After 7:30 AM Mass this morning, I went home and completed my watering prior to leaving. Colleen began her move back home yesterday. It is nice having her there to care for the dogs. I did not leave until 9:30 AM. The drive was a nice one.
I was surprised to see so many wind mills on the hills when I drove. I tried to imagine what the trip must have been like coming to Californina with no paved roads, no automobiles, and very little provisions. The temperature outside for a good part of the trip ranged from 96 to 102 degrees.
I passed markers or turnoffs for the Butterfield trail. The trail is rugged and passes through three deserts. I was reading that the passengers on the stagecoaches road 9 to a coach, packed in holding their baggage on their laps. They road all day in the heat. Sometimes in the sand they would have to get out and walk. There were no breaks for them. They would have to sleep sitting up packed tightly against their neighbors. There were mail bags under their feet. They paid the equivalent of 3,000 dollars in todays money for a trip that lasted 25 days.
According to some information that my cousin sent me, John O'Donnell enlisted in the army in 1855 in Boston, MA and was assigned to the 8th Infantry which was garrisoned at Ft. Bliss. Tomorrow I will head out in the morning for Ft. Davis, TX. John O'Donnell was stationed there in 1857 and attained the rank of corporal and in 1858 he became a sergeant. I hope to learn a little more of what it was like at that time for my great grandfather. I hope a get a little picture of the life and times.
More to come.
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