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SARAH KING CHAMBERS
Sarah King Chambers was born July 25, 1823, in
Madison County, Ohio, to Naham and Serepta King.
In the spring of 1845, she, along with her husband,
Rowland, and their children Margaret and James, joined other members of
the King family on their migration west. Their destination was the
Willamette Valley of Oregon, for a new beginning in a land which held
great promise.
With about 1,000 other emigrants and 200 wagons, the
King party chose to follow Stephen Meek in an ill-fated attempt to cross
central Oregon on their way to the upper Willamette Valley, near
present-day Eugene. Meek convinced them that this new route would
avoid many hazards of the Blue Mountains, the restless Cayuse Indians, and
the perilous journey down the Columbia River.
Their group became known as the "Lost Wagon Train
of 1845." Not really lost, but desperate for water in these
high deserts, they abandoned their plans for a new route and turned north
toward the Columbia River and established trail to Oregon. They
arrived at the mission in The Dalles in October in a most deplorable
condition.
Sarah could not complete that journey. She died
on September 3, 1845, and was buried here, alongside the "Terrible
Trail." The cause of death was not recorded in contemporary
accounts.
There were twenty-three other known deaths along the
cutoff route from where they left the Oregon Trail at the crossing of the
Malheur River (in present-day Vale, Oregon) until they rejoined the Oregon
Trail at the mission at The Dalles.
Research, Funding, and Signing by the
Oregon-California Trail Association
1991
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