In 1846, Jesse Applegate and fourteen others from near Dallas, Oregon, established a trail south from the Williamette Valley and east to Fort Hall, giving emigrants an alternative to the perilous last leg of the Oregon Trail down the treacherous Columbia River. The first emigrants to travel the new Southern Road left Fort Hall in early August 1846 with the trailblazers, while Levi Scott guided them and Jesse Applegate rode ahead marking the route. Together they cut a wagon trail through nearly 500 miles of wilderness and reached the upper Williamette Valley in November. In later years, travel along the Applegate Trail continued and contributed greatly to the settlement of southern Oregon and the Williamette Valley. Hardship marked the journey, as privation, illness, and death were constant companions for emigrants racing to reach settlements before winter, leaving little time to mourn. Funerals were brief, and graves were often shallow and unmarked. Martha Leland Crowley, buried near the north bank of this creek after dying near what was once called Grave Creek, was one such loss; a carpenter in her party recalled that eight of the fifteen Crowley family members died before reaching Oregon, that he made coffins for the dead, and that when no boards remained for Martha's coffin, he broke apart boxes to build one before she was buried by the stream and the cattle were corralled over her grave so Indians would not find and dig up her body.