Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 83, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 June 1908 — Adventures on Way to Oregon. [ARTICLE]

Advent ures on Way to Oregon.

Medford, Oregon, June 15, 1908. Dear Republican: As you see we are at Medford, but we had some thrilling experiences in getting here of which I will give you a brief account. “We” includes Mrs. Fred Browne (nee Carrie Marshall) her little girl Elizabeth, and myself. We left St. Paul via the N„ P. rou*e June Ist and were ten days on the way when we should have been four at the most. Our troubles began at Billings, Mont., where we were held a day and then transferred to the Great Northern line because of the washouts on the N. P. We went forward very slowly because of the soft track. At one point the section hands were busy removing the debris of a small land-slide. They stood aside to let us pass, holding back the descending mud and gravel from the engine wheels with their shovels. At another place the track clung to the sheer mountain side, and as we passed over, the saturated soil shook and trembled and not twenty minutes after the whole bank fell away, carrying track and all down a hundred feet or more to the raging torrent below. I have the trainmen's word for it that they fully expected the rear coaches to topple over at any moment. They had not realized how soft the track was until upon it and as it was equally dangerous to back up or proceed they risked going oil Finally we reached Uyack, Mont., a section house and telegraph station in the midst of the Rockies. Here we were completely stalled, for a gigantic washout ahead had destroyed six miles of track. Now we were certainly caught In a trap with a landslide blocking our retreat and a washout checking our progress. We made the best of things as well as we could, though there was danger of a scarcity of food. Of course-lhe-ice soon gave out but we did not suffer discomfort from that quarter for we found an ice cold mountain spring which gave us delicious drinking water. The coal for the engine soon gave out but there was plenty of wood to be used instead. It had to be kept going for heat used in the diner and to heat the cars for it was chilly up there in the mountains. We were held here from Friday until Sunday noon. By that time it had ceased raining and the water was going down. Then those who could and chose began their long walk over the washout portion to the safe track heyond. My sister and I took turns in carrying her little girl, and a part of our baggage. The men in the party were most obliging and helpful and gave us all the assistance they could, though loaded down with their own suit cases. In fact we would never have been able to make the trip had they not helped us over the hardest places. For instance the only way of getting over tumbling mountain streams was to cross a fallen log.

The path was rough and rocky at the best and it was a weary, footsore, party (some three hundred and more) who made the long walk, that day. The scenery along our route was wild and beautiful, mountains, forest clad to their summits, with clouds hovering about their tops, while heie and there higher peaks reared their snowy crests in the distaaee, end the boiling, seething, raging Flathead Creek roared along our course, carrying great trees down stream at a tremendous rate of speed just as so much kindling wood. But we had little time to enjoy the beauty of the gcenery for we had need to keep our eyes on the treacherous pathway. All along the route the road bed. or the track, or both, were washed into the yellow flood of the river. On our car was a woman dying cf cancer, hoping to live only to reach home and see her children once more before she died. Of course every hour of delay was torture to her. When we decided to walk she wp.b all anxiety to be taken too. The trainmen made her a stretcher and eight of them in relays carried her all that weary way. What were their blistered hands, tired arms, and aching backs to her gratitude when they put her down a Belton, and the long train from the west pulled in to carry us on once more. There was a string of eleven race horses expressed to Seattle, and no way of getting them down the mountain for the rough way would have cut their tender feet to pieces. Their hay had given out but a few sacks of oats remained and their keepers were planning to get supplies up by pack horses, the only possible way to reach Nyack now that the railroad was gone Many other interesting things I might tell but I have already made this rather long. We are thankful to be here tlive in this garden spot of Oregon. Sincerely, FRANCES MARSHALL.