by Susan Couso
In the mid to late nineteenth century, hundreds of thousands of people made the perilous trip from the eastern United States to the west. The reasons varied, but all of them had hopes for a better future. In 2010, for the first time, native-born Californians outnumbered those who had come from somewhere else.
This was a migration rife with uncertainty, danger, and dreams. Most of these people came across the plains in wagon ‘trains’, the cheapest way to bring whole families and their belongings.
It took many months of preparation. Property had to be sold, necessities purchased, and some even prepared shrouds for each family member, in the case that they died on the trail.
It was an emotional time too. Those leaving the east would say goodbye to family and friends, knowing that they would most probably never see them again.
The most common gathering place was in Missouri, where the wagons would travel early and wait for the most promising time to leave for the west. There was a lot to consider. If they left too early, they would face swollen rivers and deep snow in the mountains. If they left too late, the grass would be eaten by livestock with earlier wagon companies, and their livestock would starve.
Disease was common as large groups gathered to wait. In Missouri, many people died from Cholera before they ever had time to leave for the west, and Cholera was a common disease throughout their trek.
Early in 1857, the Allen family took this big step to a new future in the west. The patriarch of the family, William Allen, was a wanderer, and had moved from North Carolina to Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois, before settling in Missouri. But the west was calling.
Allen had a large family. He had three children with his first wife, Eleanor, before she died. He then married Eleanor ‘Nellie’ Harris and had 14 more children. As they left Missouri on the trail to Oregon, Nellie was pregnant with their last child.
William and Nellie’s oldest child was Joel Robert Allen, and as they left Missouri, Joel, his wife Nancy Ann, and their two young children, Eleanor Miriam and Cortes ‘Cort’, joined the company.
Along with Joel, nine other Allen offspring came west, including William C., their second son, and his wife, Elener ‘Ellen’ and their baby, Joel ‘Jay’ Allen.
Nancy Ann Allen and Ellen Allen were sisters, and their brother, James Ready was on the train too. They were the children of Robert and Miriam Ready.
All-in-all the wagon company, led by Jesse Martin, one of William Allen’s brothers-in-law, had 12 ox-drawn wagons, about four hundred head of cattle, numerous horses and 42 people who were somehow related to each other.
The train suffered disaster from the beginning. On May 25th, soon after departing Missouri, Martha Ann Parman died from what was described as a ‘fever’. Her husband, Henry, was left with five young children to raise.
Then, on June 22, 1857, on the plains of Nebraska, William and Nellie Allen’s youngest child, James Adams Allen was born. Fortunately, he was a strong healthy boy who lived a long life.
On September 5th, nearing the end of their journey, William C. Allen died, leaving Ellen and three-year-old baby Joel alone. William reportedly died of Rocky Mountain Spotted fever.
On September 27th, as the train crossed through Bridge Creek in what was to become Lassen County, the fever struck again, and twenty-five-year-old Nancy Ann Allen died.
Nancy Allen was buried in the meadow near Bridge Creek, and her grave was marked with a stone onto which her name and dates were carefully etched. The distraught wagon company then moved on toward Shasta City (Redding) and arrived on October 12, 1857.
The families soon separated and left to establish homes in their new promised land. Most went to Oregon, but some settled in Washington.
Henry Parman, with his five motherless children, and Ellen Allen, with baby, Joel, married in 1858, and settled in Eagleville, Modoc County. They had twelve more children together.
Joel Robert Allen never married after Nancy Ann died, and settled in Deschutes, Oregon with his children, Eleanor Miriam and Cortes.
After Nancy Ann’s death, emigrants traveling along the Nobles Trail would often see her grave marker.
In 1924, the Women’s Study Group, from Westwood did some restoration work and fenced the small grave, and in recent years the Oregon-California Trails Association has done a wonderful job of making Nancy Ann Allen’s grave a beautiful place to remember just what thousands of people went through to find a new life out west.
