Settler Diaries - Catherine Sager Pringle

I chose to look at the dairy of Catherine Sager Pringle as I found her story interesting. Her journey with her family from Ohio to Missouri took place in 1838. Catherine came from what would now be considered to be a very large family of five girls two boys and a young infant that was due to be born during the journey. Despite her mothers pregnancy her parents still decided that moving west to Missouri would be the best thing for the entire family. After spending several months in Missouri a Captain Shaw journey their company and after her mothers health began to falter, both the captain and her father decided that journeying further west to Oregon would help restore their mother back to health due the captain advising them that the weather in Oregon would be better for everyone not just their mother.

In late 1843 her father sold their property and the journey began as they started to cross the plains towards Oregon. At the beginning of their journey a ceremony was held as a sort of goodbye, organised by their various neighbours at the Missouri River. The entire family travelled in a waggon with the exception of her father who steered their cattle on horseback during the journey and some of the children who played along the way. Catherine describes one incident in which her and her siblings were playing a game were they jumped out of the waggon over the wheel, and in one instance her dress got snagged in the wheel which proceeded to go over her leg, this accident left her crippled and from the on she travelled in the waggon with her pregnant mother. Several other accidents occurred during their journey including the loss of a substantial amount of cattle and the unfortunate deaths of both her mother and father due to illness. Catherine's description of the loss of her parents is very matter of fact and doesn't show really that much emotion, which leads me to assume that death was was a very common threat amongst settlers and considered to just be a consequence of the move towards the west.

After the death of her parents the guardianship for Catherine and her siblings fell solely on Captain Shaw who after several months of travelling decided to continue the journey as planned and arrived in Oregon, where they were adopted by a Dr Whitman and his wife who were residents of Umatilla. Many of the other settler diaries offer a brief account of their journey however, Catherine's account was very detailed that had to be divided into several different chapters. I also found the fact that instead of their story finishing with the whole  family arriving in Oregon as originally planned. The Pringle siblings found themselves in Preston but without hour their parents. Lastly, albeit the most surprising element of her story was the amount of danger involved, although I am aware that travelling across the entire continent in the 1800s mainly on horse back or inside a waggon would not have been comfortable and the journey would have definitely been rife with various moments in which some ones life would be in danger, I only ever considered illness being a primary source for this. However, there were numerous times I which Catherine's life and the lives of her siblings where in serious danger.