"OREGON TRAIL"

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 54, 7 March 1929, Page 12

"OREGON TRAIL"

A PIONEER PASSES

GREAT, WESTWARD TREK

(From "The Post's" Representative.) VANCOUVER, 12th Dec. Ezra Meeker, one of the last survivors of the first' great westward trek over the "Orcgan Trail to the Pacific Coast in 1852, died at Seattle, at the age of 98. . '

When he was not yet seven years of ago Mocker's parents moved from Ohio to Indiana; the boy walked every step of the way behind his father's wagon. : On the banks of the Wabash lie learned [■to drive four yoke of oxen in the plough. He was married at 21, and, with his capital of 37 dollars, he and his wife, in 1851, commenced to move westward, learning that tho Government would- give him 320racres in Oregon. . ■ ....'■. ; . At the Missouri River they became part of a .great immigrant train, numbering 1600 wagons, comprising 40^000 people, and strung out for 300 miles. Nearly 5000, died of various causes, including cholera, before the journey ended. The force was so large they had little trouble from Indians. On Ist October, 1852, Ezra. Meeker and his bride arrived at Portland, Oregon. There they built a cabin and spent the winter. Then they went north and settled whore Seattle now;] is. ,'■ Meeker made friends, with the Indians,; and remained at his ranch house, only,, eighteen miles from the scene of the, White River, massacre, tending hisl cattle in safety during the whole of., the Indian outbreak of 1855 r 56.*, '■■';.■ . ... '■•'.- . In 1906, at the age of 76, he*'fitted out a prairie schooner and retraced his ste|is over the "Oregon Trail." He travelled to' Washington, visited President Roosevelt, and urged the Government to build a concrete highway along the. route ho followed in his youth. Later, he marked the completed road with monuments to those whose nameless graves marked their .journey's end. Once again, in declining years, he went over the "Oregon Trail," this .time; by.'air.'.- <He is survived by if.'son and three daughters. ' .'■'" .■".'■.'■"'