Across the Fence: The Cholera Corridor

Among the many causes of casualties that afflicted the flood of immigrants along the California, Oregon and Mormon trails, death by the so-called "savages of the plains" rank as the least deadly. In fact, it is said that the nearly 350,000 pioneers from 1841 to 1866 would have had a greater risk of accidental or premature death if they had stayed at home than at the hands of Indians. History tends to treat the brutal deaths of helpless travelers with far greater journalistic sensationalism than the more mundane accidents of pioneer travel, such as being run over by a wagon, shooting themselves or drowning. Those everyday occurrences were more deadly than the infrequent Indian attacks on wagon trains.

"Shot himself accidentally" was a common epitaph. Brief accounts are numerous:

"A man shot foolishly holding a target." Sedgley, 1849

"... died near Scotts Bluff... his jaw shot away when a loaded pistol fired from his breast pocket." McBride 1850

And drownings were commonplace on the Kansas, the Blue, South Platte and Laramie rivers.

However, the most common cause of death along those trails was cholera, a deadly and rampant disease called by some as "the ruthless destroyer." Cholera had its origins in India along the Ganges delta where it has been present since ancient times. It spread to Russia through trade routes in 1817 then quickly spread throughout the European continent and on to North America.

Since its outbreak, from the region of its origin, it is estimated that tens of millions have perished from the physical ravages of the disease in the 19th century. Far less deadly in developed countries, North American settlements have faired much better than other countries. During the second and third global pandemics of cholera from 1847 until 1855 more that one million citizens died on the European continent while less that 200,000 perished in America. Perhaps the most deadly epidemic of all was between 1900 and 1920 when more than eight million perished in India at the hands of the ruthless destroyer.

The death toll along the trails was considerably less than the hundreds of thousands of lives lost across the globe. However, the number of cholera deaths from the time of the California gold rush of 1849 until the ending of great migration in 1866 is estimated to be nearly 21,000. So prevalent was the disease along the Great Platte River Road from Independence, Missouri to Fort Laramie, Wyoming that the immigrant trails have been collectively dubbed the Cholera Corridor.

Although trade and immigrant traffic had begun to increase in 1841 it was the discovery of gold in 1849 at Sutter's mill in California that opened the floodgates. In 1849 alone more than 10 times the number of emigrants from the previous eight years made the journey across the continent to the golden shores of the Pacific. From the settlements in the east and across the pond from the European continent, more that 30,000 people converged on Independence, Missouri to start their journey westward. And along with those hordes of adventurers in the sailing ships that crossed the Atlantic and the crowded steamboats that paddled up the Missouri, came also the deadly cholera bacteria.

Of the 30,000 who began the journey nearly 2,000 would die of cholera before they reached Fort Laramie.

The year 1849 was a wet year on the plains along the Platte River trails. Damp conditions, crowded camps, unsanitary practices and inexperience contributed to the spread of the bacteria. The next year saw an increase in immigrant traffic, when another 35,000 sought their fortunes on the California coast and the ruthless destroyer added to its numbers and more than 2,000 more graves were hurriedly dug along the river's banks. One sojourner of 1850, Abraham Sortore, wrote in his journal that, while traveling along the Platte, he was "scarcely out of sight of grave diggers."

In 1851 there was a sharp decline in the number of travelers and much fewer deaths from cholera. Little more than 10,000 left Independence that year and most of them traveled to Oregon rather than to California. Perhaps a combination of weather conditions and decreased numbers of people in less crowded campsites held the cholera at bay. But 1852 saw the largest single year of emigrants when more than 50,000 souls cast their fortunes on the trail pointing west. One J. H. Clark wrote that he had "passed camps every day waiting for someone to die." Just to the west of Ash Hollow Mr. Clark recorded meeting a group of three men who were returning to the east. They were all that remained of a party of 17 travelers. The three had buried the other 14.

Ezra Meeker wrote, "the epidemic struck our moving column where the throngs from the south side of the Platte began crossing," [at Fort Kearny]. From Fort Kearny westward Mr. Meeker related that the plains resembled the aftermath of a great battle where "...the dead lay sometimes in rows of fifty or more..."

At one campsite Mr. Meeker wrote that he observed 57 gravesites.

Dr. Lord of New York observed that: "The cholera is a rapidly fatal disease, when suffered to run its course unrestrained, & more easily controlled then most diseases when met in time.... It commences with diarrhoea [sic] in every case. Vomiting was the worst symptom, and every case proved fatal where vomiting, purging, cramp and cold sweating skin were present..." It was observed that one could be healthy in the morning and dead by nightfall.

Death became commonplace and seemingly callous treatment of the dead increased as the distance from Independence grew greater. Burials took on less formality and became no more than a grim chore to be done quickly and without lingering sentimentality. Sometimes a company of travelers would camp and wait for the stricken to die but more often they would continue on as the dying were jerked and jolted along until death overcame. Not infrequently were "watchers" left behind with the dying while the main company traveled ahead waiting until burial was necessary. Others would commence to dig a grave while their dying companion watched and one Elisha Brooks noted that, "some were buried before life was extinct."

Coffins were unavailable and headstones nonexistent. In the early stages of travel from Independence the dead might be buried in a box made from a wagon tailgate, but material such as that became exceedingly scarce. Graves were soon little more than shallow depressions as haste was more important that ceremony. Grave markers might be an antler from a slain deer, a plank from a wagon box or a simple stone found nearby. Little wonder that the many graves have been lost long ago are long forgotten where wild animals soon desecrated the makeshift graves. Those immigrants who came after were often greeted with tattered bits of clothing, scattered bones, hands and feet and other body parts in various stages of decomposing, while prairie wolves fought among themselves for the gruesome meal.

Cholera is spread through unsanitary living conditions that result in contaminated food and water. Ash Hollow seems to have been a breeding ground for the deadly bacteria. First hand accounts tell of wagons and pioneers camped in the Hollow that spread out for as far as the eye could see. As one camp left another took its place and it would seem certain that human waste would have been a growing problem. Once past Ash Hollow and in the distance between there and Fort Laramie it appears that the numbers of graves drastically increases. After Fort Laramie cholera seldom rears its ugly head and it is thought that altitude and climate provide a hostile environment where the bacteria cannot live.

Of course the bacteria on the plains was also spread to nearby Sioux camps. One such camp was discovered to the north of Ash Hollow and explored by curious immigrants. "There were five of them [lodges] ...and in them we found the bodies of 9 Sioux, laid out upon the ground, wrapped in their robes...one lodge which, though small, seemed of rather superior pretensions and was evidently pitched with great care. It contained the body of a young Indian girl 16 or 17 years of age...richly dressed in leggings of fine scarlet cloth, elaborately ornamented...and wrapped in two superb buffalo robes. I learned later that they all died with cholera, and this young girl being considered past recovery had been arranged by her friends in the habiliments of the dead, enclosed in the lodge alive and abandoned." –Stansbury

From Ash Hollow past Courthouse Rock, Chimney Rock and Scotts Bluff there are many recorded gravesites of victims of the cholera. Among those is the grave of Amanda Lamme, whose location near present day Bridgeport, has been preserved. For the vast majority of the others who succumbed to the dreaded disease there are no headstones, no white crosses adorned with artificial flowers. Their bones have long been scattered, sun bleached and brittle they have crumbled into the grains of prairie sand, dust to dust.

In the 654 miles of the Oregon/California Trail between Independence, Missouri and Fort Laramie, Wyoming it is estimated that nearly 21,000 dead were buried along the route. That would be 32 graves in every mile, one at nearly every 13th fence post.

M. Timothy Nolting is an award winning Nebraska columnist and freelance writer. To contact Tim, email: [email protected]