Contributedby Greg Croxton
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JosephGragg started across the plains in April 1852. As to the exact date, heis not sure, but thinks it was the 5th or 6th of April. Members of thecompany were:
JosephDimmick and Comfort Dimmick, his wife and their children. (Joseph Dimmick,a son of Mathew and Huldah Ingraham Dimmick, was born 1807 in New YorkState and married Comfort Dean, 15 May 1828 in Morgan County, Ohio.)
AnnDimmick (married a Starr); Thomas Dimmick (married Margaret Croxton), diedon the plains; Sarah Dimmick (married 21 August 1849, in Schuyler County,Joseph C. Gillenwater); Ellen Dimmick; Athalinda Dimmick; Ebenezer Dimmick(married Sarah Jane Croxton); Joseph Dimmick and Benjamin Dimmick (twins);Mary Dimmick; David Dimmick; Lucinda Dimmick; John Dimmick; Samuel Dimmick(about 2 years old as he was weaned after he got to Oregon).
EbenezerDimmick, brother of Joseph Dimmick. His family remained in Illinois, andhe returned in the Spring of 1855.
ThomasCroxton and family.
ElijahCroxton and family.
ThomasOllivant and family.
Mr. andMrs. Croxton, parents of the above, both died on the plains. Mrs. Croxtondied at Kanesville, a fitting-out place for immigrants in southwesternIowa on the Missouri River. She retired for the night in good health andwas found dead in bed during the night. Mr. Croxton died of Mountain Feveron Little Sandy the first day west of Pacific Springs. He was taken toBig Sandy and buried as the ground on Little Sandy was low. The day hedied the train suffered much for water, before reaching Little Sandy havingfailed to find the watering place mentioned in the guide.
Thosecoming with the Croxton and Ollivants were Robert Stewart, Jeff Skylesand Phillip Chambers. Phillip Chambers stood guard with Joseph on the plainsand knew him in the Yreka mines. He later returned to Illinois and diedthere. Joseph never heard from him after leaving the mines in the fallof 1860, until visiting Illinois in 1891 and he had been dead several years. Joseph pronounced him an excellent man. Joseph visited Jeff Skyles in Illinoisin 1891. (This would be Thomas Jefferson Skiles, who married Nancy AnnWhalen 24 February 1848 in Schuyler County, went to the gold mines andfound enough gold to be able to buy a farm when he returned to SchuylerCo.) Robert Stewart then lived in Missouri, so he did not get to visithim.
TheCroxton families and those with them came over the Cascade Mountains.
TheWilliams boys were from Bureau County, Illinois, and joined the companyat Kanesville.
MargaretCroxton Dimmick, wife of Thomas Dimmick and their children, the oldest,a girl, name forgotten, died on the plains, and a son, George Dimmick.
JosephC. Gillenwater, Mat and John Williams and Berry (?first or last name) leftthe company at Salmon Falls on the Snake River, where the rest of the companycrossed by corking their wagon beds and using them for boats and swam thestock across. Thus they secured excellent feed for the cattle thebalance of the way.
Thosenot crossing did not fare so well, as the feed had been largely consumedby the former trains. At the Dalles the train camped on the river justbelow town, and Joseph on returning to town, ran across the Williams boys,who on leaving the train had two yoke of bulls and one yoke of cows thatworked as leaders. All their cattle perished but one and they packed theirthings upon this one, but that morning had sold it and had started to gothe rest of the journey on foot. Joseph told them that his train was goingto raft down the Columbia and invited them to go with them; so they cameand helped construct rafts.
Theycrossed the Mississippi at Churchville, which is situated in the northeastcorner of Missouri. Then went through Iowa to the Missouri River. We fedoxen corn and whenever a good supply was to be had they secured enoughto last a day or two. Grass was getting pretty good, but young. When theyarrived at Kanesville they herded the cattle in the bottom lands of theMissouri River where excellent grass was found, but still fed some cornto keep the cattle in good condition for the heavy work before them.
Wewaited at Kanesville a little over a week. Part of the delay was causedby waiting for some who came by St. Louis, by boat, to arrive; one daysdelay on account of Mrs. Croxtons death and some delay in crossing theMissouri River. The steam ferry was some 5 or 6 days behind, but ThomasCroxton who had been elected Captain of the train, as he had been acrossthe plains before, heard of a Mormon ferry about 12 miles above Kanesvilleand went up and engaged crossing. The train of 11 or 12 wagons drove upthere, arriving in the evening and crossed in the morning of May 23, 1852.Kanesville was about where Council Bluffs stands now (or so his son thoughtat a later time).
Aftercrossing they struck out into the wild west and saw no more settlementsuntil reaching the Willamette Valley, except there were government postsat Laramie, at the junction of the Laramie River with the North PlatteRiver; Fort Hall, east of where the Portnif River flows into the SnakeRiver and the Dalles.
Josephsrecollection is that they, leaving the Missouri River in the morning ofthe day they crossed, traveled that day, camped, and early the next daythey reached the Elk Horn River, a narrow deep stream over which they ferried. When they reached the Loup River [eastern Nebraska, about 90 miles westof Kanesville, Iowa – GLC], they forded the quicksand that gave some troublein crossing. All of the teams were double, except Josephs. Crossing doubleoccupied so much time that he did not care to wait to wait so long, andhaving a good team he crossed alone. His team consisted of three yoke;two belonging to his uncle and one yoke, the leaders, to him. The wheelyoke were very strong oxen and good pullers, the middle yoke were unbrokeon starting, but by this time were working quite well and the leaders werea good yoke. This was his first experience with quicksand and in crossingstreams, and also the last. The water was about hip deep to a man. Thewagons were bolstered up to keep the wagon beds above the water. The riverwas perhaps 70 yards wide and they had to wind about considerablyto keep in the shallow water. The wagons jolted like running over rocks.One of the leaders had a sore neck caused by the ox bow. This caused theox to slacken or turn and this checked the other leader and the middleyoke and all were a little slackened and immediately the wagon began tosink rapidly in the quicksand which would have soon engulfed it, but hestruck the strong true wheelers a sharp crack with his whip and got allto pull together and they were soon going again and crossed in safety.
Josephtook down with mountain fever on Bear River at Steamboat Springs and wasnot able to eat anything scarcely until they got him some salmon and wasnot able to sit up until some time later. The first time he drove a teamafterward was up a hill out of Grand Rounde Valley. [The Grand RondeRiver is in the very southeast corner of Washington. – GLC]
Thestreams ferried were the Mississippi, Missouri, Elkhorn, Green [northwestColorado, south-west Wyoming – GLC], and two crossings of the Columbia.At Green River was a Mormon ferry [Theres an Old Mormon Ferryin SW Wyoming, on the Green just south of La Barge GLC] where they hiredthe wagons ferried across and swam the stock. The Mormons had flour tosell or trade for tea, coffee or sugar. But their train had no more ofthese articles than they desired. The second crossing of the SnakeRiver was just below the mouth of the Boise River, near by was Fort Boise,a deserted adobe Hudson Bay Company fort. Some kept on the south side ofthe Snake and thus avoided crossing it at all, but by crossing it, goodgrass was obtained all the way. While the country on the south was rocky,poorly watered, the localities where the river was accessible were prettymuch divested by the trains of the earlier part of the season. Joseph andhis uncle Joe (Dimmick) came on land with the cattle, crossing on a ferryabout 3 miles above the Cascades, thence following what is now WashingtonState until they came opposite the mouth of the Sandy when they crossed,landing below the mouth of the Sandy. They made portage at the fallswith the teams.
Theyarrived at The Dalles, September 24th; got to this part of the WillametteValley about the first part of October. (The Oregon state papers give thedate of October 10th, 1852.)
Thefirst work he did was for Ransom Belknap for about three weeks. He madeshingles for Ebenezer Dimmick during the winter, near north of Black TailPark until along in February. He hewed the timbers for Jesse Belknapsbarn, where is now the Woodcock place. He got the timbers from the hillabove George Belknaps. Ebenezer Dimmick took money for his part of payfor the shingles and sent it to his family in the east, Joseph took a horsefor his part. In the spring they went to Yreka, California, packing theirthings on Josephs horse while they walked. They remained about 6 weeksor 2 months. Joseph bought a claim with George M. Starr, Warren S., JohnStarr and Chris. Anthony and worked until they thought the claim was aboutworked out.
SomeInteresting Incidents
July4th the train came within a few (4 or 5) miles of Independence Rock[central Wyoming, about 45 miles SW of Casper GLC] on Sweetwater River,about ½ days travel east of Devils Gate. On the morning of the5th we drove on to Independence Rock and stopped and celebrated the Fourthof July. Joseph, Bob Stewart and Phil Chambers went buffalo hunting, climbingabout over the mountains and rocks and returning to camp in the eveningvery tired but without buffalo meat. This was not more than 2 or 3 dayseast of South Pass.
ThomasDimmick died in June at a point 2 or 3 days travel west of Loup Fork [easternNebraska, probably between Central City and Grand Island GLC] had justgot into buffalo country. He and two others had been out on a buffalo hunton the afternoon of the previous day and the weather being very hot, hedrank quite freely of poor water which was found quite abundant. In thelatter part of the night he was taken sick with the cholera and died aboutsix or seven oclock. During the forenoon hasty preparations were madeand his body buried with his bedding and clothing alone on the plains ina grave about 4 ½ feet deep, thought to be sufficient to preventthe wild animals digging into the remains. In the afternoon the train movedsadly on leaving the grave of this loved one a grave never again to belooked upon by anyone who had ever seen him, whose quickly wasted formwas laid to rest with its silent walls. Yet, sad as it was, such sightswere not uncommon that year. New graves were passed daily in the journeyup along the Platte River sometimes..(unreadable).
A Cutoffand its Results
Onthe day the train reached the Boise River, where the river comes out ofthe canyon, Ellen, Athalinda, Mary and Lucinda Dimmick, sometime in theforenoon started on a cut-off which led north of the road. They were accompaniedby other young ladies from Kent and Crow trains which had been travelingnear our train most of the time since crossing Salmon Falls and campingwith them at night, thus making more secure against the Indians whom wemight meet at any time as this was especially an Indian region.
Thegirls had been accustomed to cut across by-trails and coming to the roadagain, to rest until the train arrived. The teams being somewhat jaded,they walked most of the time through the last part of the trip, and indeedthe stronger ones walked most of the way across the plains. But this timethe trail proved to be somewhat different from those they had previouslytaken. The girls were not missed until noon as they were accustomed tovisit among the accompanying trains and sometimes going on by themselves.But with the train stopping for dinner the girls were not found in thetrain and some men coming along on foot were asked if they had seen anygirls along the road as they came. They said that they themselves had,during the forenoon, taken what they at first thought was a cut-off butwhich as they traveled farther on had decided was a trail leading to anIndian Camp and that they then returned to the road and came along it.They said that they saw the girls tracks along this trail and that theywould surely fall into the hands of the Indians, if not already.
Thisproduced some excitement and the mother of the girls, Comfort, declaredthat she would not move a step until the girls were found. But the layof the country seemed rather to indicate that the trail would be a cut-off,at least to those considering the matter cooly. The matter was carefullyconsidered during the brief noon hour and it was decided that the trainshould proceed on its regular journey, except that the horse wagon shouldremain there while Mr. Dimmick and Mr. Kent returning should pursue thetrail which the girls had taken and the two others of the younger men,Ebenezer Dimmick and Phil Chambers, should go on ahead and see if the girlscould be found. Joseph was not yet sufficiently recovered from MountainFever to walk and remained alone to guard the horse team.
Mr.Dimmick and Mr. Kent followed the trail to where it crossed the same creekon which the trains made their noon camp. And seeing that it ledtoward the dust clouds of the moving train decided that the girls weresafe and Mr. Dimmick followed along the creek to the noon camp where Josephwas waiting with the horse team. Then they drove on and a little afterdark arrived at camp where they found all safe and sound.
Thecut-off being longer than usual the girls had become somewhat anxious andreaching the road and fearing that the wagons had passed, went ahead andbecoming thirsty descended the steep bluff to the Boise River and returningup the bluff to the road met the young men who having found where the cut-offtrail returned to the road that the tracks of the girls went forward theyfollowed on and found them there.
Thisinformation is from Dianne Hurley, Mt. Angel, Oregon.
Atthe Library of the University of Oregon they have letters and miscellaneouspapers of Joseph Gragg. Data from 1859-1930 including 607 lettersand one diary.
Someof this information is from Donation Land Claim records, and is being placedin other parts of this narration with the person the information pertainsto.
Inearlier issues of The Schuylerite we published the story of the Graggfamily that was written by Viola Swanson. Dianne sent some genealogicalexcerpts from the Oregon Collection which we will publish at a later date.The letters are from the family members in Pleasantview to Joseph in Oregon,and some of his letters in return.
Copyright1999-2006 Greg Croxton; all rights reserved. For personal use only. Commercialuse of the information contained in these pages is strictly prohibitedwithout prior permission. If copied, this copyright must appear with theinformation.
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