Sarah Sprenger’s Oregon Trail Memories, 1852
Sarah Sprenger’s Recollections of Oregon, 1852
Author: Sarah Sprenger
The food during this time consisted of buffalo meat and antelope meat. The latter was preferred due to its consistency. Food was cooked with greasewood or sagebrush. They had iron pots and teakettles for cooking, and used Dutch ovens for baking, with coals placed both under and over the oven.
To make butter, they put milk in a large can and hung it on a wagon.
Indians were often seen. Once, in the Nez Perce country, a chief offered his brother many horses in exchange for my sister Maria, who was very beautiful. His brother jokingly agreed, but the next day, the chief came looking for Maria.
That year, there was a great deal of cholera. People didn’t have enough to eat. The night before she reached Old Fort Kearney, her sister Abbie fell ill with cholera. Her father, a Presbyterian and a Mason, went to the Fort for help. They allowed him within the grounds, but not inside the Fort itself. Later that day, with the support of the doctor and his wife, Abbie passed away. The doctor and his wife provided the best coffin they had (a plain board one), and allowed them to bury her in the cemetery, promising to care for her grave.
While traveling along the South Platte, Father also contracted cholera. That night, there was a terrible hailstorm and rainstorm. His mother covered him with a feather bed and boards to keep him dry. Father recovered thanks to the sweating and the medicine. During the storm, the cattle ran off and swam to an island. The boys drove them back the next day.
Maria also contracted cholera, but Mother nursed her back to health. On their journey, they encountered many people who were sick and dying. Bodies had to be wrapped in quilts and laid on the ground with stones piled over them, as there were no places to dig proper graves. Some graves were disturbed by wolves.
They arrived in Oregon City on October 26, 1852. His brother found a house for them, with only four rooms and no plaster.
One day, a man came to his mother, asking her to care for his three little girls because his wife had died on the plains. He intended to find work and return for them in a few weeks. After two months of hard work by his mother and sisters, the man returned for his daughters without offering any payment.
In Oregon City, they met Walter McFarland again; his father had crossed the plains in 1849, along with his stepmother, sister, and brother. They also met Captain Cochran, who, with his brother, was running the Oregon House hotel. He fell in love with his sister Maria. They also met Judge Waite, who became very fond of his sister Mary Ann.
The family remained in Oregon City until the first of February. They then moved to a farm in Linn County, on the Calapooia River, eleven miles south of Albany. The house initially had three rooms: a central room made of logs, and a room of shakes on each side. The fireplace was constructed from sticks and mud. Small sternwheel steamboats traveled up the Willamette River to Albany and Corvallis in the winter, and a little in the summer. Father added two more rooms and an attic for sleeping. One room served as a kitchen, and the other was part storeroom and part curtained-off sleeping area.
When spring arrived, they would go out with washtubs and buckets to gather strawberries, which were large and sweet. They ate some, and Mother made jam from the rest. They also had blackberries, and later, fruits of all kinds.
My sisters were considered remarkable in the wilderness for several years. They were skilled at cooking and washing. A woman named John had a son who wished to marry one of the girls, but it did not happen, as both sisters were to be married in May.