Pioneer Narratives

"You Can Form No Idea of the Roads We Have Here...."
(Or Sixteen Miles in Six Days!)

The following is a portion of an interesting letter written by a "green" Santa Fe Trader as he started out of Independence, Missouri on his first venture into Mexico.  William Henry Glasgow was writing to his sister in St. Louis about the horribly muddy conditions he gought while trying to leave Jackson County in the spring of 1846.  The areas' muddy roads, clogged with Santa Fe traffic, are believed to be partly responsible for the wagon swales which are still visible on the Bingham-Waggoner Estate grounds -- evidence of wagons cutting across open terrain to avoid the deep quagmires.

This excerpt is from Brothers on the Santa Fe and Chihuahua Trails, edited and annotated by Mark L. Gardner, and published in 1993 by University Press of Colorado.

Thursday 4 June
SantaFe road 16 miles from Independence

My Dear Ellen

As James & the Gen has doubtless informed you long ago I left Independence last Saturday about 10 oclock with our Waggons 19 in number & Mr Ferguson in Company with his 4.  The first day we got but 3 miles from town with half our waggons the other half we left mired in devious & sundry mudholes strung along for a mile behind.  On Sunday morng we started and got on pretty well until dark overtook us at Mr Barne's place 8 miles from town where we encamped and placed our animals all in his pasture. 

It commenced puring down rain soon after dark and the next morning the roads were so slippy & muddy that we could not stir  about 12 oclock however I rode over the road for 4 miles selecting good places to cross the mud holes and on Tuesday morning we got an early start and were getting on splendidly when in crossing a mud hole we broke both the hounds off the front axletree and were compelled to encamp in the prairie to put in new ones. 

This night it rained as fast as Water could possibly fall it cleared up alittle on Wednesday morning and we started again to try and cross the big blue river  before the rains could raise the river but in half a mile we came to a hill which was so soft & slippery that our animals could not drag a waggon up it all & the rain came down faster than I ever saw it before  So we were compelled to encamp again within half a mile of our old camp of the night before.  We (as we did yesterday) turned our mules (112 in n) & oxen (186 in n) out to graze upon the prairie and it continued to rain splendidly all day.

last night (as we did the night before) we drove a stake into the ground for every mule and horse & tied them to it & at dark placed the oxen in our "corral"  and guarded them until day light, no pleasant business I can assure you as the mud is knee deep all around our camp & it rained all night. 

This morning it is still cloudy but has not rained  As it is now 12 oclock we shall very probably have more rain.  We are encamped within half a mile of the big blue river, which this morning swam the horse of our Major domo whom I sent to see how high the water was.  We are now busy cutting down trees and filling up mud holes with them to enable us to cross the river as soon as the water gets down low with them to enable us to cross the river as soon as the water gets down low enough not to run into the waggon beds.

You can form no idea of the roads we have here  we have scarcely crossed a mud hole since we left Independence without hit hitching 11 to 12 yoke of oxen to each waggon and as our oxen were all foolish & not accustomed to work & our drivers were greener than the cattle we have had a sweet time of it as you may judge by the time (6 days) we have been in getting 16 miles   2 1/2 miles a day.  I have become a first rate ox driver in the morning when we start I wait & get all the waggons off then gallop on ahead to the first mud hole or hill and help the drivers over it.  Then go on to the next & so on all day.

William Henry Glasgow