An Utter Tragedy.

We will soon be off on a trip along the Oregon Trail through southern Idaho and into western Oregon and Washington. There’s a lot of history along this nineteenth-century superhighway.

Stretched across more than a hundred miles of the road is the history of one of the saddest tales on the emigrant trails—a series of events known by various names, but most often as the Utter-Van Ornum Massacre. As with much of history, there is a lot of confusion surrounding what happened. But here’s the gist of it.

Shoshone Indians attacked an emigrant company of some 44 travelers somewhere west of the present location of Mountain Home, Idaho, and somewhere south of present-day Boise. Several pioneers were killed and after more fighting and needing water, four of the eight wagons were abandoned. The emigrants lost other people in attacks over the next few days as they traveled until the Shoshone departed. With little to eat, the travelers left the remaining wagons and walked to the Owhyhee River, near the deserted Fort Boise. Indians there traded salmon for the remainder of the emigrants’ belongings and guns, then severe hunger set in.

The senior Van Ornum, along with a few surviving members of the Utter family, left the hunger camp and moved on. The move did not save them, but it may have kept them—at least the children—from being eaten. Four dead children were consumed in the camp and there was talk of killing another for food. Instead, the body of a man dead ten days was exhumed, but before he was eaten help arrived and 12 survivors were rescued.

Meanwhile, Indians had attacked and killed the Van Ornum party, except for three girls and a boy who were taken captive. It’s fairly certain the girls were soon killed, and perhaps the boy—but his fate remains a mystery. There were claims and stories of a white boy living with Indians at various places.

Responding to one such story, the boy’s uncle came from Oregon and convinced army troops from Camp Douglas in Utah to rescue the boy from a Shoshone band in Cache Valley. After some shooting, some negotiating, and some double dealing, the boy was taken. Although he had light hair and eyes, his identity was and is suspect. He was about the right age to be the Van Ornum boy, but spoke no English and was Shoshone in all his ways, and fought his “rescuers” to no avail. The Shoshone said he was the son of a French mountain man and a sister of Chief Washakie. A photo memorializes the capture, with the boy in the bottom row, flanked by the army officer who led the expedition and his uncle.

The uncle took him to Oregon, and to California soon after. Then history loses track of the boy, and his fate is unknown.