The Santa Fe Trail was the oldest of several overland highways that linked the easternmost section of the Trans-Mississippi West with the Rocky Mountains and eventually the Pacific coast. It was opened for American traffic in 1821 by William Becknell, and although it was used until the coming of the railroads in the 1880s, its heaviest commercial usage occurred between the middle 1820s and the Civil War.
The Trail extended from the American settlements located in westernmost Missouri to the Mexican town of Santa Fe in present-day New Mexico. Its path traversed some of the wildest, most desolate country in America as it coursed across today’s states of Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, and New Mexico.
The fact that the Santa Fe Trail was primarily a highway of commerce made it reasonable that men frequented it more often than women. Some ladies, however, did make the long trip across the prairie with their families. It was a dusty, hot ordeal, but the women appear to have endured the hardships just as well as the men did.
The first documented Anglo-American woman to travel across the Santa Fe Trail was Mary Dodson Donoho. The twenty-six-year-old daughter of a prominent Tennessee, later Missouri, physician, Mary was accompanied by her husband, William, and the couple’s nine-month-old daughter, Mary Ann.
As the small family tossed about in their wagon on the trek, they took some solace in knowing that nearly one hundred other vehicles—packed full of almost two hundred Missouri traders, supplies for the trip, and thousands of dollars’ worth of trade goods for use at the end of the Trail—were accompanying them across the hot, dry southern Great Plains.
The famed trader Charles Bent, who in 1846 would become the first American governor of New Mexico, was elected captain of the wagon train.
Constant rain delayed the traders’ departure from Council Grove until June 19, 1833. However, after the procession started rolling across the prairie, few additional serious difficulties were encountered.
Just to be safe, though, part of the U.S. 6th Infantry Regiment, under the command of Captain William N. Wickliffe, escorted the goods-laden wagons. On July 11, the day after the caravan crossed the Arkansas River which constituted the boundary between the United States and Mexico, the military unit returned to Fort Leavenworth.
At last, the noisy, lumbering wagons entered the town of Santa Fe, clamored down the narrow street that led to the Plaza, crossed the nearly dry Santa Fe River, and arrived at the Palace of the Governors.
Although the Donohos left no written record of their impressions of the town, another resident, Francisco Perea, described the capital of New Mexico in 1837-1838 as, “full of soldiers, citizens, and a miscellaneous gathering of humanity of all stations of life, the plaza being crowded with all kinds of vehicles, beginning with the cart that was made entirely of wood to the well-constructed wagon that had brought a consignment of merchandise over the Santa Fe Trail; together with teamsters, camp-cooks, roustabouts, horses, mules, burros, pigs, and goats. Some were about their camp-fires preparing their food, while others were feeding and caring for their animals."
History has failed to reveal exactly why William Donoho wanted to leave his relatively affluent life in Missouri and travel the long distance to Santa Fe.
What is even more intriguing is why he carried his wife and infant daughter on the trip unless he fully intended settling there and making the sleepy New Mexican town his permanent home. Otherwise, he, like all the rest of the traders, would simply have disposed of his trade goods in Santa Fe and returned to his home in Boone County, Missouri, for the winter.
It must be assumed then that the Donohos planned on settling in Santa Fe, and their subsequent activities seem to bear this out. The couple went into the hotel business, and within a short time after their arrival in town, they opened a hostelry on the southeast corner of the Plaza on the site of today’s renowned La Fonda.
According to local tradition, a hotel had stood on that very corner since Santa Fe was originally settled. No doubt, with the rapid increase in the number of American traders who journeyed to the town every summer, William and Mary must have decided that the hotel business would be as profitable to pursue as any.
Again, the Donohos left no record of their establishment, but if it was like other hotels of the era in town as described by Francisco Perea, it was: “…of a very primitive kind, where travelers and others could obtain meals and lodging, and also shelter and feed the horses and other animals.
The food was wholly prepared after the Mexican customs, and the favorite dish of chili, prepared in one way or another, was seldom absent from the menu. Native wine was served at the table when desired. The beds were scrupulously clean and in every way inviting for repose.
Fireplaces built into the adobe walls were used for both heating and cooking purposes, there being no stoves of any sort at that time. Rates for the entertainment of transient, as well as local guests, were very reasonable, and the conventional amenities of the hostelers in the entertainment of their guests was without fault.”
The Donohos operated their hotel on the Plaza for nearly four years, when heightened danger accompanying the native revolt against Governor Albino Perez caused concern about the safety of the family. In late August or early September 1837, William, Mary, Mary Ann, and two other children—Harriet and James, born the first Anglo-American girl and boy in New Mexico—made the long trip back to Missouri.
Rescue and Return
During his stay in Santa Fe, William was instrumental in rescuing three women—Sarah Ann Horn, Rachael Plummer, and a Mrs. Harris—from Comanche captivity and supervised the return of all three to Missouri. The journey of the three women over the Santa Fe Trail may have been the second instance of Anglo women traveling the thoroughfare. Mary Donoho assisted her husband in this noble effort, and Mrs. Plummer, in her book recalling the ordeal, later wrote, “I have no language to express my gratitude to Mrs. Donoho. I found in her a mother…a sister…a friend…one who was continually pouring the sweet oil of consolation into my wounded and trembling soul.”
Sarah Ann Horn, a young English woman who had traveled with her family to distant Texas to settle the unexplored land there, was equally complimentary of the Donohos. The couple had retrieved her from certain death following her husband’s murder by Comanches and her own separation from her children. In Horn’s narrative she wrote, “[S]hall I never forget, that when the angry billows of life’s stormy sea, lashed into fury by misfortune’s awful frown, had thrown me a trembling victim upon their coast, the American traders took me up they bound up my wounds—they spake comfortably to me, while their countenance reflected the mild and heavenly beams of the angel of mercy.”
In later years, the Donoho family again pulled up stakes in Missouri and moved to Clarksville, Texas, where they operated the Donoho Hotel, a place that was renowned throughout the region for its hospitality, fine food, and accommodations. William Donoho died in Clarksville in September 1845. Mary survived, a well-respected and affluent member of the Clarksville community until she passed away quietly, “without previous illness,” in January 1880.
In June 1846 the next American woman of whom there is a record left Independence, Missouri, for Santa Fe.
She was Susan Shelby Magoffin, the granddaughter of the first governor of Kentucky, Isaac Shelby. Susan and her husband, Samuel, a well-known trader, arrived in Santa Fe just two weeks after the American army under General Stephen Watts Kearny occupied the town.
Later, Susan left Santa Fe and traveled down into Mexico, visiting along the way the towns of El Paso, Chihuahua, and Saltillo. Her child was born in Mexico but died soon after birth. Susan returned to Kentucky shortly thereafter.
Fortunately, There is a Diary
Fortunately, for future generations of historians, Susan Magoffin left a detailed diary of her day-to-day activities as she traveled along the Santa Fe Trail.
Reading the journal today makes one aware of the multitude of hardships that were experienced by those early travelers across the southern prairie. The Magoffins had barely left Independence, when Susan described a typical camp scene.
She wrote: “[T]he hot sun, or rather the wind which blew pretty roughly, compelled me to seek shelter with my friends, the carriage & a thick veil. The animals made an extensive show indeed. Mules and oxen scattered in all directions. The teamsters were just “catching up,” and the cracking of whips, lowing of cattle, braying of mules, whooping and hallowing of the men, was a novel sight.”
Susan spent her nineteenth birthday at Bent’s Fort, writing, “There is the greatest possible noise in the patio. The shoeing of horses, neighing, and braying of mules, the crying of children, the scolding and fighting of men, are all enough to turn my head. And to add to the scene, like some of our neighbors we have our own private troubles. The servants are all quarreling and fighting among themselves, running to us to settle their difficulties; they are gambling…and though each of them are in debt…they are coming…to get them out of their scrapes.”
After leaving Bent’s Fort, Susan and her party neared Raton Pass, on the border of today’s states of Colorado and New Mexico.
The mountains here were high, and the wagon train had to climb carefully through the rocky precipices that lined the pass.
An exasperated and tired Susan wrote: “Worse and worse the road! They are even taking the mules from the carriages this P.M. and a half dozen men by bodily exertions are pulling them down the hills. And it takes a dozen men to steady a wagon with all its wheels locked—and for one who is some distance off to hear the crash it makes over the stones, is truly alarming. Till I rode ahead and understood the business, I supposed that every wagon had fallen over a precipice. We came to camp about half an hour after dusk, having accomplished the great travel of six or eight hundred yards during the day.”
When the wagon train at last reached Santa Fe, Susan and her husband were happy indeed. She commented, “It is really hard to realize it, that I am here in my own house, in a place to where I once would have thought it folly to think of visiting. I have entered the city in a year that will always be remembered by my countrymen; and under the ‘Star-spangled banner’ too.”
Susan and her husband stayed in Santa Fe for some time before beginning the remainder of their trip that would carry them southward into Mexico and finally back to the United States. Susan was an observant tourist, and her diary is full of descriptions of the sights and the scenes that she experienced during her travels.
One of her favorite spots in Santa Fe was the Plaza, alongside which, several years earlier, Mary and William Donoho had operated their hotel.
Susan later wrote, “The plazo or square is very large—on one side is the government house with a wide portal in front, opposite is a large church commenced by the predecessor of Gov. Armijo, ‘tis not finished—and dwelling houses—the two remaining sides are fronted with stores and dwellings, all with portals, a shed the width of our pavements; it makes a fine walk—and in rainy weather there is no use for an umbrella.”
After Susan Magoffin, several other American women and girls journeyed down the Santa Fe Trail. Two who left records were Marian Mahoney Russell and Ernestine Huning. Seven-year-old Marian, along with her mother and brother, left Westport Landing in 1852, bound for California.
After reaching Santa Fe, the family’s money was stolen, so they dropped plans for going on to the Pacific coast. The Mahoneys moved back East four years later, but in 1860, the threesome returned once again to Santa Fe. In 1865 Marian married Lieutenant Richard Russell at Fort Union on the Santa Fe Trail. Afterwards, when her husband was away on assignment, Marion stayed at Fort Larned, in Kansas, also along the Trail. Mrs. Russell lived until 1936.
Attack on Wagons is Disastrous
German-born Ernestine Huning traveled the Santa Fe Trail in 1863 with her new husband, Franz, who had already established himself in Albuquerque as a successful hardware dealer. Four years later, when Franz was bringing Ernestine’s mother and brother over the Trail to New Mexico from Missouri, his wagon train was attacked by Indians. The outcome was disastrous.
Franz wrote to his wife on September 10, 1867: “Yesterday afternoon we were attacked by Indians and Fritz was badly wounded. The Mother had been quite weak for several days so that the shock and grief of seeing her son in such a critical condition has made her so weak, causing heart trouble, that the doctor does not think she can last through the day. She is conscious only part of the time, and then she tells me what to say to you, and that she must die. Regarding Fritz the doctor tells me one time that he cannot live and then that he may recover. He was wounded in the chest. My opinion is that his condition is hopeless, be prepared for the worst.”
Two days later Franz notified Ernestine that her mother had died. “She told me at the last that she would have liked to see you once more, but as it was not God’s will, she would die content, knowing that you are well cared for," he wrote. The following day, Franz once again wrote to Ernestine, this time informing her of her brother’s death. He lamented, “Knowing that his Mother was dead he said he would die satisfied…. United as they were in life, I had them buried side by side.”
No doubt over the years, many other Anglo-American women and girls, for whom no documentation has yet been discovered, made the long trip between Missouri and Santa Fe along the Trail. It was a long, tortuous, dangerous journey, but in the end, most of these hardy women persevered to bring American culture and lifestyles to the remote villages and towns of New Mexico.
James A. Crutchfield can be reached at TNcrutch@aol.com
