Meek Cutoff
Starting where the Oregon Trail leaves the Snake River Plain and heads northwest toward the Columbia River Gorge (the general route of modern Interstate 84), Meek's party intended to instead head west across the Oregon High Desert, straight to the Willamette Valley.
They left the main trail at Vale, Oregon and followed the Malheur River to head into the Harney Basin.
In 1853, the Elliott Cutoff was established, completing Meek's purpose by turning upstream at the Deschutes River for 30 miles (48 km) and then crossing the Cascade Mountains at Willamette Pass.
Just west of Castle Rock and along the North Fork of the Malheur River, Rowland Chambers' wife Sarah, the Captain's daughter and a young mother of two small children, was now critically ill, having contracted camp fever earlier in the journey.
In order to reach a ridge west of the North Fork of the Malheur River, the emigrants were forced to climb a steep, narrow ravine choked with boulders.
[5] The train continued over mountains until it finally came down East Cow Creek into the Harney Basin, in a region known today as the Oregon High Desert.
As they made their way to Silver Creek there were some in the forward company who insisted they continue west to find a pass over the Cascades.
[7]The train continued to Wagontire Mountain, a name it later received when early settlers found a wagon tire there.
[8] On September 13, Field again wrote: Started this morning in expectation of a long drive across the plain before us, but when about four miles (6.4 km) from camp met Meek's wife in company with a friend, returning with the news that they had found no water as yet and requesting all who were at the spring to remain there until he found a camp and returned or sent word back for them to come on.
[9]For weeks the emigrants had been finding out how unfamiliar Meek was with the area, especially as the wagons followed a serpentine route into Harney Valley.
In 1849, Betsy Bayley recalled this event in a letter written to her sister in Ohio: We camped at a spring which we gave the name of "The Lost Hollow" because there was very little water there.
[10]The search for water ended when Meek climbed Midnight Point and from there he could see Buck Creek 25 miles (40 km) due north.
[12] During this period of the journey – while emigrants were driving their livestock throughout the night to water – the John Herren family reportedly found some gold nuggets, which led to the legend of the Lost Blue Bucket Mine.
The smaller group with Solomon Tetherow continued west along the north side of Hampton Butte and then followed Bear Creek.
[15]Meek continued on ahead of the company, and when he reached Sherars Falls on the Deschutes River he was warned that a father who lost two sons along the trail intended to kill him, so with the help of Native Americans a rope was sent across the swift river, and both Meek and his wife were guided through the water with ropes tied around them.
They hurried to the Mission at The Dalles where they convinced Black Harris, a mountain man, to return to the falls with a crew and equipment to help the emigrants cross.
In this way Meek made his escape, and the rescue crew arrived in time to help the pioneers, who numbered more than a thousand, cross with their wagons.
Some of the emigrants crossed from the low banks, using their wagon box as a boat and guided by ropes over the swift current.
[19] The blazing of the Meek Cutoff led to later wagon roads and the settlement of the eastern and central regions of Oregon.
