The Awakening of the Desert

by Julius Charles Birge

It is difficult for the present day traveler to comprehend the peculiar situations and emergencies that sometimes confronted the western emigrant in the early days, when they were as effectually removed from the restraints, conveniences, and conventionalities of civilized life as if they had been transported to an uninhabited island. An example of such a crisis, even more striking than that in which our young men found themselves when nearing that fork of the roads, was related to me by a member of a family who shared in a strange episode, which culminated at the parting of the ways which we were soon to reach.

It was in the summer of 1849, when a wagon train of emigrants captained by George Scofield, the head of the family last mentioned, was slowly crawling over this same road on its long way to the newly discovered gold fields near Sacramento. Among the emigrants who had been traveling under the protection of the Scofield outfit were a few who were bound for Oregon. With the travelers who were destined for California was a young and vigorous farmer from one of the Middle States, whose name was Pratt and who was accompanied by his wife and six young children, the youngest being an infant and the oldest hardly ten years of age. Mr. Pratt, like the majority of the pioneers, had embarked his all, when he started to cast his fortune in what was then an almost unknown territory. The long line of covered wagons crossed the Mississippi River and rolled out over the plains. In a few weeks the stock of provisions was practically exhausted. Many of the horses were run off by the Indians, leaving a heavy burden upon the animals which were left. While the men were toiling by day and watching against the savages by night, the women also had their work to perform and their vigils to maintain, for the children had their weary hours.

While traversing the desert, Mrs. Pratt became a helpless invalid, and in spite of her husband's efforts she and the children were suffering from neglect. With her parents, bound for Oregon and accompanying the train, was Miss Huldah Thompson, a strong, kind-hearted, young woman, who became deeply interested in the unhappy condition of Mrs. Pratt and her children, and with the noble impulses of a Florence Nightingale, she voluntarily served them to the limit of her strength.

Weeks passed by, and one blistering hot day, while the train was dragging along beyond the stream, Little Sandy, Mrs. Pratt died. The train was ordered to halt while men and women held a council near the dusty, covered wagon in which lay the remains of the young mother. Nothing could be done except what always had been done when one of such a company dies, where there is no cemetery except the broad bosom of Mother Earth and no person within reach fitted to conduct funeral rites. Therefore, while the train stood still, as stop the engines of the ocean steamer while the body of the dead is consigned to the sea, the sympathetic emigrants circled around the hastily dug grave by the roadside in the desert, while the body from which the spirit had taken its flight hardly an hour before, was lowered into its solitary tomb.

Then again the line moved slowly on the long drive toward the ford of the Big Sandy, before reaching which no water would be found, and there they camped.

Huldah had been a stranger to the Pratt family until they were brought together on this pilgrimage across the plains, and now the day after the burial, the train was expected to reach the forks of the road at Green River, and Huldah, with her parents and other friends, was to proceed on the Oregon trail, while Mr. Pratt was to continue under the protection of Scofield's train along the new Mormon trail. Pratt was heart-broken. Huldah was sympathetic and helpful to the last moment.

A new light began to dawn upon Pratt, and a new emotion rose within him. If anything was to be done in response to this newborn inspiration it must be done quickly. During the hours of the only evening whose shadows fell after the burial, and before the expected separation, Pratt and Huldah were engaged in earnest converse. This brief courtship was concluded by summoning the Thompson family and Mr. and Mrs. Scofield to a midnight conference on the bank of the Big Sandy. The Thompsons finally yielded to the inevitable, and the definite approval of all members of the little party was given to the plans proposed. The morrow was to be a day of unusual activity with the emigrants because of transfers of loads and teams to be made on dividing the train, and hence the night after the burial presented the last opportunity to solve the delicate problem then before the little group which had convened. It must be now and forever or never.

There being no officer of the law and no clergyman in all that broad wilderness who was authorized to perform the marriage rites, Huldah without further ado and in the presence of the witnesses there gathered at midnight on the bank of Big Sandy River consented then and there to become Mrs. Pratt. On the following day the train reached Green River, where Mrs. Pratt bade adieu to her father and mother and proceeded with her husband on a honeymoon trip toward California, with many months of travel still before her, along a route where possibly not even a hut would be seen after passing the new Mormon settlement near Great Salt Lake, at which point it was hoped that supplies would be obtained.

Although other emigrants who continued with the Scofield train failed to reach the Eldorado of the West, Pratt and his wife, Huldah, with their family, made the trip with safety and became a part of the remarkable civilization that characterized the early California settlements.

We also had camped at Big Sandy, a stream varying in volume, but now about three feet in depth and easily forded. A dozen Confederate soldiers, then loyally in the service of the United States Government, were temporarily stationed there, to afford a nominal protection to the few trains then passing that way. In the evening, Ben, who was fresh from his army life, led the veterans to recitals of many of their recent experiences on southern battle-fields. One more day of travel brought us to Green River. The country traversed is a barren clay land, inhospitable, and apparently sterile, presenting hardly a blade of grass to relieve the monotony of the scenery. The young people who had saddle horses, caring little then for scenery, rode leisurely in advance of the train and planned somewhat for the future.