# Wouldn't you prefer to travel the Oregon Trail light instead of w/ wagons & oxen? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 24, 2013, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-you-prefer-to-travel-the-oregon-trail-light-instead-of-w-wagons-oxen/656595 "2013-04-24T15:42:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Furious\_Marmot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dfb087/32.png) [@Furious\_Marmot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Furious_Marmot)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2013, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-you-prefer-to-travel-the-oregon-trail-light-instead-of-w-wagons-oxen/656595/41 "2013-04-25T13:25:47Z")
True that. A rancher friend once looked into replacing his Angus cattle with bison. He decided against it after discovering they require what he called “Jurassic Park” fencing, just to keep them from walking away. Attempting to hitch up a plow would only be a good idea if you want a quick, but painful way to become an OSHA statistic. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2013, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-you-prefer-to-travel-the-oregon-trail-light-instead-of-w-wagons-oxen/656595/42 "2013-04-25T14:08:47Z")
I recently read a couple of books about the transnational railroad, and they observed that before the RR, the W coast was vastly more isolated from the E coast than the E coast was from Europe. The time, costs, and dangers of alternative routes were huge. Pretty obvious if you think about it, and suggested by many of the answers above, but seeing it stated so bluntly made an impression on me. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2013, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-you-prefer-to-travel-the-oregon-trail-light-instead-of-w-wagons-oxen/656595/43 "2013-04-25T14:16:56Z")
> [@Mdcastle](#): > > Did anyone ever come back from Oregon on the trail, to visit grandma or because they decided they liked that factory job out east better than farming? Yes, absolutely, for both reasons. Not so much in the earliest days, but by the 1850’s there was steady traffic in both directions. Every great migration has a counter-current–the pioneers who went back east, the immigrants who gave up and returned to Europe, the black people who returned to the South. We seldom hear their stories. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2013, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-you-prefer-to-travel-the-oregon-trail-light-instead-of-w-wagons-oxen/656595/44 "2013-04-25T14:18:23Z")
A bit off topic, but does anybody know what the advantage of oxen was over mules as draft animals and vice versa? Mules were much more expensive and the better pack animal, but I’ve wondered why some preferred them to pull their wagons when oxen are so much easier to handle. (Though I don’t think they became popular on the western pioneer trails until after the Gold Rush.) Regarding coming back from Oregon, when Abraham Lincoln was offered the governorship of the Oregon Territory in the 1840s the reason he turned it down was he wasn’t sure his family could survive the trip, the only thing being less appealing than the notion of a wagon journey being that of a sea voyage AND the knowledge that either way you chose you’d have to do it twice (because he was positive Mrs. Lincoln was not going to want to stay in Oregon, especially when she was no longer Madame Governor). [QUOTE=Erdosain] Give me an ox and dysentery. [/QUOTE] No idea why, but I’m imagining that in Latin and on a flag as the worst motto ever. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2013, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-you-prefer-to-travel-the-oregon-trail-light-instead-of-w-wagons-oxen/656595/45 "2013-04-25T19:21:57Z")
The closest I can come by fooling with Google is: Tribuo mihi an bovis quoque morbus Morbus is general sickness, and wasn’t what the translator came up with. The translator just left dysentery untranslated. And it kept giving it to the ox, which I didn’t think was fair. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2013, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-you-prefer-to-travel-the-oregon-trail-light-instead-of-w-wagons-oxen/656595/46 "2013-04-25T19:50:24Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > A bit off topic, but does anybody know what the advantage of oxen was over mules as draft animals and vice versa? Mules were much more expensive and the better pack animal, but I’ve wondered why some preferred them to pull their wagons when oxen are so much easier to handle. (Though I don’t think they became popular on the western pioneer trails until after the Gold Rush.) Mules can’t breed, it requires a male donkey and a female horse to make a mule. They are sterile hybrids. So if you end up out West with your new homestead and 8 mules what the hell are you going to do with them? How will they be replaced as they die? With oxen you can get more ox. And a team of oxen has more pulling power. It was more culturally acceptable to eat an oxen than a mule. And then there is the temperament. The expression, “stubborn as a mule” is a reality. Oxen take much better to human control and domestication than mules. They are big, strong and fairly docile/stupid animals. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2013, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-you-prefer-to-travel-the-oregon-trail-light-instead-of-w-wagons-oxen/656595/47 "2013-04-25T20:03:08Z")
> [@Dallas\_Jones](#): > > Mules can’t breed, it requires a male donkey and a female horse to make a mule. They are sterile hybrids. So if you end up out West with your new homestead and 8 mules what the hell are you going to do with them? How will they be replaced as they die? With oxen you can get more ox. Well, oxen are usually sterile (they’re most often castrated bulls), but, good point on being far easier to replace. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2013, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-you-prefer-to-travel-the-oregon-trail-light-instead-of-w-wagons-oxen/656595/48 "2013-04-25T23:03:28Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Mules were much more expensive and the better pack animal, but I’ve wondered why some preferred them to pull their wagons when oxen are so much easier to handle. Speed, plus mules were much easier to shoe. Of course there were also many disadvantages (especially disposition), which is why most people chose oxen. ---
**Author:** ![Erdosain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/erdosain/32/7284_2.png) [@Erdosain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erdosain)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2013, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-you-prefer-to-travel-the-oregon-trail-light-instead-of-w-wagons-oxen/656595/49 "2013-04-25T23:36:41Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > The closest I can come by fooling with Google is: > > Tribuo mihi an bovis quoque morbus > > Morbus is general sickness, and wasn’t what the translator came up with. The translator just left dysentery untranslated. And it kept giving it to the ox, which I didn’t think was fair. We can simplify it: Bovis et diarrhoea. Along with the screen grab of “You have died of dysentery.” I’d salute it! ---
**Author:** ![drastic\_quench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e36b37/32.png) [@drastic\_quench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drastic_quench)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-you-prefer-to-travel-the-oregon-trail-light-instead-of-w-wagons-oxen/656595/50 "2013-04-26T00:57:42Z")
> [@Erdosain](#): > > We can simplify it: > > Bovis et diarrhoea. > > Along with the screen grab of “You have died of dysentery.” I’d salute it! Don’t know about no cows, but I reckon hogs et shit. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-you-prefer-to-travel-the-oregon-trail-light-instead-of-w-wagons-oxen/656595/51 "2013-04-26T01:06:09Z")
> [@The Great Sun Jester](#): > > This is what I was thinking as well. If you’re gonna farm, you need your tractors unless you want to try your luck capturing and taming young bison (which still might not work, otherwise why didn’t the Indians already harness them?). > > But otherwise I can totally see the OP’s point. Best bet IMHO would be to get 4 or 5 families together, leave the household goods and the old and very young folks behind, at least initially, hook up a gobload of oxen per wagon and move out. At about the halfway mark you send a group of dudes on horseback with shovels & axes to scout out and prepare a landing zone of dugout houses & corrals on one of the homesteads. Develop that homestead first and then once settled, maybe the following year, develop the others. Bascially, exploit economy of scale to some extent to improve the odds of survival for that first year or two and then let everyone get all independant. Sending out 10 or so families in a train, all with the intent of setting up 10 independant farms simultaneously, strikes me as crazy bad planning. That is roughly how the Genesee Valley was settled in NY - the brothers and a female slave [!] came to where the Town of Geneseeo more or less is and built the first cabin, felled an assload of trees and broke dirt to start farming. Without looking it up, I think it was around 5 years before they started building more structures and bringing their families over from Connecticut. _If_ you are not contending with some 3000 miles and 8 to 9 months of travel, and the cost of leaving the majority of your family back east, it would seem to make sense. Part of the problem with the trip is the need to camp for 1 day in 3 of travel to allow the animals to graze and rest. [Yes, you can kill horses by traveling constantly - there was a pseudodocumentary about 10 or so years ago where a bunch ‘recreated’ a pilgrimmage to Jerusalem from Holland, and they ended up killing off a fair number of the original horses, having to stop and trade out horses for fresh mounts and on the whole I want to whack them all with bricks for animal abuse.] If you are going to travel in a wagon train, you really can not forage along the way for food and yo do need the wagons to carry bulk supplies. [Especially bulky stuff like grains, potatoes and so forth] so you actually _have_ a crop at the other end. You need to bring plowshares to turn the soil, harness and tools as well. If you are going to be a ‘mountain man’ I suppose you could get off with a selection of hand tools [axe, adze, maul, saw, hammer] a few kegs of nails, gunpowder and shot, some cooking equipment [teakettle, dutch oven, knives, spoons, meatfork, some plates cups and bowls] and a couple pack animals of foods that would be difficult to get [coffee, tea, sugar, salt, spices, dried beans, dried fruit] but you would still be looking at a fair number of animals, so you would need people to manage the packhorses, which would mean more remounts, more supplies … and so forth. ---
**Author:** ![appleciders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-you-prefer-to-travel-the-oregon-trail-light-instead-of-w-wagons-oxen/656595/52 "2013-04-26T03:34:15Z")
With respect to the OP: yes, a few people did it that way. In particular, the trappers, traders, and explorers who served as guides to the wagon trains traveled very light on their way back. As you note skills weigh nothing, and that’s what these men were trading- their skills and knowledge of the West. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-you-prefer-to-travel-the-oregon-trail-light-instead-of-w-wagons-oxen/656595/53 "2013-04-26T08:15:07Z")
> [@drastic\_quench](#): > > If you travel on horseback with a small string of horses or ponies, you’re faster, and you don’t have to take nearly as much food, and you can distribute the loads amongst your string. Are you under the impression horses (especially hard-worked horses) live off grass that they eat while they’re walking? Either you’re stopping often to let them eat, or you’re carrying their feed with you - and for a working horse, that’s 12kg of feed a day. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-you-prefer-to-travel-the-oregon-trail-light-instead-of-w-wagons-oxen/656595/54 "2013-04-26T08:37:07Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > The closest I can come by fooling with Google is: > > Tribuo mihi an bovis quoque morbus > > Morbus is general sickness, and wasn’t what the translator came up with. The translator just left dysentery untranslated. And it kept giving it to the ox, which I didn’t think was fair. The grammar in that sentence is horrid. Taking “morbus” for “dysentery” we’re a lot closer with: _Dona mihi bovem morbumque!_ (_Da_ for _Dona_ works also.) ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-you-prefer-to-travel-the-oregon-trail-light-instead-of-w-wagons-oxen/656595/55 "2013-04-26T08:40:36Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > I recently read a couple of books about the transnational railroad, and they observed that before the RR, the W coast was vastly more isolated from the E coast than the E coast was from Europe. The time, costs, and dangers of alternative routes were huge. > > Pretty obvious if you think about it, and suggested by many of the answers above, but seeing it stated so bluntly made an impression on me. You can see it in graphic form [here](http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/transportation/stories/how-fast-could-you-travel-across-the-us-in-the-1800s): isochronic maps showing journey time from New York across the US: The 1800 map doesn’t even show the West. 5 wks takes you to about the Mississippi, and after that it’s very much “here be dragons”. By 1857 it would still take longer than a month to get to Oregon - while a steamship could get from Liverpool to New York in a fortnight. Question - if you look at the 1857 map, there’s a 2-week contour around eastern Tennessee/northern Georgia. What key fact of US geography am I missing which explains this? ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-you-prefer-to-travel-the-oregon-trail-light-instead-of-w-wagons-oxen/656595/56 "2013-04-26T13:47:10Z")
> [@Stanislaus](#): > > Question - if you look at the 1857 map, there’s a 2-week contour around eastern Tennessee/northern Georgia. What key fact of US geography am I missing which explains this? You mean the 1830 map. It’s hill and mountain country down there–no navigable rivers, and bad roads. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-you-prefer-to-travel-the-oregon-trail-light-instead-of-w-wagons-oxen/656595/57 "2013-04-26T16:06:14Z")
A side story, if you can stand it: We researched the original owner of our 1904 bungalow here in Portland. Turns out her ancestor came across on the Oregon Trail, not once but twice. The first time was as a single young man with his family. They settled first in Washington, then moved south to a place called Sauvie Island as farmers. There were few single women in these parts in those days, so the young man decided to head back home and find him a woman to marry. Upon arrival there, he discovered that all the wimmins he knew were already married, so he decided to head back to Oregon in defeat. As he was getting himself provisioned, he met a man who was moving his whole family out this way, so he attached himself to their party. Turns out, the man had some five or six daughters traveling with him, and the inevitable happened. ---
**Author:** ![Erdosain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/erdosain/32/7284_2.png) [@Erdosain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erdosain)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-you-prefer-to-travel-the-oregon-trail-light-instead-of-w-wagons-oxen/656595/58 "2013-04-26T17:53:26Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > Turns out, the man had some five or six daughters traveling with him, and the inevitable happened. So, you’re saying he stopped in Utah? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![StGermain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stgermain/32/2868_2.png) [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-you-prefer-to-travel-the-oregon-trail-light-instead-of-w-wagons-oxen/656595/59 "2013-04-26T20:27:55Z")
> [@Stanislaus](#): > > You can see it in graphic form [here](http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/transportation/stories/how-fast-could-you-travel-across-the-us-in-the-1800s): isochronic maps showing journey time from New York across the US: > > The 1800 map doesn’t even show the West. 5 wks takes you to about the Mississippi, and after that it’s very much “here be dragons”. > By 1857 it would still take longer than a month to get to Oregon - while a steamship could get from Liverpool to New York in a fortnight. > Question - if you look at the 1857 map, there’s a 2-week contour around eastern Tennessee/northern Georgia. What key fact of US geography am I missing which explains this? [Appalachians.](http://www.kidsmaps.com/geography/United+States/Topographical/Topographic+Map+of+the+United+States) No roads and lots of wooded mountains. StG ---
**Author:** ![StGermain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stgermain/32/2868_2.png) [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-you-prefer-to-travel-the-oregon-trail-light-instead-of-w-wagons-oxen/656595/60 "2013-04-26T20:34:52Z")
From Woot! - [A wormhole in Oregon](http://shirt.woot.com/offers/a-wormhole-in-oregon) StG [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wouldnt-you-prefer-to-travel-the-oregon-trail-light-instead-of-w-wagons-oxen/656595.md?page=2)