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Note: , Barry Co., Missouri where he was elected Probate Judge of Barry Co., Missouri and served in that capacity until 1853. On or about April 11, 1853, they and their four children left Missouri with ox teams for Oregon. They arrived in Lane Co., Oregon Territory November 8, 1853 and settled on a pre-emtion land claim about 14 miles northwest of Eugene, where they continued to reside and raise their family. He farmed, taught school, and served as county commissioner of Lane Co., Oregon from and was once elected as a Democrat to the Oregon state legislature. from 1866 to 1870. They were lifelong and consistent members of the Baptist Church.
THE LOST TRAIL This article was printed in the "Junction City Times", Junction City, Oregon, Nov. 23 and 30, 1901. It is the story of the trip across the plains in 1853, of Hanks Neville Hill and family, as told by him to his grandchildren.
"Come, Grandpa, this is just the night for a story, tell about your trip across the plains ..." Now we had all heard portions of Grandpa's trip, and he had long promised to tell us the whole story. We, as we drew up our chairs around the cheerful fire, felt that we had waited long enough. Without, it was raining, as it can only rain in the Willamette Valley. A steady downpour, accompanied by a strong Chinook wind that set loose boards, casement or doors about the house going, with a gentle rat-a-tat, bang-bang, that was rather pleasant to hear.
Everybody, old and young, more especially the young people, loved Grandpa Neville Hill. He was noted far and near for his kindness, generosity and benevolence. He was rather a tall, spare man, with a slight stoop to his shoulders, a long gray beard, an abundance of soft gray hair that waved back from a high intelligent forehead, and he was seated in his usual corner in his big armchair. We waited patiently for him to begin. His blue eyes sought the depths of the wide fireplace with a thoughtful expression, and taking a fresh chew of tobacco to help him remember, he said:
"I feel that I am a poor storyteller, but if my broken talk will interest you children any, I don't mind to tell you how we crossed the plains. The first part of our journey is of but little interest, resembling in most respects the trips of hundreds of others before and after us, but to make the story complete, I will sketch the most important events of the entire journey. __________ __________
"We started from Barry County, Missouri, on the 11th day of April, 1853, for the Willamette Valley, Oregon. There were four families of us, numbering some twenty persons. We had twelve wagons, three yoke of oxen to each wagon, about thirty head of horses and a small band of cattle for beef and stock. We made calculations on a six-month trip, therefore, provided ourselves with ammunition, provisions, and medicine to last, we thought, that length of time.
Our first days of travel were through what was then called Missouri and the Chickasaw Indian nation. We next struck the Osage Indian nation; although we were the first wagons ever through that part of the country, we found the Indians very friendly. We struck one of their towns on the Verdigris River, and after the old chief had made us an elaborate speech of welcome, he sent part of his men to help us through four miles of heavy timber that a wagon had never been through. They warned us against the Pawnees, the next Indian nation, but we had very little trouble with them. In crossing into their country we fell in with a large train of wagons. All of our wagons were home-made and not so well built as wagons made later by the regular wagon factories. They were hard of draft and continually breaking down.
We united forces with this train, elected a captain, and agreed to travel together for safety.
One day the captain and his sister-in-law were riding some distance behind the train when they were suddenly surrounded by Indians. The Indians seized the lady's horse by the bridle and was making off with her when the captain rode in, cut the reins and then they made for the train with the Indians in pursuit. The last wagon of our train was that of a wealthy Negro and his numerous family. The Indians turned their attention to them and it looked like they would drag some of those little darkies out in spite of us. I have often smiled to myself since when I think of how they ducked their little woolly heads and rolled their big white eyes as a big Indian with a Buffalo head on his shoulders would make a pass at them. As the big hands would almost touch them they would cry out "Lor-a mass-sy". With a few shots from our guns in which no one was hurt, we soon frightened the Indians away".
We next struck the old Santa Fe route, following it until we crossed the Arkansas River. We were now among the buffalo. We had plenty of game all along of the smaller kinds and great quantities of fish which the young men seined out of the smaller streams by tying the wagon sheets together and sinking them with log chains. But here, roaming over the vast prairies, were immense herds of buffalo, not only thousands but millions. Sometimes a herd would stampede and if we were in its track such scattering it would make. Maybe half of us would have to lay the whip and run, while the other half would turn tail, and go the other way, for there was no turning the buffalo. We captured several calves and killed numbers. One great trouble was no wood, not a tree for miles, but of an evening you would see all the "old" ladies out gathering "buffalo chips" while the men tended to the teams. Then we would dig a trench, place the rods from our wagons across it, fill it up with the "chips", and soon have the finest fire in the world to fry bacon and bake bread by.
We passed through Atchison and the next Indians were the Arappahoes, but we took the usual precautions, that of throwing our wagons into a circle, pitching our tents inside and leaving out a guard at night, but we were not molested. We now left the Santa Fe route and took a direction for Pikes Peak, stopping a few days to recruit at Fort Man, an old adobe fort of several acres enclosed by an adobe fence. One day one of our men while out hunting was attacked by three Indians ambushed in a bunch of sage brush. He killed two, fired at the third one, then took their blankets and made for camp. The Commanches attacked a train just ahead of us one night and drove off fifteen mules, but they did not bother us.
Our first deep water fording was crossing the South Platte. We put blocks under our wagon beds to keep things dry. Some of the teams were washed down quite a distance.
It was now June and we were under the shadow of Pike's Peak. By the time we reached the Cashlapoodie River, the warm rains had melted the snow in the mountains and it was booming full, we could not ford it. We built us a raft and flew a kite with a string attached to a cable. It fell on the other side and made fast among the trees. We had got part of our "traps" over when the cable broke, and to save our necks we couldn't get another kite over, but a strip of a boy was brave enough to swim a mule over and take another cable. After three days hard work we were all over. We then travelled along a spur of the Rocky Mountains, forded the Laramie River and passed on to the North Platte. It was too deep to ford, so we built another raft. On the 4th of July, we raised the summit of this spur of the Rockies. In place of firecrackers we had a general snowballing. As we turned down the summit, our cattle commenced to die. We were without water for the stock two days, and but little for ourselves. Then the whole train took the mountain fever, but none died and we pushed onto the South Platte. News had gone on before that we were coming and a ferry was there from forty miles above to set us over, charging us five dollars a wagon.
We passed through Fort Bridger and fell into the main travelled road to California and Oregon Territory. This was fearful! We seldom found any decent camping place, owing to the dead cattle of other trains ahead of us. Our own stock were in pitiful condition, our wagons continually breaking down. Still we were called the "Fat Cattle Train". This region was inhabited by the Snake Indians; a sorry lot they were, living mostly on dead cattle. We crossed the Snake River at American Falls, and fell in with a man named Elijah Elliott who had been to Oregon and claimed that he knew a newer and shorter road to the Willamette Valley than the old Oregon Trail which goes by Pendleton and Umatilla River to the Columbia River.
He said that although no wagons had ever yet been over that road and we would have to break the trail, but all who had provisions to last four weeks would make time by going that way and he would act as guide. I for one, was willing to take it, for I was anxious to reach the valley as soon as possible on account of your grandma's health. So we made up a train of ten families and twenty wagons. The rest were afraid of running out of provisions and preferred to keep on the main trail toward the Columbia River. My brother, Dr. Reuben C. Hill, and his family stayed on the old trail, so here we separated and I and family went with those who were undertaking to break the new road to the Willamette Valley.
Except having to break a road through the heaviest kind of sage brush we met with no trouble until we struck Lake Harney. We were trying to follow a trail which Stephen H. Meek had made eight years before in trying to lead a train across Eastern Oregon but in which he failed and his train broke up and scattered near Wagon Tire Mountain. Our guide said that here Meek had gone to the north of Lake Harney and found bad roads and poisonous water, and we were to keep to the south end of the lake where we could cross, which was entirely wrong. Harney Lake lies in sort of a half circle and he was in for following it clear around, but that would take at least two days, when we could reach the same spot by going straight across in one day and have just as good a road, sage brush neck high we just concluded we wouldn't do it, and struck out on our own hook. Elliott swore around awhile, threatened to shoot the leaders while some of our men threatened to hang him from wagon tongues, but eventually quiet was restored and the truce was celebrated by a marriage of a young girl named Mary Maloy to Alexander Griffin on the 18th day of September, 1853. The marriage ceremony was performed by one of the teamsters. Elliott then withdrew his part of the train and went his way while the rest of us went ours. But after several days wandering he was glad to fall in on our trail and joined us in a week. We crossed the lower end of the lake that night and next day fell into the abandoned Meek's trail again. We did not follow it very far until it ended, or rather seemed to break up and turn back, this was discovered by the way the sage brush was mashed down. We were in a pickle! No trail, no guide, winter coming on, and provisions scarce. Scouts that had gone ahead reported no water to be found. But we had no notion of turning back, so pushed on, travelling two days without water before we struck the head waters of Crooked River. Here we camped one night. Next morning we laid our course straight for a Lake that one of the guides supposed he had seen toward the west. After travelling two days we reached the point where the Lake was supposed to be, but it was only a dry lake which the guide thought he had seen was only a mirage caused by radiations of the sun's heat from the dry lake's sandy bed. Here we camped without water one night and laid our course straight for the Three Sisters looming up in the distance.
Our route lay over a low mountainous country, with broad valleys between, almost destitute of vegetation, no game of any kind and no water. We kept on for two days after the last of our Crooked River water was gone in the vain hope of finding other water, but we were finally forced to stop. Our cattle were dying, wagons breaking down and the only provisions, beef from our poor cattle, a few crackers and a little flour. It was October and the weather was bitter cold. Our last chance lay in turning our stock loose and following them to water. Imagine our situation: camped in an uninhabited, untravelled desert, with winter coming on, without water, nearly out of food, and no teams to take us away. Things looked blue indeed! We pitched our tents on the edge of a ravine (now called Dry River) under the shelter of a hill and made things as comfortable as possible. Then we agreed that part of us would mount the few horses left and follow the stock, leaving the rest to take care of the women and children. We followed the trail of the stock all that day, camped in a canyon that night and having no water of course couldn't eat. We had scarcely made our camp when a fourteen year old boy (Isaac Darnielle) came riding in on a little buckskin pony. He was from a train further back and was hunting for water. He had run away from his train and was sick and tired. I took him in, cared for him the best I could, little dreaming then that someday he would be my son-in-law. Bright and early next morning we struck out with the boy and the pony in the lead. We soon found that the horses and cattle had separated. Two men were detailed to follow the horses, and I will say that they were forced to drink the blood and eat the flesh of a calf they found unable to get up, before they found the horses. The horses were eventually found on Crooked River near where Prineville now is.
The rest of us kept on after the cattle and later that evening as we were moving wearily along, our jaded beast, which we had to whip there-to-fore to keep in a walk, began to show signs of life by pricking up their ears and sniffing the air, while the buckskin pony almost raised a trot. We know what it meant and urged them on till the pony was in a lope away ahead and the rest in a trot. Suddenly the pony stopped, the boy disappeared, and on coming up we found ourselves gazing down fifty feet or more at the rushing waters of the DesChutes River. There halfway down the almost perpendicular banks was the madcap boy, tearing along at a rate that bid fair to land him headfirst into that mighty torrent below. Providence seemed to guide his steps and finally with a tumble and a roll he landed at the bottom, flat on his stomach, face down in the cold water, trying in that first drink to quench the thirst that had been burning him up for three days. The rest of us were soon following his example but with a little more care. The water was too cold to do us any good, so we carried some up in our hats and caps, built a fire and warmed the water before we could be satisfied. Meanwhile that blessed boy at the risk of his own neck was carrying water up by the handful to that precious pony. After absorbing, like a sponge, all the water we could hold we carried up enough to satisfy our own poor horses. We ate our supper of dried beef and a few crackers and lay down to sleep, feeling very much refreshed.
The next morning bright and early I started for camp with two 12 gallon kegs of water. I had gone probably two thirds of the way when the horse that I had water on gave out and I had to put it on the other horse, and walk and lead. About 10 o'clock that night I sighted the campfire. When I reached it everything was still, the lights out in all the tents except mine. I hastened inside and up to my wife's bedside. She looked up with a sad smile and said, "Don't hurt the baby dear". Oh how I felt! Sure enough there lay the little stranger as contented as if on a bed of down in a cozy home. The baby who was born on that third day of October, 1853, in a dry camp on the High Desert of Oregon, was then and there named Richard Hardy Hill. Your grandma had during all that time, for herself and four children, about a quart of water. One of the men, Joseph Brumley, who was left in charge of the camp had found a seepage between the rocks on the hillside where a tablespoon could be inserted and a little water could be dipped out. One of my little girls, Maggie, was lying there fast asleep with her tongue swollen out of her mouth. Strange as it may seem, children complained the least and would keep up where strong men would faint.
The next morning we borrowed teams of a train that was following us and pulled our wagons down to the DesChutes River and camped there nine days to gather cattle and wash up. Other trains came up. They had followed our trail and had profited by the notes we had left stuck up along the way. All anybody had to eat was beef. We boiled great pots of it and having no salt, made it "green" with red pepper and drank the soup with tears streaming down our cheeks. We crossed the DeChutes River at Farewell Bend (now Bend, Oregon), followed a trail up to Diamond Peak without much trouble. Meanwhile four young men, Andy McClure, Pleasant Noland, Charles Clark and Martin Blanding had set out on horseback through the mountains to try to get through and get help from settlers in the valley. They had to abandon their horses before they got out of the mountains and finally reached the settlements.
When the wagons turned down the west side of the Cascade Mountains through the heavy timber great logs sometimes blocked the way. They were so large we could not move them, but had to bridge over them. It was dangerous to ride in the wagons so the women and children walked most of the way. Wagons were continually turning over and spilling their contents over the mountainside.
One old lady, as she saw her old bread tray go rolling down the mountain, threw her apron over her head and sobbed, "There goes my old tray that I've made hundreds of loaves of bread in and I'll never see it or any bread again, boo hoo!".
The first open ground we struck was the Pine Openings. We were about sixty miles from the valley and as there was good grass there we concluded to camp and rest our teams a few days.
Meanwhile one of the scouts mentioned above had reached the settlements and notified them of our distress. About two days thereafter a man, named Robert Tandy met us with some flour on a pack horse. Tandy made the flour into cakes of bread baked in frying pans. He made a great stack of cakes before anyone was allowed to touch one. When Tandy appeared a great shout went Up!. Men cheered, women cried, boys turned "somersaults" all over the hill. For my part, I thought I had never seen finer looking or fatter horses. Such a supper as we had, and as we were gathered around our camps with bread to eat everyone was busy stowing the good things away, while the high treble of that irrepressible boy could by heard above all else every few minutes saying, "Please pass the bready!" It being too good in his mind to be called just plain bread.
The rest is soon told. After crossing the Willamette River about twenty times we reached the valley. That road is now known as the Old Military Route over the Willamette Pass.
Hanks Neville Hill and family reached the Willamette Valley Nov. 8, 1853. They took a pre-emption claim about 14 miles Northwest of Eugene, Oregon, on which they lived their first winter in Oregon Territory, in a bark shanty which they built on Long Tom Slough.
Note: The Hanks Neville Hill family moved from McNairy Co., Tennessee in 1846 to Washburn Prairie
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