Petaluma’s Past: Those intrepid women in covered wagons

Skip Sommer takes us back in time to the 1850s|

The Gold Rush to California has been called the largest mass movement of people in American history, but not many women traveled on those early wagons west. And those intrepid ones who did were under extraordinary stress. Of the many fears to be faced, Indian attacks, cholera, bears and snakes topped the lists and those weren’t idle fears either. The death rate for women on the trail was 22% higher than that for men.

Very few of those women got all the way to our Petaluma Valley.

Crossing the desert could only be made at night, and pushing wagons over mountains and fording creeks and rivers were very dangerous tasks. In fact, the number one cause of death on the trail was drowning. (Who would guess?) In attempts to prevent that, wagons were tarred and their canvas covers were coated in oil to help them float better.

Quarrels and fights between angry men carrying guns could also prove fatal at any time.

And rain, mud and dust were not any fun either.

The men’s main chores were to tend the stock and wagons, hunt game and protect the train from attack. The women tended the campfires and children, cooked and did laundry. It was never-ending work. Bruises, cuts, broken bones, disabled wagons and crippled livestock were common. Boys as young as 8 were taught to shoot a flintlock shotgun, and sparrow pie soon became a staple. Most women carried knives for some personal protection.

Would they live through the journey? That was an oft-asked question.

The “jumping-off point” to ‘The West’ was most often the Missouri River. Rafts were hired to carry people, wagons and stock over it, and most everything west of that river was wilderness, out of the law’s jurisdiction, with no turning back. Each wagon train had its own laws and enforcers, and most routes would start out by early May, so that grass along the way would be good for the livestock. They headed west to Fort Kearny and then northwest up the Platte River to Fort Laramie. Then to South Pass Junction, where wagons going west to California parted from those going North to Oregon. By that time, it was into September, firm friendships had been made, and those partings were often wrenching events.

The California-bound wagons traveled across the Nevada desert into the Sierra Mountains, hopefully to reach Sacramento before the snows. It was six to seven months on the rocky trail in a wooden box with no springs, about 2,200 grueling miles at 16 hours a day.

“My first recollection of California began,” said Petaluman Anna Cromwell Reed in 1866, “riding in that creaky old wagon drawn by six emaciated cattle, the last of a herd of 22 that we had started with.”

Anna did make it to Petaluma, and in 1893 her son Clarence married Dixie Proctor here. The pioneering Reed, Cromwell and Proctor families were to become important builders of our community for many years forward.

Westward immigrants, like the Reeds, had usually sold their farms in the East to raise cash for the trip, and they tried to produce many of their own provisions because “snake oil” salesmen often inflated prices in Missouri. One would purchase there a wagon, harness and a double yoke of oxen for about $450, but that was a big chunk of savings then. An early drayage decision that had to be made, was either for horses (fast, but fragile), or mules (tough, but stubborn) or oxen (strong, but slow). Oxen were the big seller, and most chose to buy two yokes (four oxen) for $80 extra, as insurance against loss.

Often, a milk cow was purchased as well, to pull along behind the wagons.

Women made cloth, soap and butter, put up preserves, and sewed clothes, quilts and canvas. Wagons were made to carry 2,500 pounds or more, but loading them was a real chore. The necessary preserves, flour, tools, nails and ammo were heavy. Coffee, bacon and beans were light. But the heavy kegs of nails were vital, for building their cabins-to-be once they arrived. In fact, those who went west in several stages would burn-down their temporary cabins, so they could retrieve the hand-hammered nails for the next one.

In 1850, the population of Petaluma was 560, with one percent of those residents female. Just two years later, it was 2,208 with 10 percent female. This was because the Donation Land Act had gone into effect in 1850, granting families twice the amount of land offered to single men. So, up went the numbers of women on the trail. One quote from those times, was that, “Single ladies were valued higher than gold!”

Mutual efforts from both men and women soon became essential, but child-bearing years were 18 to 30 then, and the average woman bore five children. Thus, during their 20s, most women were either pregnant, nursing, or caring for infants. Imagine the drudgery of making meals, helping with stock and camping in the wilderness, plus tending babies for months on end.

Some just gave up, and turned back. If they could.

Women had to learn to throw aside luxuries. Men, women and children alike wore high leather boots to protect from snakes, thorns and rocks. Women searched daily for brush or buffalo chips (yuck!) for fire. They milked the cow, churned butter, squatted at camp fires and sat on the ground to eat. Sometimes though, washing clothes in a creek became a rare get-together with other women, a day of feeling less lonely, while catching-up on news. Some wagon trains carried a midwife to deliver babies, and the women rallied around each other during those events as well.

Female equality in the 1850s and ‘60s was not legally recognized, but what went-on behind cabin doors and under buffalo robes we can only guess. I hope that some real love existed, and some mutual decision making too. Those intrepid women did get through it, and they survived.

It’s hard for me to imagine those times, but it makes me all the more happy to enjoy the company of my own “Intrepid woman” in our own cabin in the West. Oh yeah, plus something called an “automobile” with an “automatic” transmission instead of a whip. And a Starbucks Coffee House with actual tables and chairs by the side of our own trail.

Oh, and did I mention microwave ovens? Zowie! New appreciations abound.

(Historian Skip Sommer is an honorary life member of Heritage Homes and the Petaluma History Museum. Reach him at skipsomer@hotmail.com)

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