CROSSING THE PLAINS
IN 1856-THE HELM FAMILY(page four)
page one
page two
page three
By Frances Helm McClure
(Written for my great-grandchildren,
Byron Keever Lighty, Jr. Charles
McClure Lighty and Louis Porter Guth, May 13, 1934)
submitted by Carol Lackey
I was always thankful that the battle ended as it did, for when the
first
Indians were there in our camp before the fight, they would look at my
sister Melinda and me, and then talk to each other and laugh. Both of
us
had pretty auburn hair. I guess the Indians thought they would scalp
us,
if they got us, as they say they liked red hair. And, they surely came
near to getting ours. Would have, if our men hadn't put up such a hard
fight afterwards too, and they all said that if they hadn't killed that
one big Indian, our train might not have been able to hold out long
enough
against them to win.
There were a lot more Indians than we had men in our party, and the
two, who had been guarding us and the wagons, and already been wounded
-- one man was shot in the arm, and the other one in the leg -- and
this
would have soon weakened them. It all came out all right, though, and
the
doctor that next morning said they would get along all right.
After Dr. Matthews had gone back to his party, our train left this
camp, none of us would ever forget, and we started on our way again.
And
that was our last Indian trouble.
There were other anxious times for us, though. And we saw lots of
things
that made us sad. Crossing the Rockies, a woman in another party we had
met, died and had to be buried there where our wayside camp had been
made.
And further on, when we were getting nearer to California, our cousin,
one of the youngest children of our train, the Kesterson's little boy,
was stricken with fever and died. He had been the pet of our train and
it was one of the saddest moments of our whole journey, when he was
buried
there on the prairie, his little grave marked only by an oak sapling
and
rocks heaped on the mound to protect it from burrowing wild animals.
We did not drive our wagons across the grave, as I have heard many
of the trains did to keep the place a secret from the Indians. And, the
way the Indians buried their dead, I might add, wasn't burying at all,
for they placed the body upon a high scaffold made of saplings and left
it there, exposed to the sun and weather. We saw several of these along
our way. I was always glad when we finally got out of sight of them.
My sister Louisa helped to take care of the little Kesterson boy during
his long illness. In this way, she contracted the fever herself. And
six
weeks after we got to Stockton -- on October 5, 1856 -- she passed
away.
Before California was reached, though, we came through Nevada. I
remember
the morning we came thorough Carson City. It had rained on us the night
before. Carson City was a very pretty place. In Nevada, we traveled
along
the Humboldt River -- I don't remember how many days. We had to travel
so slow and it took us so long on the way. I was too young to remember
all the camps we made or places we passed. I do remember the Platte
River,
and of passing Fort Bridger; and that it was some place below Salt Lake
that my mother's sister, Aunt Mary Killian and her husband, left us to
go to Salt Lake City to join the Mormons. It was years before this, in
Missouri, that my father had taken a part in helping to drive the
Mormons
out of the State and I guess it was back there that my mother's sister
had been halfway converted to that religion.
Mother never saw her sister again; some years later some of our
kinfolks
visited the Killians in Salt Lake City, so they reached their journey's
end safely, the same as we did.
There is one camp, too, in Nevada, that I have never forgotten. We
reached the place one evening, after dark. We drove our wagons out to
one
side of the trail and made our camp. It wasn't until the next morning
that
we found out we had camped on some graves. It gave us all a terrible
feeling.
But we had not disturbed the mounds very badly. I remember that we were
in a clump of pine trees, the first pines we had seen.
Besides Aunt Mary Killian and her husband, there were other separations
of our party. My sister-in-law's brother had left us, even farther
back,
to stay in Montana. And, after we crossed the mountains into
California,
the Hopper family left to go to the Russian River district, where some
relatives of Uncle Charlie Hopper were already living and settled
there.
Mother and father visited them in later years, while Aunt Nancy Hopper
was still alive. And the Fosters, Kestersons and Binghams went to
Sonoma.
My father, though, headed directly for Stockton, for by this time my
sister Louisa was so terribly sick, he wanted to get her to where there
was a doctor as soon as possible. I remember watching the wagons of the
others driving off and leaving us to take another direction. But while
we all felt sad at parting from our kin and our friends. I can see now
that our anxiety over my sister kept us from feeling the separation as
deeply as we would have otherwise. It was also the things connected
with
her illness and death which always remained clearest in my memory of
our
arrival at Stockton and our stay there. While it was heartbreaking to
give
her up -- for she was a young lady, and we all loved her so much,-- it
did not seem so bad as it would have been had she died on the lonely
plains,
like that poor woman, or the little Kesterson boy. We could always
remember
her as being buried in a nice place, in the Stockton cemetery.
When she was gone, we again moved on -- the last lap of our journey
-- going from Stockton to Merced County.
On these final three days of our long, tedious journey, we crossed
a number of creeks that had no bridges over them, as they do now. One
night,
we stayed with a friend of my father's at the Merced River. They
treated
us so nice, and the next morning, the woman fixed up a big lunch for us
to take along with us that day, so that we did not have to stop and
cook.
On the third day, we reached Mariposa Creek, where my brother Henry was
living and near where the Savannah schoolhouse is now.
Here my father rented the Fitzhugh house for us to live in, until
he bought a place from a man named Vance. From the Vance place -- upon
which my father built a house, which is still standing, although it has
been moved to a different location near there -- my father and mother
moved
to White Rock, Mariposa County, and settled on what is now called the
"Jim
Helm Ranch." And it was here, in 1876, that my father passed away and
where
my mother also died, almost 10 years later in 1886.
They were always such a happy and devoted couple. I do not ever
remember
hearing them quarrel. And both of them were always so good and
thoughtful
with us children. And, looking back I know it was their love and
kindness
and forethought for us children that made the long trip across the
plains
one of so little hardship, actually, even in the midst of almost hourly
dangers. You children can always feel proud that they are your
great-great-grandparents.
by Frances Helm McClure
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