Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/178

Rh teen years, named Miles Goodyear, from Iowa, asked the privilege of joining the company as servant and herder. He performed his duties satisfactorily until he arrived at Wyeth's Fort, on Snake River, where he left them to follow a fur-hunting expedition.

Enough has already been said of the mode of travel with the fur company's caravans, but since this was the first attempt of white women to cross the great plains, put down on the maps of that day as a desert country, let me recapitulate so far as to show the outfit of these two women, celebrated by Presbyterian writers as the real pioneers of civilization in the Oregon Territory.

Dr Whitman was furnished by the American Board with the necessary material and implements for beginning a settlement, blacksmith's tools, a plough, grain, and seeds to commence farming, and clothing for two years, with many other articles thought indispensable to moderate comfort. At Liberty he bought wagons, with teams, also some pack-animals, riding-horses, and sixteen cows. Additional teams were hired, making quite a train, which was placed in charge of Spalding and Gray, assisted by the Indian boys and Miles Goodyear. At Council Bluffs the additional teamsters were dismissed, and after crossing the Missouri the mission goods were readjusted, and as much as possible reduced in bulk. The journey from Liberty to this point was full of accidents and delays of the march, occurring often through the inexperience of the men in charge; there were broken axles, and general repairing to be done, and the caravan began to move before the missionary train was ready. By great exertion, however, Whitman was able to overtake Fitzpatrick's company at the Pawnee village on the Loup branch of the Platte River, a few days' travel west of the Missouri. The train now consisted of nineteen carts drawn by two mules tandem; a light wagon, and two wagons and teams belonging to the