By Ox Team to California – A Narrative of Crossing the Plains in 1860

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By Ox Team To California – A True Story About An Ordinary Woman Doing Extraordinary Things

Few works of literature ever come close to the vivid depiction of one of the greatest American migrations than Lavinia Honeyman Porter’s account of her own experience in By Ox Team to California: Crossing the Plains in 1860.

Miss Porter was coming from a privileged background. She was a typical Southern girl as she recalls, meaning she had no idea neither ability to cook. Her husband was also unfamiliar with manual labor, and they also had a son. They soon realized that they had entered a situation of financial embarrassment that they couldn’t get out of. The solution they come up with is to buy a wagon and six oxen and head West for the Rockies. But the adventure has yet to begin, as no sooner than they had brought the oxen to their yard that they discovered they didn’t have six helpers, but six brutes or white elephants, as she states, who were as handy with their heels as with their horns.

And so, two people and a child, unfamiliar with the harshness of life and with little to no preparation to face the outdoors and the wild west, start their adventure towards the wild west by ox team.

It is fortunate that, while Porter had no experience or skill to face the wild, she could write, so she managed to send letters of her ordeals, failures and successes. More fortunate is that her sister advised her to write before they departed, otherwise we wouldn’t have had such an accurate and thrilling account from people who actually walked the Plains back in the days.

By Ox Team to California is a highly recommended book to anyone interested in both the historical and social events of that time.
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