Between 1841 and 1866, at least 350,000 people crossed the Missouri westbound for new homes in Oregon, California, and Utah, and Fort Laramie became an important stopping place where travelers rested, resupplied, mailed letters, exchanged worn draft animals, and obtained medical, wheelwright, and blacksmith services. Alfred Davis wrote on June 12, 1850, after crossing the Laramie ford and passing through the fort, that 16,913 men, 235 women, 242 children, 4,672 wagons, 14,974 horses, 4,641 mules, 7,427 oxen, and 465 cows had been registered, with nearly as many more probably passing without registering. Emigrants camped on the opposite side of the Laramie River, where evenings could briefly relieve the strain of travel, as Lucy Bailey White recalled people dancing around campfires to a fiddle until ten o’clock before rising early to continue on. The prairie schooners that carried emigrants over the plains were smaller and lighter than those often shown in films, with narrow flat bodies, lower sides than freight wagons, hardwood construction, metal-reinforced wheels and axles, hickory bows supporting a cloth canopy, toolboxes and a drinking-water barrel attached to the wagon box, and a grease bucket hanging underneath the back. These wagons carried food, cooking utensils, bedding, little clothing, firearms, medicine, bandages, lanterns, and sewing supplies, while furniture and other household luxuries were often left behind or abandoned, and most emigrants walked beside the wagons, leaving only the elderly, sick, or very young to ride inside. Oxen, though slower than horses or mules, were preferred for their stamina. Leaving Fort Laramie was bittersweet because although many were eager to continue, they were also leaving civilization again, and the trail west of the fort grew harder as it climbed in elevation; in 1849, Charles Ben Darwin wrote that twelve miles west of the fort people began abandoning possessions to lighten their loads for the difficulty of the Black Hills, scattering boxes, trunks, pots, barrels, bags, tents, pants, coats, and other goods across the camping ground.