[or-roots] relative hardships of travel

[Harguess, Dale]

As long as we are on the subject of traveling to Oregon in the early
1850's.  Does anyone know of a train that would have come from
Washington County, Arkansas?  The names of some of the people that came
together was Howell and Marrs/Mars.
Thanks,
Dale


Carla;

I would suspect the relative hardships would be highly dependent on
financial Status, my greats who came around the horn, or however were
well
enough off to indulge themselves in shipping great grandma's organ along
with whatever else they brought. The Melvins were probably fairly well
off,
I show 2g grandma as having $400 real estate and $50 real property in
1860.
Interestingly in 1870 the property is listed under Step Grandpa.

I am amazed that somehow all this time I was thinking Milan Morell came
west
with them, but they are in Iowa until at least 1870 and MMM was married
in
CA in 1858 and is in Oregon in 1860. I must have put those facts
together
before, but sure don't remember it!!

Anyway what I figure is someone with good finances could probably afford
fairly decent accomodations (by the standards of the time) would have
been
better off traveling by boat. Except for one caveat and that is the odds
of
sinking. Of course you had many of the same hazards both ways in
disease,
hostile natives if by land and Pirates by sea and getting lost either
way.

One possibility that I think was better overland was to hire your way
west;
a strong young man might be able to get a job herding or driving oxen or
some such if his personal funds didn't cover the cost of the expedition.
Of
course a lot of people came west by hiring oon ships and then jumping
them
when they got her so again that is kind of a wash for the decision
process.

Someday I hope to find MMM's wagon train, makes me wonder now that I
realize
he didn't come with Gram if he might have come with the Wisner's from
the
Salem area??

Les

-----Original Message-----
From: or-roots-bounces at listsmart.osl.state.or.us
[mailto:or-roots-bounces at listsmart.osl.state.or.us]On Behalf Of
cklooster at aol.com
Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2009 7:59 PM
To: or-roots at listsmart.osl.state.or.us
Subject: Re: [or-roots] I Need a History Lesson


I thought the same thing...my family was living in Southern
Illinois...but
then I remembered that the river systems were major transportation
routes in
those days.  I've never researched the issue but I'm guessing that it
was a
fairly expensive way to travel.  It would be interesting to compare the
rigors of ship board travel with those of the Oregon trail.

Carla

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