Preparations for the Journey

Although, financially, the decision to leave home, and the area that they had known throughout their lives, seemed wise it was heart wrenching nevertheless. George, Lydia and their children would be leaving lifelong friends and family behind and making a long, unpredictable journey northward to Willsborough.  They would be settling in an unfamiliar place that George had been assured offered great promise for him and his family, but he could not help asking himself at what cost this might be. The prospect of a brighter future was all that mitigated the fear that George and Lydia felt in the months preceding their departure.  

The journey alone presented a daunting prospect with three small children - six year old Polly, three year old Orrin, and two year old George - as well as infant Sally who had just recently been born on May 14th, 1801. George knew that he and his family must depart by mid-summer if there was to be any chance of completing the journey before colder weather began to set in, with winter close behind it.

Having successfully sold his property in New Marlborough and left farming life behind – at least for the foreseeable future - George and Lydia headed back down to Canaan as soon as they could after Sally’s birth. They intended to make their final preparations for the trip there and spend a last bit of time with their families and friends. They could not help wondering if they would ever see any of them again.  

Ox drawn wagon
Source: Manoahswife at Wordpress

As the day of departure loomed closer George turned his attention to the many plans to be made, and details to be thought out. With no other real option he knew that for the journey he must use the sturdy farm wagon that had served him well in New Marlborough, so he constructed a canvas cover to shield them from rain and glaring sun.  His trusty yoke of oxen would pull the wagon and he planned to ride alongside on horseback, occasionally moving ahead to scout out the terrain and figure out the best route for the wagon, or how to get around any obstacles that lay beyond view.  

Because they had scant accurate knowledge of the area they would be passing through George and Lydia knew that they had to be prepared for a wide variety of possible eventualities.  George thought about all that they would need to take with them and then tried to figure out the most expedient way in which to pack the wagon.  He built racks along the sides of the wagon that would help to support the canvas cover and hold pots and pans for cooking, storage for provisions, and places for the boxes and crates that would hold their belongings.  He even built a portable coop in which he would carry a rooster as well as some hens that he hoped would be inclined to lay eggs despite being cooped up and jostled around during the journey.

They could not be certain of how long their journey would take, or how many opportunities they might have to renew their provisions, so Lydia had put as many stores of foods as possible in the wagon. She and her mother had worked together to prepare things from their garden, and had dried and pickled some of the produce. They had packed the fresh vegetables and berries in straw and stowed them in the coolest spot they could find. They made sure to include some herbs from the garden, and a few spices. These would do much to improve the flavor of their food and disguise the rancid taste of items that were a bit over the hill.

They had filled sacks with the beans, split peas and corn that Lydia’s mother had dried from the previous year’s crop, as well as boxes with apples and pears from their orchard that they had cut and dried in the previous autumn evenings. They stowed sacks of cornmeal, oatmeal and bran, as well as jars of molasses and vinegar, wherever they could find space. George and his father had slaughtered several pigs and salted or smoked the meat for the journey. The meat was carefully packed in boxes of straw. Of course, Lydia made sure that she had a good stock of flour, lard, sugar, and the saleratus that was necessary to make her bread rise. She had also laid in a supply of freshly preserved jams, as well as honey from her mother’s apiary.  These would be perfect with the breads and biscuits that she planned to bake over an open fire on the journey. [Food on the Oregon Trail, Jacqueline Williams, © 1993 Oregon-California Trails Association Overland Journal - Volume 11, No. 2 – 1993, [Printed with Permission of Jacqueline Williams 2007]]

Covered wagon interior
Source: Abbeville.com

With the foodstuffs taken care of George finished packing the wagon.  First, he laid a bed of straw on the floorboards to soften the jolting and jarring that was inevitable.  Next came the feather bed that he and Lydia treasured, and a pile of blankets and quilts for padding and for warmth when needed.  He filled the remaining racks and shelves to the brim with the cooking vessels, crockery, utensils and other household items that Lydia had laid out for him. The children clamored for a few of their most precious playthings to be put on board, and so those too were added to the growing pile. With everything safely stowed away there was just a wee bit of room left for a very few treasured furnishings and pieces of furniture that neither he nor Lydia could bear to leave behind. Finally, George carefully loaded the precious family Bible on board. This would remind them of home when they were far away.

George was well aware that his travels would be very dependent upon the road conditions. From his experience as a farmer taking a fully loaded wagon to a nearby town he had learned that he and his team of oxen could travel about 3 miles per hour. Based upon this information he figured they should be able to go about 12-15 miles in a day on their journey, and hoped that, if they had to push harder, they might be able to cover 20 miles. He knew that this would make for a long, tough day. Of course, all of this was based upon the premise that the road conditions would be adequate for this. [The Rural New Yorker. 1905, Vol. 64, pg. 823.]

He also knew that if the weather was rainy the dirt roads would quickly turn into quagmires of mud into which his team could find themselves up to their bellies, and the wagon wheels could become totally encased right up to their axles, or even above. Every traveler’s fear was a road that had become a type of primeval swamp that simply sucked anything that passed over it into the ooze that lay beneath.  This could cause significant damage to their wagon, injure the oxen and horse, and cause great delays in travel. On the other hand, endless days without rain could turn the roads into dustbowls that covered people and animals, as well as a wagon and its contents, with itchy, grimy grains of dirt that had a habit of getting into every nook and cranny. They simply had to pray for more good days than bad, and considering the time of year the prospect of this being the case was fairly positive.