Diary of Mrs. Amelia Stewart Knight

Response on “ Diary of Mrs. Amelia Stewart Knight”

When I finished this article I started to realize that the life of pioneers was not just one big adventure, but they had to face some really difficult problems like dangerous river crossing, bad weather, different kinds of accidents and diseases along the way without any chance for medical treatment.

But first of all I had make a research to answer one question before all the problems along the way. It is how much did pioneers traveling west needed and how long did they have to safe money to be able to support their trip. It took roughly $800-$1,000 to obtain a proper outfit (wagon, food, clothing, etc.) and enough supplies to live a whole year without planting or harvesting a crop. Some families saved for three to five years before being able to begin their trip to west. From mine point of view they had to be very patient and live more or less in poverty to be able to save such a big amount of money. That means that most of people had a lot of problems even before they started they “trip” to west.

Another great surprise for me was that most people walked and made the entire 2,000-mile journey on foot because most emigrants grossly overloaded their wagons and that is why only few could ride inside the wagons. Most of emigrants who could ride inside were children and women. To ride in a wagon sounds really better than walking all 2000 mile on foot, but another problem which they had to face was that the emigrant wagons didn't have any safety features. If someone fell under the massive wagon wheels, death was instant. Many lost their lives this way and as I mentioned above most often, the victims were children.

Farther more the river crossings, which were necessary to get to their point, were a constant source of distress for all members of the group. Hundreds drowned trying to get wagons, cattle and another stuff to the other shore.

Perhaps the biggest problem on the Trail was a deadly disease with no cure at that time, called cholera. This disease was a really big threat, not only for an individual, but also for the whole group. First of all it’s very contagious and secondly the sick person would slow down the whole caravan. Sometimes they received a proper burial, but often, the sick would be abandoned, in their beds, on the side of the trail and die alone.