Preface

June 19, 1902
About three years ago, I was earnestly requested by my son-in-law, Theo Madsen, to tell him something of my ancestors in my own biography. Owing to my age, sixty eight years, I deferred the task, as it seemed to me, it would be a tedious one, and furthermore I had never interrogated him on the subject of his family. My remarks may be brief but I will show by relating what I know of them that I am not ashamed of any of my ancestors or of my own life.

Setting out

I now will try to give as much of the pleasures and hardships of my trip across the plains.  In the year of 1857 it was thought to be very uncertain for a man to get through as the Indians were very hostile and grass and water scarce.  My husband had a drove of cattle and he once thought of leaving me in Missouri.  I objected, so when he found that I was determined to go with him he made arrangements for me.  His brother William finally decided to come along with us, bringing his wife and little girls.  He had some fine milch cows.  His wife’s father had a large tract of land which he let us turn the cattle on and so his house was our starting point.  My father’s and sister’s homes were about fifteen or twenty miles from there. 

I spent a few days with them but they would not bid me goodbye, said they would come down to Clinton’s place to see me off. Clinton was William Brittain’s father-in-law, so all the relatives on both sides congregated there on the morning of May 16th 1857 to bid adieu to us ‘forever’.  To my surprise Father, family and all came and I bade farewell to all but my sister whom I thought would take it hard  But when I said goodbye to her she answered, “Goodbye, sister, a rolling stone never gathers any moss,” and I answered back “nor a setting hen any feathers.”  My father and Clinton came with us as far as a station in Kansas which was called “One Hundred and Ten”.  Then another separation:  Clinton persuaded his daughter to go back with him.  He tried to get me to go back and her husband William Brittain said that if I would turn back he would never let me want for anything. 

He had decided to stay in Kansas, sell his cattle there and go back to Missouri.  His wife and little girl stayed also but the child died before he had his cattle disposed of. 

At last father came to me and said, “Well, daughter I see you are determined to go and risk the consequences.”  I said, “Yes, Father, I will never turn back.”  He then said, “What if your eyes get worse and you go blind, what will Dave do with the children?”  I replied that my eyes got this way in Missouri and maybe they would improve if I continued my journey.  He then kissed me and said, “Although I may never see you again I am glad to see you so determined to go on with what you have undertaken.” 

I bade Brother Sam[1] goodbye and told him to get a move on him or he would be left behind some morning.  Every one else was ready to start and Sam was just soothing every last wrinkle out of his saddle blanket before putting the saddle on.  I told father goodbye the second time and said, “I will be back.” 

In fourteen years [I came back] in the [railroad] cars to Missouri, but by that time he was in Texas.  He was a major under General Rice in the Civil War.  He did several very daring things and his life was threatened if he was ever to come back to Missouri.  One of these things was to march to Governor McClurg’s dry goods store and take everything in them.[2]  He made an invoice of what he had taken.  At the time it was reported that Governor McClurg and others had threatened Father.  The Governor came twenty-five miles to see me and to tell me that Father could come to see me whenever he liked, that he himself would have done the same thing in war time, had he been as brave as my father.  My daughter Helene spent two weeks with McClurg’s daughter shortly afterwards. 

I decided to go to Texas to visit my father but the yellow fever was very bad so I did not go, so the last time I saw my father was on the Kansas plains.

After we parted there I was almost blind.  I had two little girls, one two and one three months old.  I had to sit in the wagon with blue blankets hung round it to keep the light from my eyes.  My husband began to get discouraged and said that he would turn back if I would.  I said, “Never,” and that was the last I heard of turning back. 

We were now about ready to cross over the Kansas line.  We did not travel but a few miles a day as we had ox teams and a drove of cattle.  We had to have a man go ahead always to look for grass, water and wood.  We never looked for Indians.  It did not see much the first part of the trip.  There were trains for miles and miles ahead of us and we were about the last train crossing the Missouri River, and that was why Mr. Brittain and brother wanted to turn back.  They said that we were too far behind and that the grass would all be eaten off, but we found plenty up to the Platt River. 

Here my troubles commenced. 

Notes

[1] Eleanor’s brother Samuel Thomas was about 2 years younger than she, and the next below her in the family. Samuel was apparently born in Tennessee about the time James Jr. moved his family to McMinn Co. from Kentucky.  He never married, and died in Nevada without issue. 

[2] Raid on Governor McClurg’s store:  A summary of the Draper-McClurg family papers (1838-1981) held at the Western Historical Manuscript Collection, Columbia, Missouri is posted at 222.umsystem.edu/shmc/invent/3069.html.  In that summary is the following statement which supports the fact that the raid happened.  It is easy to see how someone who felt himself so badly victimized by what he perceived as an unruly mob would do whatever he could to keep those whom he felt were responsible out of his state. 

“Joseph W. McClurg was a prominent merchant at Linn Creek, Missouri, prior to the Civil War.  He represented Missouri in Congress for three terms, then was drafted into the governorship of Missouri, served from 1869 to 1871.  He was an intensely religious man, as most of his writings reflect.   While he was in Washington D.C., rebel raiders destroyed his store in Linn Creek, causing financial reversals from which he never recovered….”

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“On to Missouri” May 25, 2024

“Crossing the Plains from Missouri to Nevada in 1857,” May 21, 2024