ON THE TRAIL WEST

​​(Printed in THE MILLER COUNTY AUTOGRAM-SENTINEL in the column, 'WINDOW TO THE PAST', Feb. 9, 2006)
​(From my book, THEY LEFT A LEGACY, HISTORICAL STORIES OF MILLER COUNTY, MISSOURI)   

"Gold in California....Free Land in Oregon Territory...." These headlines caused the largest influx of western immigration in America's history. Gold was discovered in the mountain streams of California in the 1840s and in 1850, the territorial legislature of Oregon guaranteed settlers ownership of large tracts of land if they would settle it, live on it for four years, and cultivate the rich soil. At that time there were only about 13,000 people in Oregon Territory but, as the word spread, the population increased to about 55,000 by 1860. There were nearly a half-million pioneers there by 1870. They had migrated from all sections of the United States and had pulled up stakes and headed for Oregon. They also came from all parts of the world including the Germans, Swedes, and English. In 1859, Oregon became America's 33rd state.

'Moving On' had been an American habit for over 200 years. They no sooner landed at Jamestown in the early 1600s than these new Americans left the Tidewater Basin of eastern Virginia and plowed inland toward the hills of the Blue Ridge and Alleghenies. Still not satisfied, they wanted to see the other side of the mountain and discovered the canebrake country of Kentucky. Immigrants, who had settled New York, went to Ohio; left Ohio and went on to Indiana and Illinois; left Illinois and crossed the Mississippi river into Missouri Territory. Lewis and Clark had proven there was still 2,000 miles of unseen land left, so they continued to push the frontier west until the Pacific Ocean stopped them in their tracks.

The 'itch' to move west drove our ancestors to the Pacific coast through many hardships and often death on the old Oregon Trail. These pioneers had to make 15 miles a day, mostly on foot, to cross the huge mountain ranges before the early snows of autumn arrived. Yes, indeed, the way west was hard and difficult! They rode wagons, horses, pulled hand carts, and a few pushed wheel barrows, but, believe it or not, most WALKED the 2,000 miles to the Pacific! Rarely in all history had so many people picked up their earthly belongings and traveled so far over so huge a wilderness.

Many died along the way.....it is estimated that at least 20,000 pioneers perished. Most deaths were by accidents and the dreaded cholera disease. The legends of Indian massacres are highly exaggerated. Very few pioneer wagon trains were attacked by Indian warriors. Old western movies have performed a great injustice to the Native Americans by portraying them as savages attacking and slaughtering every immigrant wagon train that tried to cross the plains. The path west was dotted with gravesites of unfortunate pioneers who did not live to see their dreams fulfilled.

Old Westport (present-day Kansas City) and Independence, Missouri were 'stopping off' places for most wagon trains. The two settlements were well equipped with blacksmith shops, livery stables, and general merchandising stores where the travelers could repair and outfit their covered wagons for the long journey across the barren plains and steep mountains before reaching the green valleys of Oregon Territory. Earlier, trappers had found a better way across the Rockies than Lewis and Clark had used. They went to the south, at the end of the Wind River Range where the Continental Divide flattens into a wide plain of sand and sagebrush. They called it South Pass. It became the route for the thousands of wagons which crossed the Rockies, and thus began the Oregon Trail.

There was nothing out there from Independence, Missouri to the Willamette Valley but the Pawnee, Sioux, Shoshone, and Bannock Indians and an uncountable number of buffalo. Why leave the fertile fields of Miller County for six months or more of exhaustion, perhaps death, in the vast western desert? Well folks, life was grim in those days. Some of the lands were still swampy and many suffered the 'ague' (chills, aches, and fever). Taxes were high and by 1840, the country was in a bad depression. The best land had been taken by the early pioneers. By 1840, nearly 400,000 settlers had poured into Missouri. The general thought was, "I want some elbow-room".

Glowing reports were given by some promoters and it sounded wonderful to these pioneers...."gentle winters, no ague, lots of free land'....this is what drove them westward. Most traveled the same route. They went northwest from Independence, Missouri to the Platte river valley of Nebraska; across the plains and onward to the gigantic Rockies, taking the Sweetwater River route to South Pass. A dividing of trails was located at South Pass in southwest Wyoming. One trail went to Oregon, the other to California. Those heading for Oregon went over the Blue Mountains, crossed the Columbia River and on into the Cascade Mountain range to the Willamette Valley. Today you can still see the wagon tracks permanently embedded in the earth. They can be seen for over 300 miles across southern Wyoming. On a trip I took in 1990, I saw the tracks in Nebraska and Wyoming. Escorting my mother, aunt, and sister-in-law in my 20th century vehicle along the old Oregon Trail, gave me a sense of the stress endured by all those pioneers. I only had to keep my fellow travelers entertained and interest for 2 weeks....how much more difficult it would have been had the year been 1850 with 2,000 miles of untamed land laying before us and a journey that would have lasted six months ! ! !

I have tried to present a scenario of pioneers crossing our vast American continent to establish new homes and new lives on that Far West Frontier. Now, I will take you on an armchair tour over the Old Oregon Trail with some Miller County, Missouri pioneers....the Bilyeus, Kinders, Sheltons, Bryants, Biggers, McCubbins, and others. The following are name of those who once lived in Miller County and then made their way West: William and Diana (Coker) Bilyeu, Peter and Jane (Coker) Bilyeu, George and Hester (Reed) Bilyeu, John M. and Hannah (Wasson) Bilyeu, Hubbard and Mary Ann Bilyeu, John and Nancy (Workman) Bilyeu, Joseph and Anna (Osborne) Bilyeu, John and Lucinda (Bilyeu) Bryant, William and Julia Ann (Bilyeu) Kinder, William and Nancy (Bilyeu) McCubbin, Creed T. and Nancy (Lane) Biggers, Mordecai and Celia (Atkinson) Lane, James H. and Olive (Spurlock) Shelton.....all these folks went to the Willamette Valley of Linn County, Oregon.

After the 1849 gold rush, members of the Bilyeu family, predominantly farmers, decided to join the migration west to the fertile fields of Oregon. Peter Bilyeu, son of John Bilyeu and the husband of Jane (Coker), was the first of the Bilyeu family to travel to Oregon Territory. He left Miller County in 1850 and traveled over the Oregon Trail eventually settling in the Willamette Valley (later Linn County). His wife, Jane, did not go with him, but chose to stay behind with her children. By 1852, some of their children left Miller County with William and Diana (Coker) Bilyeu and made the trip west. Jane still refused to join her husband in Oregon. About the same year (1852), she left Missouri with a daughter and family and re-settled in Iowa. She remained there until about 1870, and for some unknown reason, finally decided to go to Oregon to be with Peter Bilyeu after an absence of 20 years! They are buried, side by side, in Bilyeu Den Cemetery on a beautiful hillside overlooking the Willamette Valley below. I visited their graves in 1990.

According to John D. Unruh, Jr., author of the book THE PLAINS ACROSS, more overlanders than ever before trailed west in 1852. Oxen were used more than any other animal to make the long trip overland. Our Miller County ancestors were among those travelers that year. In the spring of 1852, William and Diana (Coker) Bilyeu left Miller County with their six children and joined a wagon train at Independence, Missouri. For six months they endured the long, tiresome, arduous trip, arriving in Oregon on September 16, 1852. They endured hardships that would be difficult to envision today.....hunger, freezing weather, sickness, death, and terrain that was almost impassable. New babies were born along the way and some died on the trail.

A journal exists that was written by one of the Miller County pioneers on their trail west. It describes their daily travels and the route has been easy to trace as they spoke of familiar sights along the trail........the Blue River in Kansas; Ft. Kearney, the North Platte River, Chimney Rock all in Nebraska; Ft. Laramie, Independence Rock, South Pass, Emigrant Springs all in Wyoming; Soda Springs, Ft. Hall, the Snake River in Idaho; some falls, huge mountain (Mt. Hood) in Oregon.....it is thought one of the men of the Bilyeu clan kept this daily journal on their trip across the plains and mountains in 1852.

Those who were fortunate to make the whole trip found much work awaited them once they settled on their new land. Homes had to be built; food had to be obtained; land had to be cleared for spring planting. There was a shortage of doctors in the area and many families suffered losses after they arrived from diseases such as cholera, measles, whooping cough, pneumonia and others. Determination and perseverance was the make-up of those tough pioneers and they survived against all odds. They carved a new world out of the forests of the Northwest and their descendants numb {missing}

In 1952, the ALBANY DEMOCRAT, a newspaper in Albany, Linn County, Oregon, ran a wonderful story entitled, "Oregon's Biggest Family Holds Reunion in Albany".....The story began...."Descendants of William and Diannah/Diana (Coker) Bilyeu, comprising what is probably the largest family in Oregon, met on Sunday, August 17, 1952, to celebrate the family's 100th year in Oregon and to re-enact a scene from the pages of Bilyeu history. Over 300 family members were on hand to celebrate. Nearly 1,000 descendants of the original family live in Oregon and it is estimated over 2,000 family descendants live on the Pacific coast.....William and Diana Coker Bilyeu and their eleven children came west via the Oregon Trail in 1852, settling near Thomas Creek, north of Scio, Linn County, Oregon, after obtaining almost 3900 acres of donation land claims. The area is now known as 'The Bilyeu Den' in eastern Linn County. About 320 acres of the original land is still farmed by direct descendants of the Bilyeus........." In Bilyeu Den, in a valley of the Cascades, is Bilyeu Den Cemetery, established in 1857.

This is the final resting place for many of the Oregon pioneers of the Bilyeu family including:
​
William Bilyeu 17 Mar 1795-25 Jun 1879
Diana Coker Bilyeu 7 Jan 1801- 9 Mar 1877
Peter Bilyeu 29 Sep 1802-21 Jul 1877
Jane Bilyeu 4 Dec 1801- 9 Apr 1878
​
(Pioneers of 1850)
John L. Bilyeu 23 Jul 1824-18 Dec 1892
Nancy Workman Bilyeu 10 Nov 1828-23 Jan 1927
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There are about 40 other gravestones in Bilyeu Den Cemetery with the name Bilyeu on them. Other cemeteries in Linn County, Oregon with Miller County pioneers buried in them include Franklin Butte Cemetery near Scio; Providence Cemetery near Scio; Miller Cemetery near Scio; Pine Grove Cemetery near Halsy; and Alford Cemetery near Harrisburg.

I do not know how many of the Oregon Bilyeu, Kinder, McCubbin, Bryant, Shelton, Lane and Biggers families ever came came back to Missouri for visits…perhaps none, until later generations. In the 1890s, a son of Creed T. Biggers came through Miller County on his way to New York City. He visited the site of his birth in 1848. It was owned by the Spearman family in the 1890s and was located west of Iberia near the Barren Fork creek.

In our modern age, with genealogy so popular, Miller County has been visited by descendents of the Oregon Bilyeu families who were researching their ancestors that once lived in our county. I have become acquainted with several of these descendants and we have exchanged information and materials concerning our families. In 1990, as I stated before, I took a marvelous trip to the Willamette Valley of Oregon and visited the land where my great, great, great grandparents lived and died. They were Peter and Jane (Coker) Bilyeu who married in Overton County, Tennessee in 1821; moved to Miller County in the mid 1830s; he moved to Oregon in 1850; she followed him there about 1870 and both are buried in Bilyeu Den Cemetery in Linn County. On a cold, rainy day in early June 1990, I drove to the Bilyeu Den country of Linn County and searched for the graves of my ancestors. While Bonnie, my sister-in-law, held an umbrella over my head, we trudged through the west grass of Bilyeu Den and i took photographs of as many graves as I could find. It was not too easy hobbling along with gout in my right foot, but we accomplished what I had driven 2,000 miles to do......I found the final resting place of my ancestors. You would have to be a lover of family history and genealogy to understand my joy!

Remember, as you live out your comfortable 20th century life, those who came before us made many sacrifices and overcame almost insurmountable odds so that we can benefit by the hardships and labors of our ancestors. We often forget and overlook our heritage. We should always take pride in it and try to preserve it for those generations yet to come. Our forefathers carved out a new country from the Tidewater marshes of Virginia to the timbered forests of Oregon and California and left a portion of that heritage in Miller county as they stopped off here temporarily.....just long enough to be a part of our 165 years of history ..............(Miller County was founded in February 1837)

 

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BIBLIOGRAPHY:
"Gone West", Volume 3, No.1, The Jefferson National Expansion Historical Assn.
"Oregon Trail", National Geographic, Volume 170, No. 2, August 1986
"Scio in the Forks of the Santiam" by Carol Bates, Gates Graphics 1987
"Westward Ho" by George Hendrix from Midwest Living Magazine, April 1987.
"A Celebration of the Bilyeu Heritage", by Virginia Bilyeu 1982
"Pioneer Families of Miller County, Missouri" by Peggy Smith Hake 1990
"Historic Sites Along the Oregon Trail", Patrice Press, Inc. 1987 (available at National Park Historic Sites)