Burial on the Trail

Death on the trail rarely allowed the fineries of funerals back home, and emigrants made do with available materials, with black adorning mourners' clothes and care taken to provide the best funeral possible. Often all travelers could offer the deceased was a shallow trench beside the trail and no coffin. Many emigrants worried about the lack of propriety in a simple grave on the windswept prairie and vowed to return to provide a proper resting place. Few of the thousands of emigrant graves have been located because wind and snow soon obliterated evidence of them, markers disappeared, and in some cases wild animals scavenged the graves. Stories of family members later returning to search for a loved one's final resting place are common, but the searches were usually fruitless.

Wyoming · United States