Rachel Pattison, Grave and Memorial

Title

Rachel Pattison, Grave and Memorial

Creator

Mardis, Nancy

Biographical Text

Stone grave monument marking the burial site of Rachel Pattison. Attached metal plaque at the top featuring text. Gravestone enclosed within glass window below. Small rock ornamentation on exterior. Monument created by Nancy Mardis. Metal plaque donated by Lewellen high school classes.

Accompanying marble slab at base. Donated by Ash Hollow cemetery association.

Metal plaque with gold text situated beside grave monument. Donated by Oregon-California Trails Association.

Pattison is buried at the Ash Hollow Cemetery in Lewellen Nebraska. Her grave was placed there after her death in 1849 during her travels of the Oregon Trail, prior to the cemetery's existence. Other travelers facing similar fates were buried beside her, but none would survive time except for Pattison's. The Ash Hollow Cemetery was later created by Dennis Clary, using her grave as its center.

The Ash Hollow Cemetery Association donated the marble slab placed at the base of her grave in 1908. In 1949 the association erected the monument honoring her grave's survival. Her original gravestone remains encased in a glass box within the monument.
The plaque beside her monument is dated 1990. It features a diary entry on her death, written by her husband Nathan Pattison.

Text

[Text on Grave Plaque]
THIS MONUMENT DEDICATED TO MEMORY
OF
RACHEL E PATTISON
DIED
JUNE 19TH 1849
AGE 18 YRS
SHE WAS ENROUTE FROM ILLINOIS TO
OREGON TERRITORY OVER THE OLD OREGON
TRAIL.
ERECTED BY
LEWELLEN AMERICAN LEGION POST 14.
TABLET BY
LEWELLEN RURAL HIGH SCHOOL CLASSES 1949-1952.

[Text on Gravestone]
1849
RACHEL E.
PATTISON.
AGED 18 JUNE 1849

[Text at Base of Grave]
IN MEMORY OF
RACHEL PATTERSON
Who Died and was buried
Here in 1849. She belonged
to a California Emigrant Co.
from Missouri
Aged 18 Yrs.

[Text on Accompanying Plaque]
RACHEL E. PATTISON
"Rachel taken sick in the morning, died in the night." Thus did twenty-three-year-old Nathan Pattison record the death of his wife of two months, Rachel Warren Pattison.
Nathan and Rachel were married April 3, 1849, in Randolph County, Illinois. They left their homes near Sparta just one week later to take the trail to Oregon. Their company consisted primarily of Nathan's immediate family: his parents, William and Mary; five brothers; and William's aunt, Charlotte Irwin. Nathan's brother James was accompanied by his wife, Jane, and their infant son. With the Pattisons were some relatives of Jane Pattison named Wylie.
On June 18 the company reached Ash Hollow by the way of Cedar Bluffs. The day before, they had lost three oxen that had eaten poisonous weeds, and William planned an early stop to do some repair work and to harness four mules to take the place of the remaining oxen. William Pattison's diary for June 19 is as follows:
"next day our Company left us about 11 ocl Rachel was taken with Colara and died by 11 at night of 19 instant Medical aid was obtained from a train from Mechigan of the Dr Ormsby after burying on the left side of the hollow as you go round the bluff up the River on the second bank placing a grave stone at her head Rachel Pattison aged 18 June 19th 1849."
The man who tended Rachel in her final hours was Dr. Caleb N. Ormsby of Ann Arbor.
Charlotte Irwin died on October 12 as the company crossed the Blue Mountains. The Pattisons reached the Dalles of the Columbia on November 3. An attempt was made to raft down the river but an early winter storm left them stranded at the Cascades. After many days of privation they finally reached Fort Vancouver late in the month. The Pattisons spent the winter there while the men of the company cut timber for the fort to earn their living. They went on to Oregon City in the spring of 1850.
Nathan Pattison never remarried and lived with his brother James and family for most of the rest of his life at various places in Oregon and Washington. He died near Olympia in 1893 and is buried in the Odd Fellows Cemetery in that city.

Date Created

1849

Date Modified

1908

1949

1990

Type

English Grave

English Signage

Bibliographic Citation

"Different dreams, varied fates," The Kansas City Star. May 20, 1983.

"Stories of Rachel Pattison And Ash Hollow Told At Lewellen, May 30," Deuel County Herald. Jun. 3, 1948.

""People Are Kind" -Mrs. Corajean Thorton," Deuel County Herald. Jul. 1, 1949.

Rachel E. Warren Pattison, Find a Grave

Project Researcher

O'Neill, Iris