You have died of dysentery. Only around 80,000 of the estimated 400,000 Oregon Trail emigrants actually ended their journey in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. By some estimates, as many as 10 percent of travelers died en route, usually from disease or accidents. Every death suffered along the trail was a heartbreak, but the deaths that took the largest emotional tolls were those of mothers in … If you're of a certain age, you remember spending hours naming your Oregon Trail family after your own family or friends, guiding their MS-DOS-based adventures, and laughing when brother Stinky Johnny died of dysentery. It is estimated that Indians killed 326 Oregon Trail travelers, however the travelers are believed to have killed 426 Indians. The conservative estimates are that around 5% of migrants died on the trail. The real Oregon Trail was filled with about as many accidents and illnesses, and the National Oregon/California Trail Center says more than 300,000 Americans … The number of trail deaths is difficult to determine, however, there are estimates as high as 5,000 in 1849 alone. Victims often died within 12-24 hours. The losses in 1850 were even greater prompting one Missouri newspaper to estimate that along a stretch of the Overland Trail, one person per mile died from the disease. Most National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center | 541-523-1843 | oregontrail.blm.gov How many pioneers died making the trip? The Van Ornum party assembled in Southern Wisconsin and departed in May 1860, most headed for Oregon’s Willamette Valley. Mary Has Died of Typhoid Fever Then: Unfamiliar with the virtues of boiling water first, Oregon Trail pioneers contracted typhoid like many other diseases—from contaminated water. In 1860 one of the worst massacres along the Oregon Trail took place in Idaho.. They were joined by the Utter party in Omaha, Nebraska on June 5 th. The biggest deaths from accident on the trail were due to shootings, drownings, wagon mishaps, and injuries from handling the cattle. It's estimated perhaps 10% of the people making the trip died en route (about 20,000 - 30,000). Some of those who wrote about the Oregon Trail and its ancillary branches declared it the longest cemetery in the world. There were also considerable risks from some form of accident along the immigration trail, such as being run over by a wagon, stampeded, or accidentally shot. Low-end figures on mortality tend to be around 4 to 6 percent of the total (i.e., some 12,000 to 24,000 deaths), and estimates range up to 10 percent. Many of those who died suffered from illnesses common to the time period such as cholera or dysentery. Hilarity! Most Oregon Trail pioneers didn’t settle in Oregon. The wagon train consisted of 18 men, five women, 21 children, 12 wagons, and 100 head of livestock. Dysentery, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and Measles were other infectious diseases that caused deaths along the Trail. Cholera, a bacterial disease that causes severe diarrhea and vomiting, claimed a great many lives. Historian John Unruh estimates that about 4 percent of the settlers that traveled along the Oregon Trail died along the way, and that nine out of 10 of these deaths were caused by disease. Like statistics on the total number of emigrants who traveled the Oregon Trail, estimates of how many people died en route have varied considerably. As a young player, these messages would pop up on our screen and result and in “Aw, man!” They meant that your trek was delayed or even over. The Oregon Trail was real and so were the many diseases faced by those who traveled it. Everyone has cholera. Susie has measles. Cholera killed up to 3% of all travelers on the Oregon Trail. And so were the many diseases faced by those who wrote about the Oregon travelers! 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