Averaging about twelve to fifteen miles per day, the wagon train had covered around 800 miles when they stopped for the night near Deer Creek, not far from Fort Laramie, Wyoming on July 29, 1864. The next morning, Martin Ringo accidentally shot himself with his rifle. A letter sent to Liberty, Missouri and later published in the Liberty Tribune newspaper told the circumstances of his untimely death.
Just after daylight on the morning of July 30, 1864 Mr. Ringo stepped out of the wagon, as I suppose, for the purpose of looking around to see if Indians were in sight and his shotgun went off accidentally in his own hands, the load entering at his right eye and coming out at the top of his head. At the report of his gun I saw his hat blown up 20 feet in the air and his brains were scattered in all directions. I never saw a more heartrending sight, and to see the distress and agony of his wife and children (Johnny Ringo included) was painful in the extreme. Mr. Ringo's death cast a gloom over the whole company. He was buried near the place he was shot in as decent a manner as was possible with the facilities on the plains.2
Mary Peters Ringo kept a journal, religiously writing something every day. Her account of the day her husband was killed is vivid and heart-wrenching; her description of daily life on the trail paints a picture of the hardships pioneers encountered on their way to Oregon and California ‒ it’s well worth reading. A digital version of the journal can be accessed through the Library of Congress (see sources below).
The map below shows the route Mary Ringo and her children traveled after Martin's death.3 In early October, they stopped for about a week in Austin, Nevada where Martin and Mary’s sixth child, a son, was stillborn. From there, they continued to San Jose, California to stay with Mary's sister, Augusta, and her husband, Coleman Younger. About a year later, Mary and her children settled in their own home in San Jose.
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| The Journal of Mrs. Mary Ringo; a diary of her trip across the Great Plains in 1864 - inside front cover. |
Mary Peters Ringo died from consumption on July 16, 1876 in San Jose. In the conclusion to Mary’s journal, Mattie Ringo said of her mother, “I think she was the bravest woman I ever heard of,” a fitting tribute to a true pioneer.
