The Niles National Register was founded at Baltimore, MD., in 1811. The paper focused on national and international news.

The March 6, 1847, edition of the National Register carried a letter from Independence, Mo., recounting the experience of a Mr. Seymour having crossed the plains in an unusually severe winter on the plains. The letter, dated Feb. 10, 1847, explained that Seymour and four others had arrived in Independence that very day along with “a government express,” mail carried by Thomas Boggs and his two assistants.

Louise Barry in her extensively documented The Beginning of the West wrote that Seymour and his companions had arrived looking “more like icicles of the north pole than human beings.”

In another letter to the National Register several weather-related deaths were reported. A Captain Murphy going west on the Santa Fe Trail found and buried two bodies at Diamond Springs, 15 miles southwest of Council Grove. Two more were found east of Council Grove at the foot of a tree. Starvation had forced the poor souls to eat the bark of the tree stripped from “all around the trunk.” Another two men were luckily found by members of the Kansas tribe. They were described as “half starved and frozen” before they were rescued.

Seymour and party left Santa Fe the previous Dec. 15. By Christmas Day heavy snowfall hindered their travel, forcing them to abandon the wagon carrying their supplies. The animals were made to “do the service of pack animals.” At the crossing of the Arkansas River, the snow was one to two feet deep. Near Chouteau’s Island (southwest of Lakin, Kan., near the defunct town of Hartland) they met a wagon train “or two” of government wagons transporting supplies for the War with Mexico. The wagons were corralled and the men in great distress. Eighty men were near starvation living on short rations. Another corral of 150 men was encountered a little further on with only seven days of half rations remaining. A good many of the men were frozen and unable to travel.

Captain Clary was reportedly sending assistance from Fort Leavenworth, but many were not expected to survive their ordeal.

In those days, a significant growth of timber lined the Arkansas River. Using the protection of that timber growth, the Seymour-Boggs company moved readily along without freezing. Louise Barry picked up the story from Thomas Boggs personal memoir. A blizzard struck them while they were in camp the night of Jan. 8 on Coon Creek near present-day Garfield, Kan. When the storm subsided, several mules were dead, and the rest had disappeared. Having no alternative other than to starve and freeze to death, the men continued eastward on foot. “For two weeks they struggled against the elements until “half frozen and nearly starved,” they stumbled into an Osage camp.

After they had rested sufficiently the Osage supplied the travelers with ponies that they might safely reach Fort Leavenworth. Two of the Osage boys serve as guides, taking them to the Kansas River. Following the river downstream to a Kaw (Kansas) village and across country they eventually arrived at Fort Leavenworth on the 9th of February. Seymour and party continued on to reach Independence, Mo., the next day.

In the next few weeks, others arrived with similar stories of hardship and suffering on the plains.

Mr. B. F. Coons, described as a “young gentleman from St. Louis,” struggled through deep snow for 200 miles with three companions. They also met the stranded teamsters near Chouteau’s Island. Coons reported the teamsters were in a “very destitute condition,” having survived at that time for 10 days on the meat of one mule. Two hundred miles further across the frozen plain was too much for Coons’ mules. They “gave out” somewhere near present-day Lyons, Kan., forcing the Coons party to walk the last 200 miles to the Missouri border.

Lt. James Albert, U.S. Topographical Engineers arrived at Fort Leavenworth with a Mr. Smith. The two had left a slower moving caravan made up of several divergent parties that had “found” one another in the treacherous conditions. Mules had frozen to death. One man had succumbed. After a 36-hour storm near present-day McPherson, Kan., some of the men were buried under snow while sleeping. The men were saved by digging into the wind-blown snow to a depth of five feet. Eight mules were killed by the storm.

Thomas Caldwell was forced to leave his company of 12 men and several wagons stalled by deep snow in the vicinity of present-day Garden City, Kan. Upon his arrival at Independence, Kan., Caldwell reported that snow had fallen on the plains “almost uninterruptedly” from Feb. 16 to March 10. A passenger on the riverboat Amelia reported on April 9 that Caldwell’s wagons had finally reached Missouri. For all involved there was little doubt that the winter of 1847 was one of unmatched misery on The Way West.

“The Cowboy,” Jim Gray is author of the book Desperate Seed: Ellsworth Kansas on the Violent Frontier, Ellsworth, KS. Contact Kansas Cowboy, 220 21st RD Geneseo, KS. Phone (785) 531-2058 or kansascowboy@kans.com.