A whole week going in circles, how distressing that must have been. I went in a circle around the Atlanta bypass, wasted an hour or so, and thought that was terrible, but nothing like losing a week. Kay In a message dated 01/31/10 16:50:27 Central Standard Time, [email protected] writes: While Elijah Elliott undertook to guide people across the new route , he himself had never been over it . On his trip West he had thought to have gone first to California and then North into Oregon. Coming from the Willamette Valley to meet his family , he supposedly took the Barlow trail around Mt Hood, then joined the usual Oregon Trail near The Dalles.Elliott was also not aware that the party surveying and blazing the new route had turned back in July because of unusually deep snow in the high Cascades .Dr Robert Alexander,who had taken the contract to "improve" the as far as the Deschutes by June 1853, had also given up after working as far as it was marked . A few other tales of experiences along the trail have been told and retold in various branches of the Rickard family ,although no one in their party seems to have kept a diary. What was remembered fits perfectly in precisely with the Nenefee account .For some days it was possible to follow the tracks of a previous lost wagon train, that of 1845. Their guide,Stephen Meek, had lost his way , deserted them, and they had finally gone north to the Columbia after considerable hardship and wandering in Eastern Oregon. Headwaters of the Deschutes River were supposed to be much farther east than they really are,and the Silvies River was mistaken for a branch of the Deschutes. Looking for an easier place to ford that river,the trains turned south, upstream, leaving the Meek tracks.Eventually they circled clear around to south Harney and Malheur Lakes.Much of this country is low and marshy. The fact, a huge bird refuge has been established there in more recent years.For some reason they kept on circling, until they finally realized they could seethe point where they had started south a week earlier. Since it was routine to follow in the tracks of the previous train, if the first ones went astray , the others would follow. Scouts sent ahead to mark the route and and waterholes were able to reach the Deschutes in 11 days. Wagons, traveling much more slowly, could not always reach water in time to keep from making a dry camp .Bird Rickard wrote that " two days they wandered in a sandy desert, and a ox died for which a milch cow was substituted". Sarah (Rickard) Conger said that........ for seven weeks they wandered over the country, in a pitable plight, their food supply almost gone......." On one occasion a party was said to have returned to a prevous camp site,gathered up the bones from butchering and boiled them for the marrow. Since they reached the Willamette Valley on the first day of November , they must have left Vale about the second week of September. -- Linda Rogers ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

I remember in school ( history ) reading they went in circles ,but for some reason it did'nt register . Now that I've read this account I have to wonder why they didn't know after the second time.But I wasn't there so what do I know?I have relized reading this that I'm related to everyone of them some only by marriage , I didn't know that until I've read this.Geesh makes me wonder "what if they don't make it"? Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T -----Original Message----- From: jkaywojack <[email protected]> Date: Sun, 31 Jan 2010 20:28:55 To: <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [SOUTHERN-CHAT] The Lost Wagon Train A whole week going in circles, how distressing that must have been. I went in a circle around the Atlanta bypass, wasted an hour or so, and thought that was terrible, but nothing like losing a week. Kay In a message dated 01/31/10 16:50:27 Central Standard Time, [email protected] writes: While Elijah Elliott undertook to guide people across the new route , he himself had never been over it . On his trip West he had thought to have gone first to California and then North into Oregon. Coming from the Willamette Valley to meet his family , he supposedly took the Barlow trail around Mt Hood, then joined the usual Oregon Trail near The Dalles.Elliott was also not aware that the party surveying and blazing the new route had turned back in July because of unusually deep snow in the high Cascades .Dr Robert Alexander,who had taken the contract to "improve" the as far as the Deschutes by June 1853, had also given up after working as far as it was marked . A few other tales of experiences along the trail have been told and retold in various branches of the Rickard family ,although no one in their party seems to have kept a diary. What was remembered fits perfectly in precisely with the Nenefee account .For some days it was possible to follow the tracks of a previous lost wagon train, that of 1845. Their guide,Stephen Meek, had lost his way , deserted them, and they had finally gone north to the Columbia after considerable hardship and wandering in Eastern Oregon. Headwaters of the Deschutes River were supposed to be much farther east than they really are,and the Silvies River was mistaken for a branch of the Deschutes. Looking for an easier place to ford that river,the trains turned south, upstream, leaving the Meek tracks.Eventually they circled clear around to south Harney and Malheur Lakes.Much of this country is low and marshy. The fact, a huge bird refuge has been established there in more recent years.For some reason they kept on circling, until they finally realized they could seethe point where they had started south a week earlier. Since it was routine to follow in the tracks of the previous train, if the first ones went astray , the others would follow. Scouts sent ahead to mark the route and and waterholes were able to reach the Deschutes in 11 days. Wagons, traveling much more slowly, could not always reach water in time to keep from making a dry camp .Bird Rickard wrote that " two days they wandered in a sandy desert, and a ox died for which a milch cow was substituted". Sarah (Rickard) Conger said that........ for seven weeks they wandered over the country, in a pitable plight, their food supply almost gone......." On one occasion a party was said to have returned to a prevous camp site,gathered up the bones from butchering and boiled them for the marrow. Since they reached the Willamette Valley on the first day of November , they must have left Vale about the second week of September. -- Linda Rogers ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message