The Barlow Road

 

Editor’s Note: Prior to the completion of the Barlow Road in 1846, the only way that the travelers could go from The Dalles to Oregon City was by raft on the Columbia River. There was a rough trail passable only by horseback on the south side of the river (Medorem Crawford took this route in 1842.)

     The construction for the Barlow Road around the south side of Mount Hood was begun in 1845 by Samuel K. Barlow with the assistance of William Rector and Joel Palmer. This effort only reached a half-way point before the work had to be abandoned due to the onset of winter. A crew of forty men paid for through funds raised by Barlow and associates and approved by the Provisional Legislature of Oregon through an act passed on December 17, 1845 completed the work in 1846. As the eastern end of the road was in open country, it did not require much work, but there were about eighty miles of heavy forest in mountainous terrain in which to build the western section.

     As will be seen from the diary accounts, many of the travelers felt that this 100-mile stretch contained some of the most challenging obstacles of the whole 2,000 mile journey. That this part of the trip fell at the very end when the travelers were exhausted, almost out of supplies and their oxen were badly worn out was a cruel end of their five-month ordeal.

 

Day 115- The Dalles to Tygh Valley

Joel Palmer- At four o'clock, P. M., every thing was ready for our departure, and we pursued our way over the ridge, in a southern course. The country was very rolling, and principally prairie. We found excellent grazing. Our camp was pitched on a small spring branch.

 

Mary Black- We took the Mt. road this morning. 2 of Mr. Durhams sons and families, the Ford and Graham of our train went to the landing to ship. Cooper, Ringo, Old Mr. Durhams family, Brown, Rosenberger & our selves are encamped convenient to the first water we came to. That is about ten miles that we came today. Emaline is very complaining & Bell is very low & they gave Cora a dose of blue moss today.

 

Day 116- Tygh Valley

 

[Editor’s Note- Yesterday’s and today’s travel was relatively easy compared to what is to come. Tomorrow, the wagon train will begin its ascent into the Cascade Mountain Range.]

 

Joel Palmer- This day we made about ten miles, cross­ing several ravines, many of which had running water in them; the country, like that of yesterday's travel, proved to be very rolling; our camp was situated on a small spring branch, having its source in the moun­tain.

 

Mary Black- Evening camp. We arrived at the camping place about 2 Oclock. Bell is low, Emaline not able to tend her. I took her in my wagon and tended her till we got here. Her recovery is very doubtful.

 

Day 117

Joel Palmer- This morning I started on horseback in advance of the company, accompanied by one of its members. Our course led us south over a rolling, grassy plain; portions of the road were very stony. After a travel of fourteen miles, we arrived at a long and steep declivity, which we descended, and after crossing the creek at its base, ascended a bluff; in the bottom are seen several small enclosures, where the Indians have cultivated the soil; a few Indian huts may be seen along this stream.

     Meek's company crossed Deshute's river near the mouth of this stream, which is five miles distant. After ascending, we turned to the right, directing our course over a level grassy plain for some five miles or more, when we crossed a running branch; five miles brought us to Stony Branch, and to scattering yellow pine timber. Here we found Barlow's company of seven wagons. Barlow was absent at the time, having with three others started into the mountain two days before. We remained with them all night.

 

Mary Black- Nooning at the entrance into the mountain called Barlows Gate [at Gate Creek]. They talk of making a short drive into the Mt. I em not well. [The quality of her penmanship has deteriorated. - Stated by a previous editor who viewed the actual diary]

 

Day 118- Rock Creek

Joel Palmer- This morning myself and companion, with a scanty supply of provisions for a two days' journey, started on a westerly course into the mountains. From the open ground we could see Mount Hood. Our object was to go south and near to this peak. For five miles the country was alternately prairie and yellow pine; we then ascended a ridge, which ascended gradually to the west. This we followed for ten miles. After the cross­ing of a little brushy bottom, we took over another ridge for four or five miles, very heavily timbered and densely covered with undergrowth. We descended the ridge for a short distance, and traveled a level bench for four miles; this is covered with very large and tall fir timber; we then descended the mountain, traveling westward for one and a half miles; we then came to a small branch, which we named Rock creek.

 

Editor’s Note- We now lose Joel Palmer’s narrative, as his wagon train was only able to travel one-half way through the Barlow Road as of October 4th. This was in 1845 when the road was first being constructed. Later that month, the wagon train had to be abandoned and the travelers proceeded on by horseback or on foot. Their belongings and provisions were left in the care of one man, William Berry, in a hastily constructed cabin at a place that became known as Fort Deposit to await their return in the Spring of the next year. The Barlow Road was finally completed sometime in 1846.

 

Mary Black- Silas' family have been so sick and Tilla sick too. I have not had any time to write. Bell is better. I carried her yesterday in my wagon & tended her & Tilla. She is so low she can not raise her head. Emaline is down & will not take a bit of attention from my hands. I make her diet for her & get Mrs. Brown to take it to her. She is some better I think. All the train have tried to prevail on Silas to stop with his family but he still insists on crossing the Mt. We tarried yesterday till about 3 Oclock. He could get good pasture at 10 cts pr head by making a short drive, and we were paying 25 cts. I washed and baked light bread. The woman near where we were camped brought some delicacies to the sick. We had desperate roads. Crossed Deshoots [The White River was often named the Deschutes by the travelers] river on a tole bridge, $2.00.

 

Day 119- Fort Deposit

 

Editor’s Note: Fort Deposit was the place where the Samuel Barlow and Joel Palmer party of 1845 cached wagons and goods before setting out on horseback to the Willamette Valley. While precise identification of Fort Deposit is impossible, evidence suggests that it was probably the clearing at the eastern base of Barlow Pass, a site approximately one mile northwest of present-day Devil's Half Acre.

 

Mary Black- Morning. We made the drive by sun down. Camped within the enclosure and they could just unharness the teams and let them go on fine grass and nice running water near us. Mrs. Durhams little girls have taken up with the children & Tilla is enjoying herself finely. We came to a very steep side Mt. road & all the teams had made a start up but our old wagon, when they went back to help Silas up, he told them he believed he would go back and stop as Emaline was worse, so they had to stop there until Mr. Black & Will Rosenberger took him back. We gave them $10, leaving us but $6. While they were taking him back to house (where they left him as comfortable as could be expected), those that were left tried to get the wagons up, with the assistance of some men traveling in a light 2 horse vehicle. The third drive, our wagon got nearly to the top of a short steep turn in the road and stopped. The wagon commenced running back, I called to the inexperienced foreigner to hold the wheel but he kept beating the horses till they became unmanagable, and the wagon turned off the road. We then tried to hold it by grabbing the fore wheel. The man that was driving behind jumped down from his seat hollering for those within to get out, and just got to the hind wheel in time to save the wagon. I made all the haste I could to get the children out. It then took all hands to get the wagon back on the road.

 

Benjamin Cleaver, September 11, 1848.. . . these Kaskade Mountains is a good place to lose cattle in.

 

Elizabeth Goltra, September 22, 1853- This morning 8 of our cattle were gone, one of ours and 7 of Mr. Swick’s, found all except one. The road is very rough today over roots and rocks winding its way through dense timber, passed the summit of the mountains today and camped on a fine creek.

 

Abigail Jane Scott, 1852- Boil an antiquated ham bone. Add to the liquid the few scrapings from the dough pan in which you mixed the biscuit from your last measure of flour, which by now will be musty and sour. If you have no bone, thicken some water from flour shaken from a remaining flour sack.

 

Inez Eugenia Adams, 1848- Weary and worn; we found the road almost impassable from mud caused by the recent heavy warm rains incident to the Pacific coast climate. Here Brindle, our third ox, mired and died, leaving us but one ox, "Old Bright," and our cow [fourteen-year-old Old Rose]. The scene is clear before me now of poor old Brindle lying beside the mud hole from which he had been extracted, his big dark eyes rolled back, and his chest painfully heaving with his last feeble breaths.... Now it would seem as though my parents would despair of ever reaching their destination; but not so. My father hitched up our cow [Old Rose] with the remaining ox [Old Bright] and she gallantly bore the yoke, and helped us into the land of mighty forest trees, pure and abundant water, green grass and genial climate.

 

Day 120- Summit Meadows

 

Editor’s Note: Summit Meadows is a beautiful group of meadows with spectacular views of Mount Hood. The Barlow Road route runs through the meadows following the northern edge. Summit Meadows was a stopping place for pioneers to rest and graze their animals, preparing for the descent of Laurel Hill coming up the next day.

 

Mary Black- In the Mt. detained to mend the hind axle of Mr. Browns wagon, which has just broken down after a steep short drive & a late start. The sun is shining brightly when we came to the camping place late yesterday evening. We found Mr. Brown & Rosenberger there long enough to have good fires. Rosen­berger had made his fire against a very tall pine which stood near his wagon. About 10 Oclock, Will raised the alarm that the tree was wind shaken and rapidly burning down. They all went to work and packed the wagons up hill on sideling ground and then cut the tree down to make all things safe—which fell square across the road which had to be cut off and drawn to one side by oxen this morn­ing which detained us considerable. At Mr. Knights [location unknown], where we stopped because I was not able to travail. I am now able to walk about & all the rest are sick. Sent for doctor for Mr. Black as he is worse than ever last night.

 

Editor’s Note- This was the last diary entry on the Barlow Road by Mary Louise Black. This is not surprising as she had been quite ill for the last month of traveling. And let us not forget that she was probably the primary caregiver for her two small children. As soon as possible, after they had found a place to live and were settled, John Black selected a parcel of land along the Rogue River, Jackson County, Oregon on the east side, and filed an applica­tion for a homestead. During their second winter on the homestead, tragedy struck the Black family again. A diphtheria epidemic swept the area and the children were stricken. Tilla survived but baby Clifton died on March 16, 1867. He was 2 years, one month, and 25 days. Two years later, October 14, 1869, a son was born to them. He was named simply, Lee. When he was four years old, a sister, Martha Anna, was born on March 31, 1873.

 

Mary Powers, 1856- To make wild strawberry dumplings. Wet up some light dough and roll it out with a bottle. Spread the berries over it and roll it up in a cloth and boil it. Make a cup full of sauce with the juice of the berries and a little sugar and nutmeg. Serve the sauce over the dumplings.

 

Elizabeth Goltra, September 23, 1853- Reached Summit Prairie about 9 o’clock and camped for the day, found good grass 1 1/2 miles from the road [probably what is now Trillium Lake].

 

Rev. Neil Johnson, September, 1851- We had left one wagon and team, and my two mares on the summit prairie, where there was what seemed good grass, with two boys to bring them on when the rain ceased, but on the summit the rain turned to snow, and our two mares and our entire stock left there perished.

 

George Miller West, 1853- About the middle of the afternoon the Captain rides to head of train and orders to turn out and camp at the first place available. We soon find a suitable place, camp and another is added to our number. Mrs. Hutchinson has a fine boy.

 

Day 121- Laurel Hill

Editor’s Note: At Laurel Hill the early Barlow Road went from the summit of Laurel Hill at 3,600 feet elevation, descending nearly 2,000 feet to the base of Laurel Hill. At least five identifiable "chutes" are present on the side of the treacherous slope. Many Oregon Trail travelers considered descending this hill the worst part of their journey west.

From the Mount Hood National Forest USDA Pamphlet #797-672/4):

.... In places the grade on Laurel Hill was 60% - more vertical than horizontal. Men, oxen, and wagons inched down the backward leaning cliff. Described in 1853 as something terrible, the slope was worn with ruts 5-7 feet deep. One wheel might drop 3 feet off a boulder while another dropped into a 2-foot hole. Wagons slid down the hill with all wheels locked and a 40-foot-long tree tied behind for additional braking, the outstretched branches gouging the soil. At the foot of the hill, the tree was left to block the next wagon! Many commented that Barlow was wise to put his first tollgate at the east end of the road, rather than on the western side of the Cascades, below Laurel Hill. ...

 

George Miller West, 1853- Can you imagine what the mountain is like? It is one mile long and that steep that we keep the hind wheels locked, and the mules holding back their best all the time. Heavy timber and quick turns to make with four mules. While descending this hill, or mountain, Grandma was sitting in the back seat of the buggy, she could not hold herself in but fell forward and struck the ground head first. She was hurt but little by the fall. We then put her in my wagon in the bottom of the box. Nooned at the Mountain House, just at the foot of Laurel Hill.

 

Amelia Stewart Knight, 1853- It is something more than half a mile long, very rocky, rocky all the way, quite steep, winding, sideling, deep down, slippery and muddy ... a very difficult place to drive, also dangerous .. smelling the carrion, I, as others, holding my nose.

 

Elizabeth Goltra, September 24, 1853- This is a very rainy morning, the roads are very bad, but no time to be lost fearful of being caught in a snowstorm, started early, cleared up a little about noon, got down Laurel Hill about dark, this is the roughest and steepest hill on the road, got down all safe by cutting and chaining a tree behind the wagon 100 ft. long.

 

Charles A. Brandt, September 22, 1851- Oh! what a hill.

 

E.W. Conyers, September 20, 1852- Today we passed a number of trees that were cut down, leaving a stump thirty to thirty-five feet high, and wondered how the person ever managed to fell the tree and leave such a high stump. But all was made plain when we were told that the trees were cut down when the snow was on the ground.

 

John Tully Kerns, September 29, 1852- Saw the clouds far below us this morning, which was something new as well as grand.

 

William Barlow, 1845- We rolled down like shot off a shovel.

 

Absolom Harden, September 20, 1847- This is the worse hill on the road from the States to Oregon.

 

James Monroe Fulkerson- An Illustrated History of Central Oregon gives us more details about the Fulkerson/Miller trip to Oregon in an article about Caleb Curl: “So much sickness had delayed them until they were very late and their cattle had become so enfeebled that they were unable to pull the wagon. Mrs. Curl (Margaret Fulkerson), unyoked nine in one day that had given out. Finally, they were about to give up in despair when a company, headed by Mr. Snelling, the son of Vincent Snelling, a Baptist preacher, arrived with wagons and provisions. Mr. Fulkerson had been carrying his daughter, who was ill, who was a large woman weighing one hundred and seventy pounds, and was nearly exhausted, as were the rest of the party. The end of these hardships occurred on the Barlow Road over the Cascades and just as they were descending the Laurel hill, succor came.”

​

Day 122- Meeting Rocks and the West Tollgate

​

[Editor’s Note: After descending Laurel Hill, travelers would often meet to regroup at the Meeting Rock. This was a large rock in a meadow at the bottom of the hill. The West toll gate was only in operation from 1871-1883.]

 

Frank Stevens, July 5, 1881-.... all of a sudden the [West] Toll Gate. Had a small store here for the accommodation of emigrants. Came on down into a little glade, where we found some grass and camped for dinner. Here we found the red-and-white clover, dandelion, dewberries, strawberries, all growing.

 

Day 123- The Devil’s Backbone

 

[Editor’s Note: According to the Clackamas County and the Wasco County Historical Societies' publication "Barlow Road" (1985), it was a good one or two-day journey to descend the ridge and reach the crossing of the Sandy River at Revenue's Place and Tollgate. ….Ropes were snubbed to trees to ease the descent of wagons down the Devil's Backbone, but no trace of these scars can be seen today due to logging and burns. Ruts are still visible in certain areas….]

 

Rev. Clinton Kelley, 1848- The entire first day of October was spent in descending what was called the "backbone" [Devil's Backbone], a hill on the opposite side of Sandy from Revenue. Rain had fallen the night previous and the mountain road was so slippery and precipitous that for the cattle to keep their feet was simply impossible. Many devices were resorted to to overcome the difficulty—hitching cattle behind the wagons, dragging logs behind, letting the wagons down by ropes, etc...

 

Catherine Amanda (Kit) Scott, age 13, 1852- Rations grew shorter and shorter. One meal was prepared by boiling an antiquated ham bone and adding to the liquid in which it was boiled the few scrapings from the dough pan in which the biscuit from our last measure of flour - which, by the way, was both musty and sour - had been mixed. We still had coffee and by making a huge pot of this fragrant beverage, we gathered round the crackling campfire - our last in the Cascade Mountains - and, sipping the nectar from rusty cups and eating salal berries gathered during the day. I pitied folks who had no coffee.

 

Rev. Jesse Moreland, September 30, 1852- Today worse road than we have had yet six months to the day we started.

 

Isom Cranfill, September 13, 1847- We decended it in three benches the last is much the longest & most difficult.

 

Day 124- Foster’s Place

 

Editor’s Note: Phillip Foster was involved with the early construction of the Barlow Road. His land claim was established on Eagle Creek in the early 1840s and was for many years the first sign of civilization for the travelers just coming off the most difficult parts of the Barlow Road. He offered housing, meals, fresh fruits and vegetables and a field for grazing of tired animals, but all for a fee,

 

W.L. Adams, 1848- (From an 1889 biographical sketch) "Their teams were weak and jaded, and reduced almost to skeletons. The faces of the immigrants were peeled and scaled by the alkali of the sage plains. Here lay before them the hardest part of the trip. The rain had ren­dered the road almost impassable. The whole route was lined with dead horses and cattle lost by immigrants who had gone before. Adams concluded to make the trip across the mountains by himself. He was ten days in making it to [Philip] Foster's—the first house he had seen in six months. The mud up many moun­tains was knee deep; and the cattle were barely able to get on with the empty wagon. He and his wife carried the babes and the entire load up several moun­tains, wading through mud nearly knee deep, and then went back and drove up the team. On reaching Foster's they camped to rest. Foster, on learning that he had no money, generously gave him a peck of potatoes."

 

Inez Eugenia Adams- My father had but ten cents to his name.... We reached this seeming paradise on the 1st day of October, 1848.

 

Day 125- Oregon City

 

We have to assume that our Fulkerson/Miller wagon train made it to Oregon City by now. Understandably, all of the diarists’ account of the journey ended after arrival at Foster’s Place the day before. Less than ten miles of relatively easy travel remained to reach Oregon City. The five-month ordeal of the journey was clearly and decisively over. The Fulkerson and Miller family groups were probably taken in by relatives and members of the same church who had arrived there in previous years.

 

Last Editor's Quote: An unoccupied spectator, who could have beheld our camp today, would think it a singular spectacle. The hunters returning with the spoil; some erecting scaffolds, and others drying the meat. Of the women, some were washing, some ironing, some baking. At two of the tents the fiddle was employed in uttering its unaccustomed voice among the solitudes of the Platte; at one tent I heard singing; at others the occupants were engaged in reading, some the Bible, others poring over novels. While all this was going on, that nothing might be wanting to complete the harmony of the scene, a Campbellite preacher, named Foster, was reading a hymn, preparatory to religious worship. The fiddles were silenced, and those who had been occupied with that amusement, betook themselves to cards. Such is but a miniature of the great world we had left behind us, when we crossed the line that separates civilized man from the wilderness. But even here the variety of occupation, the active exercise of body and mind, either in labor or pleasure, the commingling of evil and good, show that the likeness is a true one. Joel Palmer, Day 29 on the Oregon Trail