Samuel Magoffin was an experienced trader who used the Santa Fe trail when he set off in June of 1846 with fourteen big wagons, each one pulled by six yoke of oxen. His young wife, on the other hand, had no clue what was in store for her on the trail.
Susan Shelby was the granddaughter of Isaac Shelby, who had been the first governor of Kentucky, where she grew up. The home where she grew up had many servants, and she had been formally educated before she married Samuel Magoffin in 1845. At the time he was 45 and she was just 18.
Six months after their wedding they loaded trade wagons and set off from Independence, Missouri, to follow the Santa Fe Trail to New Mexico. The route was one her husband had frequently taken in his trading operations.
In addition to the 14 big trade wagons, they also had a baggage wagon, a light Dearborn wagon pulled by mules that carried her maid, Jane, and another wagon in which Susan herself rode. The fact that she had a personal maid traveling with her is one indication that she was married to a successful Santa Fe trader.
But she also had a tent that was lavishly furnished for the time and the place. She had a bed and mattress, chairs, and a table that was attached to the large center pole. The floor was a piece of carpet made from sail duck.
The journal Susan kept during her trip was later published as Down the Santa Fe Trail and Into Mexico: The Diary of Susan Shelby Magoffin, 1846-1847.
Take A Break, Write A Description
As the journey began, Susan wrote in her journal whenever the carriage stopped for a break, remarking on the treeless prairie that stretched ahead of their wagon caravan. The quiet stillness of the first Sunday morning on the trail contrasted with the earlier days when teamsters cursed oxen not yet accustomed to pulling wagons.
Susan wrote of prairie flowers, wild roses, and a party of U.S. Army Dragoons who overtook their caravan. The soldiers were headed to Santa Fe as tensions escalated between the United States and Mexico in the lead up to what became the Mexican – American War.
Susan truly enjoyed traveling, and writing about her experiences in great detail, so much so that her journal is a primary document for anyone writing about the Santa Fe Trail today. “I have books, writing implements, sewing, knitting, somebody to talk with, a house that does not link and I am satisfied,” she penned while in camp on one particularly rainy day.
She feared snakes and grasshoppers – which she described as the “green bug” an “aligator in miniature” – saying she held her dress up out of the grass to avoid the bug.
She wrote of the incessant whine of mosquitoes, prairie dogs, and migrating herds of buffalo. They reached Pawnee Rock, the half-way point on the trail located just west of present Great Bend, Kansas, on the Fourth of July. Susan wrote that day she “cut my name, among the many hundreds inscribed on the rock.”
The Carriage Whirls Over
But that wasn’t the only momentous event of the day because when they reached Ash Creek, their carriage approached the steep bank and before Susan could climb from the vehicle, as she often did when there was a particularly steep place in the trail, the carriage was “whirled completely over.”
The carriage had extensive damage. Susan suffered from injuries to her side and back. Samuel, who was riding in the wagon with her, injured his arm and hip.
The wagons soon halted, not because of the accident, but on order of the government. The tension with Mexico was escalating and the traders were not allowed to continue traveling until additional troops joined them, even though by then the caravan had seventy to eighty wagons.
Susan thought it probable they would remain in camp near Pawnee Fork for ten days, waiting for additional troops but just five days later they received word they could continue their journey west to Bent’s Fort, on the Arkansas River.
It took almost two weeks to travel across western Kansas, following the Arkansas River to the fort Charles Bent and Ceran St. Vrain had built in the early 1830s to serve as a trading site along the Santa Fe Trail.
By the 18th of July, Susan was quite ill, and Magoffin sent a man ahead of them, to find a doctor he knew traveled with a wagon party that had earlier passed the Magoffins.
This doctor, whom Susan characterized as a “polite, delicate Frenchman” had sandy hair and whiskers. When overtaken by Magoffin’s man, the doctor, actually a Belgian, was convinced to wait for the Magoffin wagons to catch up and then he joined their party to care for the ill woman.
Ship-wreck On Land
Susan referred to an intense thunderstorm that struck on July 21 as one that caused a “ship-wreck on land” because the violent winds and heavy rain drenched their camp. The high wind collapsed the tent on top of Susan and her husband – with the center tent pole striking her as it fell.
After the tent collapsed, she found refuge in the carriage. Some of the Mexicans traveling with them pulled the carriage near the baggage wagon and tied the wheels together so the light vehicle would not overturn in the violent winds.
The Magoffins passed a soldier’s camp on Monday July 27, and after traveling another four miles, came to Bent’s Fort. To Susan the fort resembled an ancient castle.
Built of adobe bricks, with rounded corners and a large gate on the east side, the fort had a large square some 90 to 100 feet across, surrounded by about 25 rooms used as bed chambers, kitchens, trading rooms, a dining room, blacksmith’s shop, an ice house, and more including a billiard room. The upper story rooms provided more area for lodging.
Bent’s was an active fort. Traders, Indians, and Mexicans were constantly entering and leaving the fort. And it was noisy with the sounds of cattle, mules, and chickens.
Loss On The Trail
Susan was ill when she arrived at the fort and within days she had a miscarriage, and was then “forbidden to rise from my bed.”
On July 31 she wrote, “My situation was very different from that of an Indian woman in the room below me. She gave birth to a fine healthy baby, about the same time, and in half an hour after she went to the River and bathed herself and it, and this she has continued each day since.”
Susan had some time to recover, but the Magoffin wagons rolled away from Bent’s Fort on August 8. They would take the mountain cutoff of the Santa Fe Trail crossing Raton Pass, before continuing south to Mora and Las Vegas, New Mexico, and ultimately arriving in Santa Fe on August. 31.
By then the U.S. Army under command of Stephen Watts Kearny had taken control of the region putting it firmly under American control.
Candy Moulton can be reached at Candy.L.Moulton@gmail.com
