Could You Survive with the Supplies Used by Settlers on the Oregon Trail?
Learning about the supplies used by settlers on the Oregon Trail can give you a better appreciation for their spartan lives.
Want to go camping? Well, before you go it’s important to do some planning to make sure you bring all you’ll need. These days it seems more and more like people are taking everything but the kitchen sink when they head to their favorite camping spot. Games, tents, chairs, coolers, electronics, heck, even extra vehicles make the trip. We fill cars, pickups, RV’s and trailers with our stuff to make even a simple weekend trip to the lake. It almost makes you wonder if people even know how to get by with less these days.
Just like we have to plan for our camping trips, settlers on the Oregon Trail had to get their outfits organized before embarking on their great adventure. However, rather than having the luxury of running to the nearest supermarket or gas station if they forgot something, pioneers had to try and bring everything along from the very start. Planning for this would have been a huge challenge. Their journey was nearly 2,000 miles, took nearly six months to complete, and they had to pack everything they needed in a wagon that was only four feet wide by ten feet long. Finally, add to that the final challenge that all of your gear had to be pulled along by oxen, mules, or less likely, horses the entire way. If you loaded it too heavy the animals would give out and you’d be stranded in the wilderness. Needless to say, pioneers had to make difficult decisions about what to bring.
So, what supplies were used by settlers on the Oregon Trail? Well, here’s a brief overview of supplies they might have taken on their long trip to Oregon. As you read, keep in mind that pioneers generally tried to keep their loads around 2,000 pounds overall.
Food
Probably the first and foremost decision travelers made was about what food to bring. Food taken on the Oregon Trail would have had to meet a few requirements. First, all food must be able to last the entire duration of the trip without spoiling. This eliminated nearly all dairy, vegetables, and fresh meat. Secondly, it had to be light enough that you could pack huge quantities without putting too much weight in the wagon. This meant that food should be dried so all water weight would be removed before the trip. Finally, the food had to provide enough energy to keep you going for the demands of a fifteen miles walk and all the energy you spent dealing with your animals. So, what food did they take?
Just like anything, opinions on the subject of food were different during the time period. Here is one newspaper article published in the Missouri Gazette in March of 1847. The amounts listed are for a single person so a family of four would have to bring four times these amounts.
“200 pounds of bread stuff (flour and crackers)
100 pounds of bacon
12 pounds of coffee
12 pounds of sugar
From 1 to 5 pounds tea
From 10 to 50 pounds rice
From ½ to 2 bushels beans
From ½ to 2 bushels dried fruit
From ½ to 5 pounds saleratus (author’s note: similar to baking soda)
Cheese, dried pumpkins, onions and a small portion of corn meal may be taken by those who desire them. The latter article, does not keep well.”
As you can see, flour, bacon, and coffee were the real staples of a pioneer’s diet. Together they met all the requirements food needed on the trail.
Wagon Parts
Wouldn’t it be nice if our cars never broke down? Well, unfortunately, our cars do break down and so did wagons on the trail. However, unlike our ability to call up a repair shop, pioneers had to be able to make all their repairs on their own. As a result, they tried to take extra tongues, spokes, and axles and strap them to the bottom of the wagon. In addition to keeping a few spare parts, the pioneers took items they used daily like grease buckets, water barrels, whips, and ropes attached to the sides of the wagons.
Cooking
In addition to food and wagon basics, settlers had to be able to prepare their food. This meant bringing cast iron cookware. While cast iron is great for cooking, it is heavy. Things like skillets, spiders, dutch ovens, and boilers would have been common. Heavy as they may be, cast iron is rugged, tough, and would have been perfect for the hard use the cookware would have seen on the trail.
Firearms
Most wagon trains on the Oregon Trail would have carried at least a few firearms. Guns of the time were either flintlock or percussion, and all were black powder. As a result, pioneers who brought along guns would have had to lay in a store of gun powder and lead for shooting. Shooting accessories such as ladles, molds, extra lead, powder measurers, and such would have made the trip as well. If you are unfamiliar with how black powder guns work, you might find this article helpful.
Clothing
Clothing in the 19th century was simply different than the clothes we wear today. It was heavier, not as comfortable, and made of completely natural materials. Pioneers also didn’t have nearly as many changes of clothes as most people have today. Generally speaking, on the trail pioneers brought along perhaps three changes of clothes per person. These clothes were all they had for days, nights, hot, cold, rainy, windy, and difficult conditions on the trail.
Home Building
Finally, settlers on the Oregon Trail had to bring along all the items they wanted to build a home with at the end of the trail. Realize that at the end of the trail there wasn’t a ready-built home or even a hotel waiting for the worn-out emigrants. During the first years of the trail there weren’t even stores to buy all the things you would need to build your new life. Instead, pioneers had to bring all their tools with them to build their own homes and fill them with the things they needed to keep living. However dear the household items may have felt to the heart, they were often discarded or left to make room for more practical supplies.
Abandonment
An article discussing supplies used by settlers on the Oregon Trail would not be complete without at least mentioning abandonment. Oftentimes pioneers started the journey with stars in their eyes and brought more than they needed or could haul. As the miles fell behind them and the difficulty of the trail became real, the emigrants began to simply cast unnecessary items to the ground. One primary source describes the scene as this:
“The road was strewn with articles…thrown away. Bar-iron and steel, large blacksmith’s anvils and bellows, crow-bars, drills, augurs, gold-washers, chisels, axes, lead, trunks, spades, ploughs, large grindstones, baking-ovens, cooking-stoves without number, kegs, barrels, harness, clothing, bacon and beans.”
Stansbury, 1849
As you can see, the heaviest items would have been cast aside no matter how useful they were. You can imagine how helpful a load of blacksmithing tools would have been in at your destination, but they were simply too heavy to take along.
In his book, The Great Platte River Road author Merrill J. Mattes points out the irony that emigrants clung to their possessions until their animals gave out; then they threw their things away. At that point, they would have lost their items and used up their animals. It would not have been good.
As you can see, the supplies used by the settlers on the Oregon Trail wouldn’t have been fancy. They needed to take just enough to get by, survive, and start a new life at the end of the trail. If you are reading History of the West with Jemmey Fletcher; Tyrant’s Road you’ll now hopefully have a better sense of how the wagons would have been packed at the beginning of the trip. Maybe on your next camping trip, you can also try leaving a few things behind and experiencing some of the hardships the Oregon Trail settlers faced.
