Mr. Cavill, Sir,
We bought this book called It Happened on the Oregon Trail by Tricia Martineau Wagner. It
was a collection of the most-famous true stories of trail mishaps and so forth on the
Oregon Trail. I'm not sure if you would have heard of this so I will tell you that
this trail is the pioneer trail across the Great Plains and the mountains and out to the
Oregon Territory on the West Coast. In one of the stories, they told of this young girl
who fell off the wagon and was run over by the wagon's wheels. She lived but her leg
was broken. They couldn't afford to stop even a day so they had to set it and then
rig a way for her to travel so it would heal correctly. A Mr. Harry Cavill was the one
credited with the solution. The story is from 1859. I don't know if he was on his
way to the Willamette Valley in what is now Oregon or if he branched off to Montana or if
he went to the OT and then he or his descendents moved back to Montana. All I know is I
saw his name and I knew I had!
to tell you about it. There were three trails - the Mormon Trail that went as far as
Utah, the Oregon Trail that went as far as the Willamette Valley in what is now Oregon and
to places in what is now Washington, and the California Trail which branched off in two
major places and went to the Sacramento Valley of California which was already a state, I
believe. The three trails paralleled each other until certain key points out in what is
now Wyoming and Idaho. Of course at any point on the trail they could branch off or go
back as they liked. Do you have a Harry Cavill from 1859? This might be one of your
relates. You're the only Cavill I've ever known so I had to ask.
http://www.isu.edu/~trinmich/Oregontrail.html