I’ve often wondered about the pioneer women who were forced or coerced to leave their homes, their loved ones, and all that is familiar behind them. I’m sure most of them resigned themselves to follow their husbands, but I’m not surprised that some women got thoroughly fed up.
[Sept] 15 [1847]
layed by this morning one company moved on except one family the woman got mad and would not budge nor let the children he had his cattle hitched on for 3 hours and coaxing her to go but she would not stur I told my husband the circumstance and him and Adam Polk and Mr Kimble went and took each one a young one and cramed them in the wagon and her husband drove off and left her siting she got up took the back track travled out of sight cut a cross overtook her husband meantime he sent his boy back to camp after a horse that he had left and when she came up her husband says did you meet John yes was the reply and I picked up a stone and nocked out his brains her husband went back to asertain the truth and while he was gone she set one of his waggons on fire which was loaded with store goods the cover burnt off and some valueable artickles he saw the flame and came runing and put it out and then mustered spunk enough to give her a good floging her name is Marcum she is cousin to Adam Polks wife
Geer, Elizabeth Dixon Smith, 1808/9?-1855, Diary of Elizabeth Dixon Geer, September, 1847, in Covered Wagon Women: Diaries & Letters from the Western Trails, vol. 1: 1840-1849. Holmes, Kenneth L., ed. & comp. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1995, pp. 272.
A footnote in the introduction to Elizabeth’s journal clarifies that Mrs. Marcum did not actually kill the boy she hit with the rock. He shows up in a later Census, alive and well. Mrs. Marcum did end up following her husband west, where they were later divorced. Unsurprisingly.
red paper boat 