after the birth of their son Marion, that they decided to travel the Oregon Trail. That April, Ezra, Eliza Jane, Oliver, and Marion Meeker set out to journey to Oregon, some in all. With their wagon, they had two yokes of oxen, one of cows and an extra cow. They were accompanied by William Buck, who would remain with them much of the way before separating from them to go to California. Buck outfitted the wagon, Meeker selected the animals, and with his wife carefully prepared food supplies. The wagons of Meeker's grouping traveled together by informal agreement; there was no wagon master in overall charge. A number of Oliver Meeker's friends from Indianapolis joined the group before the party left Iowa. They crossed the Missouri River at the small Mormon settlement of Kanesville (today Council Bluffs, Iowa). Meeker recounted that, as he stood on the far side of the Missouri, he felt as if he had left the United States. As they journeyed westward along the Platte River in Nebraska Territory, there were such large numbers traveling that they were never out of sight of the tens of thousands of other pioneers journeying west that year. Sometimes several wagons advanced side by side. The Meekers chose a slow, steady pace, unlike many who sought to rush along as quickly as possible. Piles of abandoned possessions lined the way, cast aside to lighten loads. As the party went further west, they passed some of those who had hurried past them, and whose wagons had broken down or whose oxen had died as a result of failure to care for them properly. Disease was an ever-present risk; at the present site of Kearney, Nebraska, Oliver Meeker was stricken with illness. This led to a division of the group when most of Oliver's friends, including later Idaho Territory governor David W. Ballard, refused to wait. Oliver recovered after four days, and was one of the lucky ones—his brother later estimated that one in ten of those who took the Trail perished during the journey. Ezra Meeker remembered meeting one wagon train, slowly moving east against the flow of traffic. That group had made it as far as Fort Laramie (today in Wyoming) before losing the last of its menfolk, and the women and children turned back, hoping to regain their homes in the East. He never learned if they made it. According