The Crow Emigrant Train of 1865
"We knew there was a very large emigrant train traveling just a few days
ahead of us. We were very anxious to catch up with this big train for the
bigger the train the less likelihood there was of being attacked by the
Indians.
This other train also knew that our train of fifty wagons was
following close behind them. The Overland Stages traveled faster than the
emigrant trains did and the drivers kept people informed where the other
emigrant trains were.
We traveled each day a little longer and finally
overtook there at Fort Laramie.
They were as anxious to have us join them as we were and had been waiting
for us for two days.
It was the Crow train. It was a very large outfit
under the command of Brad Crow (John Bradford Crow). There
were five Crow brothers and their families in the train. A great many
other emigrants were also traveling with them.
The Crows were bringing out
forty jackasses from Missouri, big Maltese jacks , to raise mules on the San
Joaquin River in California. they said they were going to a place called
Crows Landing in Stanislaus County.
We joined up with the Crows. All told there were two hundred fourteen
wagons in the new train. Everything was organized under military rules.
All men over twenty-one and under fourty-five were enrolled for militrary
duty. There were four hundred fighting men. I don't know how many more
there were older and younger, but probably in case of attack there would
have been at least six hundred fighting men. It was said that we were the
largest and strongest train that ever crossed the plains.
All wagons were divided up into companies of twenty each. Every wagon had
the letter of the company to which it belonged painted on both sides of the
canvas cover. Each company was under the command of a wagon master who was
responsible for the twenty wagons in his company.
The leadership of the train centered on Brad Crow. Each company elected
its own wagon master. Father was elected wagon master of Company A. There
was a lame man by the name of Bassett and he was given charge of enrolling
all the men in the tain and of posting the guards each night.
While we were getting settled a band of Indians made a raid on the fort and
stage station. We were camped about three miles from the fort. The forty
jackasses belonging to the Crow brothers had to be herded separated from
the rest of the stock in the train. While the main bunch of Indians were
busy at the fort a small band made a little side attack on us and tried to
stampede these jackasses. The stubborn things never budges. They simpley
braced their feet and hee hawed at the Indians in derision. The Indians did
not know what to make of them. They wouldn't scare at all. the men in
charge began shooting at the Indians and they rode away. The next day we
got word that the rest of the Indians had made away with forty of the
cavalry and stage horses.
The Crow train traveled strictly according to military rule. In starting
out in the morning each wagon had to be all hitched up at eight o'clock and
ready to start. It was the wagon master's duty to see that all his twenty
wagons were in line. If any of the drivers were slow it was up to him to
punch them up. There always will be some people slow. The train started
off each morning with Captain Crow on horseback in the lead. The wagon
masters rode all day beside their companies. If it became necessary for any
wagon to stop, lame horse or broken wheel, the wagon master rode ahead and
had the entire train stopped. There was no leaving any wagon behind. The
Indians wanted nothing better then to get a train scattered. Each company
was in the lead one day in succession. The next day it traveled in the
rear. If Company "A" led today,, company "B" led tomorrow and Company 'A"
brought up the rear of the train. It was much easier on teams to travel in
the lead as the roads were not cut up to bad. It was also pleasanter for
the people as there was not so much dust.
The great trouble in crossing plains was people who had poor stock. Lots
of wagons in the train had only two horses to pull them and were too heavily
loaded besides. The women and children would have to get out and go
trudging through the sand to lighten the loads. Some of the people would
have to throw part of their loads away in order to ease their old pelters.
Day after day father and half of his stock hitched up in other people's
teams helping them along. The Crows did the same thing. Nobody could be
left behind. If there is any place in the world where people will stick
together it is when traveling through a hostile country. Sometimes people
would even run out of grub. Many is the time mother would give flour and
coffee to those that had none left.
The camping time was four o'clock in the afternoon. Captain Crow would put
his horse in a stiff gallop and ride in a large circle. The drivers of the
two hundred and fourteen wagons hd to whip up their horses and keep up. As
soon as the entire train was traveling in a circle the teams were brought to
a stop. Each wagon was drawn up with the front wheels beside the hind
wheels of the wagon in front. This running in a circle each day was done
also as a drill in case of an Indian attack so that everbody would know what
to do.
As soon as the stock was unhitched the herders took them out to grass until
sundown. Then all were driven back inside the corral of wagons for the
night. Ropes were tied from each wagon to the adjoining one so that the
stock could not get out. The back ends of each wagon faced out of the
circle. Between each company a space was left about the length of a wagon
to serve as a gate.
Each evening after supper Bassett would come around to all the companies
and notify the men who was to go on guard duty for the night. Two men were
on duty from each company until midnight when they were relieved by two more
who stood guard until daylight. The guards walked back and forth outside
the corral. One guard faced one way adnd the other the opposite for the
length of each company. Their orders were to call anything they saw outside
the corral. If the answer came"friend of the Guard", they didn't shoot.
Otherwise they plugged everything they saw.
After we had been traveling several days a bunch of aristocratic
Southerners tried to follow along with us. They were not strong enough to
take care of themselves alone in case of an Indian attack and had been
stopped by the soldiers. When our train came alsong the soldiers turned
them loose and they started following us. At night they would camp just
outside the corral. They traveled in buses. There were four or five loads
of them. They had two extra wagons to haul their supplies. A couple of
women did their cooking. In the evening the women in their party would come
out in their silk dresses and stroll around their camp.
Captain Crow sent these Southerners word that they were welcome to join our
train if they wanted to do so, but that the men would have to do guard duty
at night the same as our men. They only laughed at us. They said they
hadn't seen any Indians that they were afraid of that that it was all
foolishness to keep guards out all night.
Every man in our train was ordered to be present. Captain Crow put the
proposition up to our men whether they wanted to keep on giving this party
protection from the Indians. The answer was decidedly NO!
Captain Crow gave these aristocrats their choice of two things, either join
our train and be enrolled with the rest of the men to stand guard when it
was their turn, or else keep away from our train altogether. If they did
not wish to join us they were to stay in camp until we were one day ahead of
them, or we would stay in camp one day and they should go on.
The newcomers flatly refused to do either one. They would neither join us
or leave us. "Then", said Captain Crow, " we will make you do it. " He
went on to tell them that out in the Indian country there was no law except
what the emigrants themselves made. And he added: "We've got plenty of
wagon tongues and we make the law. It's a case of your doing what we tell
you or getting your backs lashed." That brought them to time. No doubt they
had seen plenty of people in the South stretched up and whipped and they
didn't want any of it themselves. They joined up with our train and did
their duty. They were awfully mad about, but nobody cared.
We traveled with the Crow train for a matter of six weeks or two months.
My father and Brad Crow became quite attached to one another and often rode
ahead together to pick out a camp ground for the night. Feed for the stock
had been plentiful at first but when we came to a few hundred miles of Salt
Lake City the feed began to get scarce. The Crow Train was so large and
there was so much stock to be fed that it became necessary to break up the
train. We were coming into the country of the Snake Indians. The train
was broken up this way. All the wagons going, say to Oregon, would get
together come night and stop over in camp the next day, letting the main
train get ahead. A few days later another bunch of wagons going to some
particular part of the west would pull out and wait in camp a day or so. In
that way the Crow train was soon greatly diminished in size.
We stayed with the Crow train until we were within about a hundred miles of
Salt Lake City. Here we stayed in camp three or four days to let the Crow
train get well enough along. We were the same three families that had
started out together from Alba
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