THE END.
Now that the trip has been made, and an account of stock, so to speak,
taken, I have become surprised the work was undertaken. Not that I
regret the act any more than I regret the first act of crossing the
Plains in 1852, which to me now appears to be as incomprehensible as
the later act. If one questions the motive prompting and governing the
movements of the early pioneers, scarcely two of the survivors will
tell the same story, or give the same reason. This wonderful movement
was brought vividly home to my mind recently while traversing the great
fertile plains of the Middle West, where most of the emigrants came
from. Here was a vast expanse of unoccupied fertile land, beautiful
as ever mortal man looked upon; great rivers traversed this belt, to
carry the surplus crops to distant markets; smaller streams ramify all
over the region to multiply the opportunities for choice locations
to one's heart's content, and yet these Oregon emigrants passed all
these opportunities and boldly struck out on the 2,000-mile stretch
of what was then known as the Great American Desert, and braved the
dangers of Indian warfare, of starvation, of sickness—in a word, of
untold dangers,—to reach the almost totally unknown Oregon Country.
Why did they do it? Can any man tell? I have been asked thousands of
times while on this later trip what prompted me to make it? I can
not answer that question satisfactorily to myself and have come to
answering the question by asking another, or more accurately speaking,
several, "Why do you decorate a grave?" or "Why do we as a people mark
our battlefields?" or "Why do we erect monuments to the heroic dead of
war?" It is the same sentiment, for instance, that prompted marking the
Gettysburg battlefield.
Yes, as I recently returned home over the Oregon Short Line Railroad
that in many places crossed the old Trail (with Dave and Dandy quietly
chewing their cud in the car, and myself supplied with all the luxuries
of a great palatial overland train), and I began vividly to realize the
wide expanse of country covered, and passed first one and then another
of the camping places, I am led to wonder if, after all, I could have
seen the Trail stretched out, as like a panorama, as seen from the car
window, would I have undertaken the work? I sometimes think not. We
all of us at times undertake things that look bigger after completion,
than in our vision ahead of us, or in other words, go into ventures
without fully counting the cost. Perhaps, to an extent this was the
case in this venture; the work did look larger from the car window
than from the camp. Nevertheless, I have no regrets to express nor
exultation to proclaim. In one sense the expedition has been a failure,
in that as yet the Trail is not sufficiently marked for all time and
for all generations to come. We have made a beginning, and let us hope
the end sought will in the near future become an accomplished fact,
and not forget the splendid response from so many communities on the
way in this, the beginning. And let the reader, too, remember he has
an interest in this work, a duty to perform to aid in building up
American citizenship, for "monumenting" the Oregon Trail means more
than the mere preservation in memory of that great highway; it means
the building up of loyalty, patriotism—of placing the American thought
upon a higher plane, as well as of teaching history in a form never to
be forgotten and always in view as an object lesson.
The financing of the expedition became at once a most difficult
problem. A latent feeling existed favoring the work, but how to utilize
it—concentrate it upon a plan that would succeed,—confronted the
friends of the enterprise. Elsewhere the reader will find the reason
given, why the ox team was chosen and the drive over the old Trail
undertaken. But there did not exist a belief in the minds of many
that the "plan would work," and so it came about that almost every
one refused to contribute, and many tried to discourage the effort,
sincerely believing that it would result in failure.
I have elsewhere acknowledged the liberality of H. C. Davis of
Claquato, Washington, sending his check for $50.00 with which to
purchase an ox. Irving Alvord of Kent, Washington, contributed $25.00
for the purchase of a cow. Ladd of Portland gave a check for $100.00
at the instance of George H. Rimes, who also secured a like sum from
others—$200.00 in all. Then when I lost the ox Twist and telegraphed
to Henry Hewitt of Tacoma to send me two hundred dollars, the response
came the next day to the bank at Gothenburg, Nebraska, to pay me
that amount. But, notwithstanding the utmost effort and most rigid
economy, there did seem at times that an impending financial failure
was just ahead. In the midst of the enthusiasm manifested, I felt the
need to put on a bold front and refuse contributions for financing
the expedition, knowing full well that the cry of "graft" would be
raised and that contributions to local committees for monuments would
be lessened, if not stopped altogether. The outlay had reached the
$1,400.00 mark when I had my first 1,000 copies of the "Ox Team"
printed. Would the book sell, I queried? I had written it in camp,
along the roadside; in the wagon—any place and at any time I could
snatch an opportunity or a moment from other pressing work. These were
days of anxieties. Knowing full well the imperfections of the work,
small wonder if I did, in a figurative sense, put out the book "with
fear and trembling,"—an edition of 1,000 copies. The response came
quick, for the book sold and the expedition was saved from failure
for lack of funds. Two thousand more were printed, and while these
were selling, my cuts, plates and a part of a third reprint were all
destroyed by fire in Chicago, and I had to begin at the bottom. New
plates and new cuts were ordered, and this time 6,000 copies were
printed, and later another reprint of 10,000 copies (19,000 in all),
with less than 1,000 copies left unsold two months after arriving
home. So the book saved the day. Nevertheless, there were times—until
I reached Philadelphia—when the question of where the next dollar of
expense money would come from before an imperative demand came for it
bore heavily on my mind. Two months tied up in Indianapolis during the
winter came near deciding the question adversely; then later, being
shut out from selling at Buffalo, Albany and some other places, and
finally the tie-up in New York, related elsewhere, nearly "broke the
bank". New York did not yield a rich harvest for selling, as I had
hoped for, as the crowds were too great to admit of my remaining long
in one place, but when Philadelphia was reached and I was assigned a
place on Broad Street near the city hall, the crowds came, the sales
ran up to $247.00 in one day and $600.00 for four days, the financial
question was settled, and there were no more anxious moments about
where the next dollar was to come from, although the aggregate expenses
of the expedition had reached the sum of nearly eight thousand dollars.
"All is well that ends well," as the old saying goes, and so I am
rejoiced to be able to report so favorable a termination of the
financial part of the expedition.