Messed Up Things That Actually Happened On The Oregon Trail

In truth, there wasn't much conflict between the Native American tribes and early travelers, who were mostly fur traders and missionaries. But once settlers started heading West and claiming land for themselves all willy-nilly, not everyone was pleased. You'd be pretty mad, too.

The ill-fated Utter-Van Ornum wagon train would go down in history with the dubious honor of being the deadliest wagon train (via the Idaho Chapter Oregon-California Trails Association). Led by Elijah Utter (sometimes written "Otter"), the group included four families, 21 children, and a few former soldiers. They were attacked on September 9, 1860, and 11 died in the two-day confrontation. The tale told by the Washington State Historical Society suggests they may have been the fortunate ones, because when the four soldiers took the first opportunity they had to pick the best horses and high-tail their way out of Dodge, they left the party with a broken defense. Colonel George Wright, who was in charge of the military presence and rescue mission, said they likely would have survived if it wasn't for the cowards.

The group scattered, and one of the soldiers made it to a military camp outside Fort Dalles to sound the alarm. The rescue parties stumbled across some stragglers, but the most horrific scene was discovered by a Lieutenant Anderson. He found a camp of 15 people, including five dead who had been partially eaten by the starving living. Once everyone had been accounted for, they found only 15 people survived.

Emigrants only had what they could carry. Imagine taking your entire family across the country with only what you can pack into a minivan, and no rest stops or Taco Bells along the way. Food was a huge concern, and that makes Fort Laramie — nicknamed "Camp Sacrifice" — that much more tragic.

According to The Plains Across, Fort Laramie became a major trading post. Settlers would keep as much as they could on their overloaded wagons in hopes of trading once they reached the fort, but that wasn't always possible. Everyone was in the same boat, so to speak, and traders didn't have much use for the more impractical items they'd brought along. Accounts tell of the dumping grounds outside the fort, filled with treasured possessions like bookcases and furniture, iron safes, and books. Practical things were left, too, by people needing to spare their oxen from dragging the heavy loads. Anvils, weapons, plows, kegs, and barrels ... all dumped.

Also dumped? Extra foodstuffs, and one account even talked about the 20,000-odd pounds of bacon left behind. Given the starvation that happened later, it's impossible not to wonder how many people died dreaming of everything they dumped.

Surviving the Oregon Trail was just the beginning for some people — just ask Lewis Keseberg. He was a member of the Donner Party, and according to Sierra College, he paid horribly for his survival. Rumors started circulating that he was the first to dig into the not-so-scrumptious meal consisting of his fellow settlers, that he killed others for their meat, and that he preferred human meat to beef. The accusations got so bad he even sued for slander and won $1, but when Keseberg died in 1895, even his obituary reminded everyone he was a cannibal.

He was interviewed a few times, and when he was 62 he issued his first formal statement. Time was supposed to heal all wounds, he wrote, but that was B.S. when it came to something like this. Keseberg had sent his wife and a child on ahead, and said, "For their sakes I must live. ... I can not describe the unutterable repugnance with which I tasted that first mouthful of flesh. ... This food was never otherwise than loathsome, insipid, and disgusting." 

He spent two months in the cabin, surrounded by the bodies of his dead friends, with wolves scratching to get to the meat inside. Tamsen Donner left her dead husband and joined him only a short time before she died, too. He swore he only ate and never killed, writing, "A man, before he judges me, should be placed in a similar situation."

Hindsight is 20/20, so let's see if you can guess what went wrong with Brigham Young's plan to bring Mormon converts to their new paradise on Earth. The Denver Post reports the plan was simple: British and Scandinavian converts who were too poor to buy wagons would load all their worldly possessions onto a handcart, push them across the U.S., and make the journey in only 60 days. Sounds great, right? You'd totally sign up for that ... until you hear the list of problems. 

There were no supply stations, carts broke down better than they rolled, Salt Lake City officials had no idea who was coming, and travelers weren't prepared for doing the work of hunters, pioneers, and oxen all at the same time. Between 1856 and 1860, 10 handcart companies traveled the trail and two — the Martin and Willie companies — suffered heartbreaking tragedies. There were 1,100 people in those two companies alone (via WyoHistory), and they didn't set out until August. Again, hindsight — they were buried under feet of snow, hundreds died, and those who survived lost arms and legs to frostbite.

That's horrible, but there's a fascinating footnote that comes out of all this. Two survivors were 10-year-old Ann Campbell Giles and 12-year-old Maximilian Parker. They lived, met, married, and had a son you probably know of: Butch Cassidy. No wonder he was so badass, just look what his parents went through.

According to Brian Altonen, the settlers carried were standard medicines like castor oil, rum, peppermint essence, opium, and whiskey, because if you're dying, at least you wouldn't know it. Granny medicine, essentially home remedies passed down from mother to daughter, was common, according to Historic Oregon City. Some things — like using peppermint essence to calm an upset stomach — actually worked (via Fort Morgan Times), but the problem was that it was only the women who knew these remedies. When they died or got sick, the men were left to make things up — like the husband of a Mrs. Knapp. When she came down with cholera, he just gave her a cup of camphor, because that's what you do, right? According to a fellow traveler, it worked.

Plenty of people had the misfortune to listen to one of the quack doctors who hit the trail, too. Edwin Bryant told the tale of a boy who had his leg crushed by a wagon wheel, and it was treated by a quack who tied some linen and a few planks around it. Nine days later, the boy "called to his mother that he could feel worms crawling in his leg," and yes, those were maggots. The boy died as they hacked off the leg with a butcher knife and a handsaw, and it wasn't a happy ending. "The child was dead — his miseries were over!" Bryant wrote. Nice work, doc.

Early contact between settlers and Native Americans was relatively peaceful, according to WyoHistory. Tensions continued to mount as more and more people headed West, though, and on August 19, 1854, one hotheaded idiot kick-started a 22-year war.

His name was John Lawrence Grattan, and he was a second lieutenant in the Army stationed at Fort Laramie. At the time, local Sioux were starting to demand more and more in the way of tolls, which makes sense considering the number of people tromping across their land. There were a handful of skirmishes, but the last straw came when a sick cow from a wagon train wandered into a Sioux camp. The people in camp were being starved by a combination of the holdup of promised rations and suddenly needing to share their resources with thousands of extra mouths. They killed and ate the cow, and the officer in charge was actually pretty diplomatic about the whole thing. He offered restitution to both parties, but he sent Grattan to negotiate. Grattan took several howitzers, which is not how you start a peaceful negotiation when tensions are already high.

You can imagine how that went. The Sioux came out on top during that skirmish, and Grattan's body was recovered riddled with arrows. The village head, Conquering Bear, also died, and it only escalated from there.