Sager Orphans - On The Oregon Trail

On The Oregon Trail

At the end of April 1844, the Independent Colony, 300 people in 72 covered wagons, crossed the Missouri River and started out on the 2,000-mile (3,200 km) journey along the Oregon Trail. The company was under the command of Captain William Shaw, who himself was traveling with his wife Sally and six children. After five weeks on the trail Naomi gave birth to their seventh child, a baby girl named Henrietta. Due to the delivery, she was weakened and only slowly regained her strength.

On July 4, 1844, the Independent Colony celebrated independence Day on the banks of the Platte River. A couple of days later, while crossing the south fork of the Platte River, Naomi was severely injured as the Sager wagon overturned in the shallow waters along the river bank. But the pioneers pressed on. At the end of July 1844 the wagon train passed Chimney Rock, a famous landmark along the trail in what is now Nebraska. Chimney Rock was the reminder that the Great Plains were almost crossed and the Rocky Mountains lay right ahead.

A few hours before reaching Fort Laramie, 9-year-old Catherine caught her dress on an axe handle when she jumped out of the moving wagon. Her leg got beneath one of the heavy wheels and was broken several times, an event that could have easily been fatal under the medical and sanitary conditions of that situation. But due to the immediate treatment by Henry and Dr. Dagon, a German born doctor, the leg was eventually saved. Catherine however was confined to the wagon for the rest of the journey. From Fort Laramie onward, Dr. Dagon stayed with the Sagers in order to care for her injury. Thus the wagon train moved on and a couple of days later the Independent Colony reached Independence Rock in present day Wyoming, where some of the travelers carved their names into the granite rock.