The Oregon Trail-
How did they get across rivers?

The first thing the Simmons-Bush party had to do was upon reaching the Missouri River was to cross it.  Crossing rivers was one of the greatest challenges an emigrant family would face.  If the river wasn’t very deep, the pioneers could simply wade the oxen across.  But if it was too deep and wide for the oxen to manage, they would have to float their wagons over to the other side.

Pioneers cross the Sweetwater River in Wyoming.  Crossing rivers was a dangerous part of life on the Oregon Trail.  Painting by William Henry Jackson, courtesy of Scott's Bluff National Monument.

Pioneers ferry their wagon across the Columbia River.  Oregon Historical Society, OrHi5229
 

Pioneers could take the wheels off their wagons and use the wagon boxes as boats, or could build rafts to carry their supplies.  They might have to force the oxen and horses to swim across.  At some of the larger rivers, ferry service was available.  Enterprising businessmen would charge families to float their belongings across on boats or rafts. 

Pioneers often had to wait days or even weeks for a chance to use the ferry.  Mary Ann Boatman, who crossed the plains in 1852 and later settled in Puyallup, wrote this about crossing the Missouri River:

"Crossing rivers in those days was far different than what it is today.  It requires a great deal of manual labor to propel one of the ferry boats.  The one that ferried thousands of emigrants across the river at Council Bluff was a scow which was pulled [along] a rope made fast on each side of the river.  A pulley on a short rope was attached to the boat to keep it from going downstream.  Where the water was shallow, they used spike poles, and where it was deep they used oars.  Two wagons were all that could be ferried at one time.  Just think what a slow process, and hundreds of wagons waiting and hundreds coming every day.  Well, we got over the river at last by swimming the cattle.  In that work my brother William came near losing his life by drowning."
(from Surviving the Oregon Trail, 1852, by Weldon Willis Rau.)

Mary Ann Boatman crossed the Oregon Trail in 1852.  Many years later she wrote about her experiences.
Photograph courtesy of Weldon Willis Rau.

Crossing rivers was very dangerous.  Like Mary Ann Boatman’s brother William, many emigrants fell from their wagons and some drowned.  In places where the current was swift and fierce, rafts could smash against rocks.  Where the water was still, men would have to use oars or poles to push the rafts in the right direction, which was backbreaking work. 

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