10
Wednesday, July 26, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Commentary...
Of a certain age...
By Sue Stafford
Columnist
On April 2, 1852, the
family of my great-great
grandfather John Tucker
Scott, age 43, his wife, Ann
Roelofson Scott, age 40,
and their nine living chil-
dren bid farewell to their
farm, family, and friends
in Groveland township,
Tazewell County, Illinois, to
travel several thousand miles
on the Oregon Trail to settle
in the Willamette Valley near
Lafayette.
Along the way, Ann
would succumb to cholera
and be buried 30 miles west
of Fort Laramie, Wyoming.
Also lost on the trail was
their youngest child, Willie,
who died at age 4 and was
buried in the Burnt River
Valley in present-day Baker
County, Oregon.
One hundred sixty-
five years later, I am going
to be tracing a portion of
their journey between Ash
Hollow, Nebraska and Vale,
Oregon. Next Monday, July
31, I will be leaving with a
Sisters friend whose ances-
tors joined the migration
to Oregon in 1845, to see
the wagon ruts, visit the
museums and monuments,
and experience the land-
scape encountered by our
ancestors.
Our prairie schoo-
ner, however, is a 19-foot
Pleasureway camper van
with air conditioning, solar
panels, refrigeration, a full
bathroom, and TV. We will
have cell phones and the
Internet, plenty of water and
food, and no fear of attacks
from disease, wild animals,
or indigenous natives.
Besides maps and GPS,
we have the journals of our
ancestors, in which they
faithfully recorded the hap-
penings of each day on the
trail and the routes they fol-
lowed to Oregon.
Tucker Scott assigned
each of his older children
specific duties for the trip
west. Abigail Jane (Jenny),
age 17, was selected to be the
principal author of the fam-
ily’s journal, with additions
by 15-year-old Margaret and
occasionally Tucker him-
self. Abigail had attended
part of a year at an academy,
plus country schooling, and
had a background of family
reading.
Abigail’s journal was
an eight- by 12-inch blank
book, bound with paper-
covered boards and a brown
leather spine. At the end of
the journal is Tucker’s record
of his income and expenses
for the trip. The journal has
been quoted numerous times
in books written about the
Oregon Trail. Abigail used
it for two of her later novels,
“Captain Grey’s Company”
(1859) and “From the West
to the West: Across the
Plains to Oregon” (1905).
Abigail married Ben
Duniway after arriving in
Oregon and became the
Pacific Northwest leader in
the women’s suffrage move-
ment for 41 years. She was
a teacher, farmer’s wife,
poet, novelist, milliner, lec-
turer, and editor of the New
Northwest newspaper in
Portland.
Abigail’s younger brother
and my great-great grandfa-
ther, Harvey W. Scott, was
the editor of The Oregonian
for 40 years, and often
disagreed with many of
Abigail’s ideas. Harvey was
14 when the family came to
Oregon. He shared in driv-
ing the wagon in which his
WELDING
By the time they reached
Fort Kearney on the banks of
the Platte River, on May 28,
Tucker wrote to his father
James who stayed behind
in Illinois, “We now have
in our train 12 waggons 113
head of oxen & 12 head of
horses.” There were 52 peo-
ple altogether.
Illness of many varieties
visited the wagon train, some
fatal, and passing the graves
along the trail was a daily
occurrence. They started out
resting on Sunday when pos-
sible and didn’t travel on the
Sabbath, until they reached
the plains where they needed
to keep moving. They usu-
ally covered between 12 and
25 miles a day, depending
on conditions. Snow, rain,
mud, then dust were constant
companions, and the search
for good water (“Adam’s
ale”) and grass, as well as
fuel (wood or buffalo chips)
was continual. In June, it
began to get hot and they
experienced summer storms
with rain, thunder, lightning,
and wind.
See CERTAIN AGE on page 20
We’re Here
For You
BLACKSMITHING
Fireplace screens, tools, andirons, and grates,
Handforged hardware, handles, hinges,
lighting, gift items, and much more!
mother and his two young-
est siblings, Sarah Maria and
William Neill, rode, until it
was abandoned. He fought
in the Yakima Indian War of
1855 and was the first gradu-
ate of Pacific University in
Forest Grove.
There were five Scott
covered wagons, 16 Scott
yokes, or 32 oxen, used on
the wagons, 10 extra oxen
belonging to a Scott cousin,
three cows, two horses, and
a pony. The provision wagon
was pulled by five yoke of
oxen (10), the camp equi-
page wagon was drawn by
three yoke of oxen. There
was the family wagon, the
“Mother’s Wagon” for Ann
and her two youngest chil-
dren, and the miscellaneous
wagon, all pulled by oxen.
Along the way oth-
ers joined them in several
Missouri locations. At St.
Joseph, Missouri, on May
10, they were joined by a
party of men from Groveland
who had accompanied provi-
sions sent ahead by Tucker
to be loaded in the wagons
before crossing the Missouri
River by ferry.
Hope for a child.
Change for a nation.
Open every day,
after hours
and weekends.
Including walk-in
X-ray services.
Structural l Steel
S l • Welding
ld Repair
C
CNC
Cutting • Machining • Fabrication
$37 a month. All the difference
in the world. Sponsor a child
with a local organization at
YourCareMedical.com
3818 SW 21st Pl.
5 541-549-9280 • PonderosaForge.com
HopeAfricaKids.com
Hwy. 126 to Redmond,
two turns and you’re there!
(Near fairgrounds)
Sisters Industrial Park • CCB# 87640
Ad sponsored by The Nugget Newspaper.
541-548-2899
WALK-IN • URGENT CARE• OCCUPATIONAL MEDICINE
Saturday, August 5, 9 a.m.-1 p.m.
Sisters Recycling Center
328 W. Sisters Park Dr.