“One woman and two men lay dead on the grass and some more ready to die. Poor nutrition, lack of medical care, and poor sanitation caused many deaths. Death during childbirth was common, and infant mortality was high. There was a high incidence of childbirth on the trail, and tragedy often came with the arrival of a baby. Poisoning from drinking water that was too alkaline was also common. Scurvy, caused by a lack of vitamin C, was also a problem.

Some wagon trains lost two-thirds of their people to the deadly disease in a bad year.įood poisoning was often a problem with contaminated food, more likely among single men. However, many would linger in misery for weeks in the bouncy wagons. With no cure or treatment for the disease, the infected emigrant usually died within 24 hours or less. Cholera could attack a perfectly healthy person after breakfast, and he would be in his grave by noon. Human and animal waste, garbage, and animal carcasses were often near water supplies.Īs a result, cholera, spread by contaminated water, was responsible for the most deaths overall on the Oregon Trail. Opportunities for sanitation - bathing and laundering - were severely limited, and safe drinking water was frequently unavailable in sufficient quantities. The hardships of weather, limited diet, and exhaustion made travelers very vulnerable to infectious diseases such as cholera, flu, dysentery, measles, mumps, tuberculosis, and typhoid fever which could spread quickly through an entire wagon camp. The number one killer on the Oregon Trail, by a wide margin, was disease and serious illnesses, which caused the deaths of nine out of ten pioneers who contracted them. From that out, there was scarcely a day, but we met six and not less than two fresh graves.” “We did not meet any sickness nor see any fresh graves until we came in on the road from St Joseph. The leading causes of deaths along the Oregon/ California Trail from 1841 to 1869 were disease, accidents, and weather. Of the estimated 350,000 who started the journey, the trail claimed as many as 30,000 victims or an average of 10-15 deaths per mile. The Oregon Trail is this nation’s longest graveyard.

Though 19th-century settlers and much of written history look at the 2,000-mile Oregon Trail as romantic, almost one in ten who embarked on the trail didn’t survive. It is hardship without glory.” - Anonymous Settler writing in the St. He must cease to think, except of where he may find grass and water and a good camping place. He must learn to eat with his unwashed fingers, drink out of the same vessel as his mules, sleep on the ground when it rains, share his blanket with vermin, and have patience with mosquitos. “To enjoy such a trip… a man must be able to endure heat like a Salamander, mud, and water like a muskrat, dust like a toad, and labor like a jackass. Oregon Trail pioneers pass through the sandhills by William Henry Jackson.

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