fort and 
stage station.  We were camped about three miles from the fort.  The forty 
jackasses belonging to the Crow Brothers had to be herded separate from the 
rest  of  the stock in the train.  While the main bunch of Indians were busy at 
the fort a small bunch made a little side attack on us and tried to stampede 
these jackasses.  The stubborn things never budged.  They simply braced their 
feet and hee hawed at the Indians in derision.  The Indians did not know what 
to make of them.  They wouldn't scare at all.  The men in charge began shooting 
at the Indians and they rode away.  The next day we got word that the rest of 
the Indians had made away with forty of the cavalry and stage horses.

The Crow train traveled strictly according to military rule.  In starting out 
in the morning each wagon had to be all hitched up at eight o'clock and ready 
to start.  It was the wagon master's duty to see that all his twenty wagons 
were in line.  If any of the drivers were slow it was up to him to punch them 
up.  There always will be some people slow.  The train started off each morning 
with Captain Crow on horseback in the lead.  The wagon masters rode all day 
beside their companies.  If it became necessary for any wagon to stop- lame 
horse or broken wheel- the wagon master rode ahead and had the entire train 
stopped.  There was no leaving any wagon behind.  The Indians wanted nothing 
better than to get a train scattered.  Each company was in the lead one day in 
succession.  The next day it traveled in the rear.  If Company A led today, 
Company B led tomorrow and Company A brought up the rear of the train.  It was 
much easier on teams to travel in the lead as the roads were not cut up so bad.  
It was also pleasanter for the people as there was not so much dust.

The great trouble in crossing the plains was with people who had poor stock.  
Lots of wagons in the train had only two horses to pull them and were too 
heavily loaded besides.  The women and children would have to get out and go 
trudging through the sand to lighten the loads.  Some of the people would have 
to throw part of their loads away in order to ease their old pelters.  Day 
after day father had half of his stock hitched up in other people's teams 
helping them along.  The Crows did the same thing.  Nobody could be left 
behind.  If there is any place in the world where people will stick together it 
is when traveling through a hostile country.  Sometimes people would even run 
out of grub.  Many is the time mother would give flour and coffee to those that 
had none left.

The camping time was four o'clock in the afternoon.  Captain Crow would put his 
horse in a stiff gallop and ride in a large circle.  The drivers of the two 
hundred and fourteen wagons had to whip up their horse and keep up.  As soon as 
the entire train was traveling in a circle the teams were brought to a stop.  
Each wagon was drawn up with the front wheels beside the hind wheels of the 
wagon in front.  This running in a circle each day was done also as a drill in 
case of an Indian attack so that everybody would know just what to do.

As soon as the stock was unhitched the herders took them out to graze until 
sundown.  Then all were driven back inside the corral of wagons for the night.  
Ropes were tied from each wagon to the adjoining one so that the stock could 
not get out.  The back ends of each wagon faced out of the circle.  Between 
each company a space was left about the length of a wagon to serve as a gate.

Each evening after supper Bassett would come around to all the companies and 
notify the men who were to go on guard duty for the night.  Two men were on 
duty from each company until midnight when they were relieved by two more who 
stood guard until daylight.  The guards walked back and forth outside the 
corral.  One guard faced one way and the other the opposite for the length of 
each company.  Their orders were to call anything they saw outside the corral.  
If the answer came "Friend of the Guard" they didn't shoot.  Otherwise they 
plugged everything they saw.

After we had been traveling several days a bunch of aristocratic Southerners 
tried to follow along with us.  They were not strong enough to take care of 
themselves alone in case of an Indian attack and had been stopped by the 
soldiers.  When our train came along the soldiers turned them loose and they 
started following us.  At night they would camp just outside our corral.  They 
traveled in buses.  There were four or five loads of them.  They had two extra 
wagons to haul their supplies.  A couple of darkey women did their cooking.  In 
the evening the women in their party would come out in their silk dresses and 
stroll around their camp.

Captain Crow sent these Southerners word that they were welcome to join our 
train if they wanted to do so but that the men would have to do guard duty at 
night the same as our men.  They only laughed at us.  They said they hadn't 
seen any Indians that they were afraid of and that it was all foolishness to 
keep guards out all night.

Captain Crow called a meeting in the center of our corral.  Every man in our 
train was ordered to be present.  Captain Crow put the proposition up to our 
men whether they wanted to keep on giving this party protection from the 
Indians.  The answer was decidedly NO!

Captain Crow gave these aristocrats their choice of two things: Either join our 
train and be enrolled with the rest of the men to stand guard when it was their 
turn, or else keep away from our train altogether.  If they did not wish to 
join us they were to stay in camp until we were one day ahead of them, or we 
would stay in camp one day and they should go on.

The newcomers flatly refused to do either one.  They would neither join us nor 
leave us.  "Then," said Captain Crow, "we will make you do it."  He went on to 
tell them that out in the Indian country there was no law except what the 
emigrants themselves made.  And he added: "We've got plenty of wagon tongues 
and we make the law.  It's a case of your doing what we tell you or getting 
your backs slashed!"  That brought them to time.  No doubt they had seen plenty 
of niggers in the South stretched up and whipped and they didn't want any of it 
themselves.  They joined up with our train and did their duty.  They were 
awfully mad about it, but nobody cared.

We traveled with the Crow train for a matter of six weeks or two months.  My 
father and Brad Crow became quite attached to one another and often rode ahead 
together to pick out the camp ground for the night.  Feed for the stock had 
been plentiful at first but when we came within a few hundred miles of Salt 
Lake City the feed began to get scarce.  The Crow train was so large and there 
was so much stock to be fed that it became necessary to break up the train.  We 
were now coming into the country of the Snake Indians.  A few years before 
their power had been completely broken by Colonel Connor and it was now safe 
for emigrant trains of even a few wagons to go through by themselves.  The 
train was broken up in this way.  All the wagons going, say to Oregon, would 
get together some night and stop over in camp the next day, letting the main 
train get ahead.  A few days later another bunch of wagons going to some 
particular part of the West would pull out and wait in camp a day or so.  In 
that way the Crow train was soon greatly diminished in size.

We stayed with the Crow train until we were within about a hundred miles of 
Salt Lake City.  Here we stayed in camp three or four days to let the Crow 
train get well along.  We were the same three families that had started out 
together from Alba, Iowa.  We still had our ten wagons.  We felt strong enough 
to defend ourselves the rest of the way to California and the fewer the wagons 
in a train the better the chances were of getting feed for the stock.

We happened to be in Salt Lake City over Sunday and it was a great sight to us 
to see the large Mormon families walking down the streets.  The Mormon himself 
would walk along the sidewalk with a woman holding on to his arm.  Another 
woman would have hold of her arm.  A third woman would be clinging to this 
second woman.  From three to six women would often be coming down the street 
all in a row holding on to this one man.

It was Colonel Connor with about three hundred California troops during the 
Civil War that broke the power of the Snake Indians.  He had been chasing the 
Indians all summer but that did no good.  He knew that the way to settle Indian 
raids once and for all was to completely break their power.  One of his 
California soldiers by the name of Bartlett whom I afterwards knew in 
California told me all about the way it was done.

Colonel Connor waited until the dead of winter.  The Snake Indians were camped 
on Bear River about two hundred miles north of Salt Lake City.  Connor put his 
soldiers in sleighs and started for the canyon where they were located.  The 
snow in places was four feet deep and Bear River was full of ice.  There were 
three hundred warriors besides the women and children.

Connor moved his men into the canyon during the night and got into position.  
He had the Indians all surrounded before they knew anybody was there.  The 
massacre began at daylight.  Connor didn't aim to kill any women or children 
but some of the women seized bows and arrows and fit just like the men.  Of 
course these got killed.  When nearly all the men had been killed there were 
still a few left skulking about in the timber.  The soldiers would hunt them 
out of the brush just like they were jack rabbits.  When an Indian was driven 
out into the open he would just make the arrows sing.  About Sixteen warriors 
succeeded in swimming through the ice in the river and getting away.  They 
probably perished, however, as it was the dead of winter and the mountains were 
all covered with snow.

One thing that saved many of the soldiers from getting killed was the fact that 
the Indians had cheap ammunition.  They used G. D. caps.  These were all right 
in dry weather but in wet weather the caps won't fire.  Often the Indians would 
try to shoot, only to find that the cap wouldn't go off.  Before the Indian 
could put on another cap the soldiers would have him picked off.  Many of the 
Indians had only bows and arrows.

Colonel Connor left nearly three hundred warriors piled up after the fight.  
Only a few women were killed.  Connor lost twenty-five or thirty men.  The 
wounded and dead were hauled in sleighs back to Salt Lake City.  The dead were 
frozen stiff just like cord wood.  Many of the soldiers had their feet frozen.  
Connor left plenty of provisions for the Indian women and children.  But the 
power of the Snake Indians was broken forever.

On leaving Salt Lake City we traveled out to a little feed store at Black Rock, 
right on the shore of Salt Lake itself.  A little boy about ten years old came 
over to our camp in the evening.  He was very talkative and was telling us that 
his "aunt" used to live out there at the lake but that his father had taken her 
back to the city.  In a Mormon family the extra wives are known as "aunt" to 
the children of the other mothers.  This little fellow was telling us that his 
mother had chased his "aunt" with a butcher knife.  All that saved her was 
because his "aunt" could outrun his mother.  When the father got home the boy's 
mother told him that if he didn't get "aunt" out of there she would cut all her 
insides out.  His father evidently believed she would do so, for he took the 
"aunt" back to the city.

One time I was riding along past a Mormon ranch.  There were three wives.  Each 
had a house of her own surrounded with a picket fence.  One of the wives was 
older and had slightly gray hair.  The other two wives were fighting together 
across their picket fence just like men.  Every time one of them would get in a 
good punch and the blood would fly the older wife would burst out laughing in 
great delight.

Out about two hundred miles west of Salt Lake City we came to a mountain stream 
called Roberta Branch.  A Mormon with six wives was living there.  Each woman 
had a cedar log house about twelve feet square.  Each little house was 
surrounded with a picket fence.  There was one continuous fence in front of the 
six houses.  We went on past down the creek about half a mile to where there 
was good pasture.  We stopped a few days to wash up.  While we were there the 
Mormon came down to sell us vegetables.  He had irrigated some land from this 
mountain stream and had potatoes, carrots, onions, cabbage and other vegetables 
to sell.  He also had an overshot waterwheel in the creek and used it to turn a 
churn to make batter.  He sold butter all aver the country to the mines and got 
a dollar a pound.  He was making lots of money.  It was a great treat for us 
emigrants to get butter and fresh vegetables and father went up with him to his 
garden to get a supply.

As they walked along father felt sure that he recognized the man.  He was 
certain that he had seen him before, but he could not place him.  He kept 
looking at the man as they walked along together and finally it dawned on him 
who the man was.  A good many years before a man from our home town in Iowa had 
started with an ox team for California.  He had never been heard from again.  
It was supposed that the man had been killed by the Indians.  His family of two 
girls and a boy had grown up but the widow had never married.

"I think I know you," said father, inquiringly.

"I am sure I don't know you," replied the Mormon.

"Aren't you -------, of Alba, Iowa?" asked father.

The man was completely surprised.  He paused for a moment undecided.  Then he 
replied simply, "Well, yes."

Fully three-fourths of the time after we left Salt Lake City we had to take our 
stock to pasture sometimes as much as five miles from the road.  We no longer 
had the abundance of feed that we had all during the first part of our journey.  
There were usually a few straggling Indians along the road waiting for the 
chance to take our stock and herd it for us during the night.  When father 
would ask them where there was good pasture to be found they would point in the 
distance.  We generally hired two Indians together.  All we gave them was their 
supper and breakfast- all they could eat.  That was all the pay they wanted.  
We never trusted the Indians to go alone with the stock.  Always two armed men 
went with them.  The Indians were unarmed.

The Indians would drive the stock to the feeding ground.  Then the two white 
men would take turns sleeping while the Indians herded the stock.  One white 
man always stayed awake.  The white men would tell the Indian herders what time 
they wanted to be back at camp the next morning with the stock.  "When tabe so 
high," they would say, meaning when the sun was up so high in the morning.  
When it came time to start back to camp the Indians would begin shouting 
"Vamouse!  Vamouse!"  Then the men would put one of the Indians on horseback 
and let him lead the way.  The long line of animals would wind in and out on 
their way down the mountain to camp.  The Indians knew that breakfast was 
awaiting them in camp and they were always anxious to get there as soon as 
possible.

One young Indian buck followed us for a week.  He would disappear during the 
day but at night when we reached the place where we were going to camp he would 
always be waiting there for us and anxious to take our stock to pasture for the 
sight.  He had taken short cuts during the day and got to camp ahead of us.  He 
would grin when we drove up and say "How?"  Mother was always sympathetic and 
each morning would give him a lunch to take along with him- a chunk of bread 
and two or three slices of fat bacon.  We had lots of soda crackers that the 
alkali had gotten into and we couldn't eat them.  We would give them to the 
Indians and they would eat them greedily.

At the Carson sink in Nevada people were just beginning to try to farm.  One 
outfit had about four hundred acres of barley.  Some of it was tall enough to 
cut, but most of the crop was too short.  It was sandy soil there and they were 
hiring Indians and white men for two dollars a day to pull up the grain by the 
roots and pile it up so that it could be threshed.

After the Carson sink comes the desert.  We started across at three o'clock in 
the afternoon, intending to drive all night.  All the horses and mules were 
given all the water they could drink.  Then father mixed flour in the water and 
got them to drink nearly as much more.  Horses are eager for flour and water.  
Flour was worth twenty-five dollars a sack and father used maybe four sacks.  
But the desert was ahead and we had to get across. The flour slimes their 
stomach and keeps animals from getting so thirsty.

We traveled until midnight.  Here we divided up the water we had hauled along 
with us. It was measured out very carefully.  Each animal received its share- 
about three gallons. From there on there was no more water to be had until we 
reached the other side of the desert.

We started up again after midnight.  The Brannons and the Bordeaus became 
dissatisfied with father.  They claimed that we were traveling too slow and 
that if we didn't hurry up it would get hot before we got across the desert.  
Father knew better than to try to force his stock through the sand under such 
trying circumstances.  He told them that he was going to drive his teams on the 
walk and no faster.  So the other two families drove on and left us.

When it came daylight we could see their five wagons in the distance struggling 
along.  Their horses were already played out.  Trying to hurry where the sand 
is six inches deep soon wears a team out.  When we overtook them it was still 
sixteen miles to water.  They were in a sad plight but father told the boys 
just to pull out around them and go on without stopping.

Our mules began to smell the moisture when we got within six or seven miles of 
water.  It perked them right up.  First one old mule would start wagging his 
ears back and forth wisely.  Then others would begin doing the same. Pretty 
soon some mule would start hollering "Hee Haw" as loud as he could.  Soon they 
were all hee hawing back and forth to one another.  They all knew they were 
getting near to water.  When we got almost there nothing could hold them back. 
Wagons, harness, drivers and everything else was of no avail.  We just let them 
go and they plunged right into the river and drank their fill.

It was the middle of the forenoon when we got across the desert.  After the 
stock had rested a little, father and the boys took several of the mule teams 
and started back to help the people we had left behind.  They hitched a team of 
mules to each wagon on ahead of the horses and pulled the wagons, horses and 
all the six or seven miles to water.

The Bordeaus were the first to leave us after we got into California.  They 
went off down towards Los Angeles and we never heard of them again.  The 
Brannons forked off from us at Sacramento and went up around Willows and 
settled.  We afterwards visited with them there.

The latter part of August we arrived at Two Rock about eight miles north of 
Petaluma.  There was a pretty good place to camp there and we stopped six weeks 
until we got located.  We camped on the Ferguson ranch.  Ferguson was a 
bachelor and already an old man.  The first woman who ever cooked a mess of 
grub in his house was my mother.

We rented a ranch on the dobe flats just north of Petaluma.  That county is all 
in orchards now and doesn't look anything like it used to.  When we got located 
father was feeling pretty blue.  He had only twenty-five dollars in cash left.  
Whenever he complained to the neighbors they just laughed at him.  They told 
him that he had nothing to worry about- that often times ranchers in California 
cleared ten thousand dollars on a single crop of grain.

One of my brothers went to work for a man by the name of Watson who had cleared 
twenty-five thousand dollars is 1864, the year before, on a crap of potatoes.  
When the rest of California had burned up in the dry year of 1864, Petaluma had 
the good fortune to have just as much rain as ever and got tremendous prices 
for its crops.

We went to raising grain.  In three years father cleared about fifteen thousand 
dollars.  There is no telling how much better he would have done if we had had 
the kind of machinery they have nowadays.  The best that father ever had to 
farm with was two horse teams each pulling a single twelve inch plow.  There 
were no machines to sow grain.  It all had to be broadcasted by hand- the 
Armstrong method, we called it.  Harvesting was done with a reaper.  Did you 
ever see one of these things work?  The machine cut the grain and let it fall 
on a platform.  A man followed along behind the reaper with a rake in his hand.  
As fast as there was enough grain to make a bundle he raked it off on the 
ground and another man came along and tied it up in a bundle.  Pretty slow way 
of doing, wasn't it?

We farmed the first year on the dobe flats but the next two years father rented 
two hundred and fifty acres about two miles west of Lakeville.  He rented from 
a man by the name of Louie Prusso, grandfather of Mrs. John Rhodes and Louis E. 
Prusso of Livingston.

Father always sold his grain to Joe McNear, a grain buyer in Petaluma.  He had 
an office opening right out on the street.  One day when father was going past 
McNear called out:  "Hey, Emigrant! Come in."  A person had to live in 
California at least a year or so before people would stop calling him 
"emigrant."

Father came into the office and sat down.  McNear told him jokingly: "I did 
well on your wheat and I feel that I ought to do a little better by you than I 
did."  Father never got less than two cents a pound for his wheat any time he 
was in California.

This particular time McNear had paid him two and a quarter cents.  McNear took 
five twenty dollar gold pieces out of the safe and gave them to father as a 
present.  "I made half a cent a pound on your crop," said McNear.

Pioneers are never satisfied, no matter where they are.  They always want to be 
somewhere else.  A brother of father's who had gone to Kansas kept writing to 
father what a wonderful country it was.  Part of the Osage Indian reservation 
had just been opened up for settlement.  A few cattlemen had made peace with 
the Indians and had been living on Fall River for perhaps fifteen years.  Of 
course, if the Indians wanted a beef the cattlemen had to let them take it and 
say nothing.  But now this part of the reservation was being opened up for 
settlement.  It was a new country and land could be had for nothing- merely by 
settling on it.  Here in California land was already high and none of it that 
we wanted was free.

This free land appealed to father and we started back to get some in the spring 
of 1869.  We started as early in April as we thought we could get over the snow 
on the mountains.  We had to lay ever about a week when we reached the Summit, 
waiting for the snow to freeze over again after a warm spell.  There was about 
eight miles of snow and it was still deep.  When we thought it had frozen over 
thick enough for us to drive over it with our wagons we started.  Just as our 
last wagon was almost across it broke through the crust and down it went.  
Everything had to be unloaded and carried to the end of the snow in order to 
get the wagon across empty.

Father had planned to drive clear through to Kansas.  We were expecting when we 
got to Salt Lake City to join up with other emigrants and go east together 
through the Indian country.  But there were no emigrants at all going east.  
The overland railroad had just been completed a few weeks before, in May, 1869, 
and everything was completely changed.  There was nobody traveling our way at 
all.

We could have gone on ahead with our four wagons for a few hundred miles 
farther before we came into the dangerous Indian country.  Father was taking 
seventy-five head of California horses along.  He decided we better sell them 
in Salt Lake City and then go by train.  Dad sold the whole bunch to one man 
for about thirty-five dollars a head.

The railroad at that time did not come through Salt Lake City.  The nearest 
point where we could reach it was at Ogden, about forty miles north.  We could 
also take the train at Wasatch, a hundred miles or so east.  People advised us 
not to go by way of Ogden, as the railroad track through Echo Canyon was very 
bad and there bad been a number of trains wrecked there.

We took the train at Wasatch.  The transcontinental railroad had just been 
built and the Company could charge anything they chose.  And they chose plenty.  
It cost us four hundred dollars to get a flat car to put our four wagons on.  
The wagon wheels were taken off and the wagon beds securely fastened to the 
car.  And they charged us six hundred dollars for a stock car to ship our stock 
in.  And for ourselves they charged us seventy-two dollars a passenger for each 
of us.  All told it cost us about eighteen hundred dollars to travel four days 
by train to Omaha.

We uncarred our stock once in Colorado.  They side tracked us for twenty-four 
hours.  Our stock had only this one rest and chance to eat and drink in four 
days.  They were on the cars about two days each time.  That's about as long as 
a horse can starve.

After we got everything off the cars at Omaha we hitched up and crossed the 
Missouri River over to Council Bluffs.  We crossed on the same ferry boat we 
had come on four years before.  We drove on down the river into Missouri and 
then over into the southern part of Kansas where we settled.  We were located 
forty miles from nowhere.  There were no wagon roads into the country.  We had 
only horse trails to follow in getting there.  Settlers were pouring into the 
country.  There were two little saw mills on Fall River and so great was the 
demand for lumber that the settlers would grab the boards right away from the 
saw.  Limits of one hundred and two hundred feet had to be set up so that 
everybody could get a share of the lumber.

We camped on our land in our wagons at first.  It was terribly wet during July 
and August that year and the grass grew so rank that a man on horseback could 
hardly look over the top of it.  A hundred yards was as far away as one could 
see a wagon the grass was so dense.  I didn't dare get away any distance at all 
for fear of getting lost.

The place where we settled was called Twin Mounds at first, but later when a 
post office was established the name was changed to Fredonia.

The box of medicine that father had brought from Iowa had never been opened 
during the four years we had been in California.  We still had it with us.  But 
oh my, how those wet prairie lands in Kansas did bring on the chills and fever.  
Our supply of medicine was gone in no time.  But we stayed and soon the whole 
country was settled up.  It was fine land that father took up and he lived 
right there the rest of his life.

After I grew up I came back to California.  I have lived here over forty years 
this last time.  People think that I am a comparatively new comer.  They don't 
know that I am really a Pioneer.  Indeed there are but few people who know that 
I first came to California in 1865, seventy years ago.