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Ada MaGill Grave
About 5 miles west of Glenrock. Next to the railroad tracks about
one third mile southwest of old brick building at Parkerton
Mr. and Mrs. G. M. Magill, with their two small children, joined up with a Kansas wagon train enroute to Oregon. While camped at Fort Laramie, their daughter, Ada, came down with dysentery. A hundred miles of jolting torture later, the feverish little body reached Deer Creek. That night her condition worsened and five miles west of Glenrock at a favorite “ nooning” spot (wagons stopped to rest during the heat of the day), Ada Magill passed away.

There, beside the Oregon Trail, July 3, 1864, the grieving family laid Ada to rest, a little tombstone over her head, with stones piled high upon the grave to discourage the wolves from digging up her remains. But the Magill’s grief was not over. Before reaching their destination, their 2-year old boy would eat a poisonous weed, and he too would die … and be left behind … another victim of the trail.

Excerpted from Glenrock Historical Commission brochure.

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