BRIDGEPORT, Conn., Dec. 25.--"It ain't so much what you got to do with as how you use what you got. That's what counts."
    Perhaps it is this philosophy that Joseph C. Berrang and his wife have applied to their own circumstances and which explains why they happen to be traveling from Colchester, Conn., to Florida, with oxen drawing two carts.
    Mr. and Mrs. Berrang and their strange equipment have just passed through Bridgeport. Christmas was spent by the roadside between Stamford and New York, the oxen being given a day of rest and Mr. and Mrs. Berrang seated about the little stove in their "cabin" on wheels talking over their more prosperous days and hopes for the future.
    Until a short time ago Berrang and his wife owned a farm seven miles west of Colchester. A fire burned them out of house and home. The farmer conceived the plan of going away, preferably to the South. The problem of means of transportation was met by the only means left open to them, oxen, harnessed to wagons upon one of which Berrang erected a small house. Three weeks ago the venturesome couple set forth.
    The Berrang outfit averages five or five and a half miles a day. Unlimited curiosity was aroused when the caravan pulled into Bridgeport, smooth pavements trying the oxen hard. The procession was led by the larger vehicle, following closely in the rear being a two-wheeled cart bearing tents and other paraphernalia, drawn by a ring-nosed ox, with Mrs. Berrang in charge, walking. Mrs. Berrang explained that she prefers to walk for two reasons--to keep warm and to obviate that seasick feeling due to the pitching of the vehicle.
    The small house on the wagon is fully equipped with bedding and the necessary articles for the journey. There is a stove and toilet facilities, with bunks for the couple.
Boston Post, December 25, 1920, page 67

    "The way to see the Adirondacks, Niagara Falls, the Rocky Mountains, Yellowstone Park and the thousand and one other beauty spots of the United States is not by automobile, airship or trains, but by a homemade cart driven by oxen," is the declaration of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph C. Berrang, who are today billeted in a lot at Broadway and 125th Street, where they stopped for a rest on their way from Westchester, Conn. to Los Angeles, Cal.
    "Jerry, Jack and Fawn are off their feed, due, we suppose, to a change in water," said Mrs. Berrang today in explanation of the stop in the Harlem lot, where hundreds of persons daily and nightly visit the little camp, which is composed of a tent for the oxen, a wagon in which Berrang and his wife sleep and an open cart used for carrying food and utensils.
    "But aside from seeing the country as it should be seen," said Mrs. Berrang, "we are making this trip--living in the open all the while, no matter what kind of weather--so that we may live long beyond the time when insurance companies figure one should die. 'Joe' is nearing the threescore mark and--well, I'm the mother of two children, both of whom are married, so you may judge for yourself how old I am."
    The reporter said he could not judge Mrs. Berrang's age, for her life in the open has left not a wrinkle in her smooth, almost bronzed face. Mr. Berrang's features are also tanned by the wind and rain.
    "Then there is another feature which we have not spoken much about," added Mrs. Berrang, "and that is if you would avoid the divorce courts and all family troubles get a couple of oxen and a cart and hike it across the country and just live for each other."
    For twenty years Mr. and Mrs. Berrang lived at Westchester, Conn., and their 100-acre farm was known for miles around for the good things they sold. When flames burned their home to the ground three months ago they lost everything except the three big oxen, Jerry, Jack and Fawn. The insurance company gave them just $500 for the house and furniture they lost, and after a conference with their children they decided on the open air life, and the biggest and longest trip they could think of was to cross the United States from ocean to ocean and to take side trips, which they hope will bring them from the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico on their way.
    "Speed has been eliminated from our itinerary," said Mrs. Berrang with a broad smile, "and that is the reason why I make the declaration that the only way to properly see the beauties of this country is the slowest possible method, and I think we selected the slowest." Then she patted the three oxen, each of which has a big brass ring in the nose.
    In the wagon in which Mr. and Mrs. Berrang live are two swinging cots not unlike those used by the gobs in the navy on battleships, an adjustable table, an oil stove, an ice chest and a real bath tub. On the side of the cart are pictures of the family. Two of the oxen draw this wagon, while Fawn, driven by Mrs. Berrang, pulls the trailer which carries the food, tent and other things.
    "Sometimes I think the oxen get homesick," said Mrs. Berrang, "for they don't like to cross bridges, and trolley cars always frighten them, while the manholes you have in the center of the streets scare them almost into a frenzy. They are very powerful animals, and for that reason we must be very careful how we handle them and where we take them. However, as soon as we get out of this city I think they will be themselves again. Hay is their chief food, and unless it is fresh they don't like it. We have been very fortunate in getting proper food for them, and as soon as this city fright attitude wears off we shall start for the coast."
    "When do you think you will reach California?" they were asked.
    "Well, it may be a year and it may be two years, but when we do you can rest assured that we will have seen pretty much everything that the United States has to look at," answered Mrs. Berrang as she nimbly jumped into the wagon, saying she had to get something to eat for her husband.
New York Times, January 19, 1921, page 4

Travel by Oxcart to Pacific Coast

    Jacob C. Berrang and his wife, each about 60 years old, arrived in Baltimore yesterday in a wagon drawn by oxen, en route from Westchester, Conn. to California. They left Westchester December 3. They travel on an average of 10 miles a day. At that rate they expect to reach the Pacific Coast in a year and a half.
    Berrang and his wife conceived the idea of taking the trip after their house was burnt to the ground and they were left with but $500 insurance. They had three oxen. The farmer, with his $500, built a house on wheels, to which they harnessed two of the oxen, the remaining one to a trailer. The pair then started out.
    Just what they will do about crossing the desert or the mountains Berrang doesn't know. But he is not worrying about it. He refuses to cross any bridges, he says, until he reaches them. There is no hurry. They expect to buy 10 acres of land in California, and he is confident that can be secured after they reach there.
Baltimore Sun, June 7, 1921, page 9


    When questioned Monday, Mr. Berrang stated that they are not running on any schedule, but he thought they would be on their trip for perhaps a year yet. It is the object of the party to strike the Lincoln Highway someplace in Ohio and continue west until cold weather sets in, when they will strike southwest, finally landing in California. From that state they will continue on up into Oregon, where they will locate if the conditions are favorable. Mr. Berrang stated that he could not make the trip direct into Oregon because he would have to cross the Cascade Mountains, which would be too hard on the animals. Another reason is that the oxen could not travel in the norther states when winter sets in and snow is on the ground.
    The procession was led by a covered wagon drawn by two huge oxen driven by Mr. Berrang. Following this was an open cart drawn by one ox and driven by Mrs. Berrang. She does not always drive and walks alongside the cart many times. All the way from Connecticut to New York City, Mrs. Berrang walked the entire distance, she at that time not knowing how to drive.

    Mr. and Mrs. J. C. Berrang, who are traveling in oxcarts from West Chester, Conn., to the Pacific Coast, arrived in Hagerstown, Md., Sunday. Berrang, who is 60 years old, owned a small farm in Connecticut. A fire wiped out all the buildings. He and his wife determined to go to Oregon, via California, and left West Chester last December. They expect to arrive in Oregon next year. They travel in a covered wagon drawn by two oxen and driven by Berrang. Mr. and Mrs. Berrang are well-known former residents of Ashland, having at one time occupied the property at Third and Centre, now occupied by Knapp's drug store in that town.
Evening Herald, Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, August 3, 1921, page 3

    FREDERICK Md., Sept. 19.--Prosperous, but with an innate aversion for the automobile which his New England stubbornness will not permit him to forget, J. C. Berrang, living near Westchester, Conn., sixty years old, and his white-haired wife are migrating to the West in search of further fortune as the pioneers of sixty years ago did. They are traveling in an oxen-drawn wagon. They don't anticipate reaching the "promised land" until late in 1922.
    Already Berrang and his wife have been on the road nearly a year. They left their Connecticut farm December 2, 1920, and their destination is the fruit belt of Oregon.
    The procession is quaint. The "wagon train" is headed by two huge oxen, drawing a canvas-covered wagon with bulging bows. This is followed by a more modest outfit--a cart drawn by an ox. They make ten miles a day. They have no speed records to break. Mrs. Berrang, white haired, who shares this adventuresome spirit of her husband, has walked beside the unique train the greater part of the distance from Connecticut.
    Berrang is unable to account for his great desire in the late days of his life. He has money, enough to live comfortably. His home is Connecticut. He knew no other country. He prospered. Then he had his first misfortune. His barn and home burned down. But that didn't financially wreck him. Instead it created in him the desire to go West and see for himself the wonderful opportunities which he believes he'll find there.
    Once he reaches the goal he says he wants to "settle down" and begin all over again. He's going to buy a small farm, raise fruit, and just putter around the farm. He confesses that to him his trip is his "gold strike of '49." That rush for gold nearly three-quarters of a century ago has always had glamor for him. Now he's off to search for another kind of gold.
    In Ohio Berrang will switch off to the Lincoln Highway. In winter he will be headed for the South, and in spring he'll turn north and then the final lap--to Oregon and to his apple orchard.
New Orleans States, September 18, 1921, page 26

    Appearance of a complete ox team outfit making a transcontinental trip created a stir in the streets of Fort Collins Thursday afternoon. The turnout is owned by J. C. Berrang, who, with his wife, is bound from Connecticut to Medford, Ore.
    The large wagon, which is enclosed and which is completely equipped, even to a radio outfit, is pulled by a yoke of steers, each of which weighs in the neighborhood of a ton. Mr. Berrang purchased the steers and trained them in Connecticut. His third steer, which pulled a small cart, died recently, and Mr. and Mrs. Berrang have been delayed south of Fort Collins for nearly six weeks trying to get an animal large enough to take the place of the one which died. Mr. Berrang expressed chagrin at being unable to obtain a steer large enough to serve his purpose.
    "You westerners kill your stock early, before it has time to get its growth," he complained. "Why, back in Connecticut we don't think a steer has begun to grow until he weighs close to a ton. I bought a small Colorado steer to take the place of the one that died, but he was too light."
    Mr. and Mrs. Berrang have been on their way from Connecticut for a considerable time--too long to tell, Mr. Berrang said--on account of being delayed by weather and the loss of their steer. Now they have fixed their equipment so that they may pull the small cart behind the large wagon, and they are going on with just one yoke of oxen until they find two smaller steers to hitch to the car.
    "We make about fifteen miles a day as a rule," Mr. Berrang said. "We figure on averaging about 100 miles a week. From here we are going to Laramie, where we will hit the old Oregon Trail, which we will follow to our destination."
Fort Collins Courier, Fort Collins, Colorado, July 27, 1923, page 8

    BAKER, Or., Dec. 24.--(Special.)--Traveling in a "covered wagon" de luxe, Mr. and Mrs. J. C. Berrang of Westchester, Conn. arrived in Baker Friday, and are now again out on the Old Oregon Trail with their destination as Medford, Or. They are completing the third year of their trip, commenced when their home burned down, and have leisurely made their way across the continent, making eight and ten miles a day in their ox-drawn schooner, equipped with radio and other modern inventions.
    "Our novel outfit has attracted considerable attention wherever we have been," said Mr. Berrang. "In New York we were photographed and filmed. People seemed puzzled to think that in this day of rush, hurry and mad scramble for money we should plan a leisurely trip across the continent in an ox-cart. They looked all the more amazed," he asserted, "when I told them we expected to end the trip in three years.
    "Well, as I said," Mr. Berrang added, "we decided we had plenty of time. We do not lack comforts, for our home on wheels is modern. We can tune in with our radio at night in camp, and so with practically the same equipage used in the '50s we have combined modern invention, and have comfort that was undreamed of by the ox-drawn schooners of 70 years ago."
Oregonian, Portland, December 25, 1923, page 18


    They were forced to stop eight months in Colorado last winter before attempting to cross the Rockies, and at once place in the Middle West had to drive through 16 miles of water that was quite deep. In April of this year they lost one of three oxen, a horse now taking its place.
"Tribulations Are Met," Oregonian, Portland, December 28, 1923, page 7


    The Rocky Mountains were crossed last year in December, Berrang said. The deepest snow encountered was four feet.
"Oxen Haul Family from Connecticut to Home in Oregon," Seattle Daily Times, March 7, 1924, page 4


Medford Clarion, March 28, 1924, page 2


Medford Mail Tribune, April 12, 1924, page 6

    WILLOW SPRINGS, April 18.--The following was handed in by J. W. Birkholz, a prominent orchardist and poultry man of this community, and an old-time friend of J. C. Berrang, the 1924 forty-niner who arrived in the valley yesterday.
    This district will have as its guests for an indefinite time Mr. and Mrs. J. C. Berrang, the couple who have just completed their leisurely and interesting trip across the continent by ox team.
    Mr. Berrang owns a 100-acre farm about 18 miles from Hartford, Connecticut. In the winter of 1919 a fire utterly consumed his dwelling, leaving him and Mrs. Berrang in a bad plight, as all their household goods as well as all their clothing except that which they had on went up in smoke.
    Mr. Berrang was already almost 60 years of age, at which age most men will not voluntarily plunge into a life of hardship for the joy of it. Yet Berrang is different from most men. One day as he was working in the cold to make a shed habitable for the winter--the new dwelling was to be built in spring--he recalled the roseate description of the weather in southern Oregon given him in a letter by J. W. Birkholz. His mind then being in Oregon, his fingers numb and stiff with cold, it was no wonder that he repeatedly hit his thumb with the hammer while nailing.
    Now Berrang can get real angry when necessary, and the occasion warranted his getting so when he again struck his thumb. He threw the hammer onto the solidly frozen ground, thrust his stiff hands into his pockets, glowered at the surroundings and uttered with vigor and venom a string of his choicest cuss words--he is a master at cussing--walked to the neighbor's where his wife was staying and without any preamble accosted her with--"Let's go to Oregon."
    The matter was talked over well into the night, and finally Mrs. Berrang consented to go. But she gasped when her husband insisted that they go neither by train nor in their car, but ox team. Berrang is by nature different than most people. He prefers to do the unconventional thing in the most conventional way and cares a damn what others think and say about it. Emerson, our great American thinker, once said, "It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of a crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."
    Few men have the greatness of character to do in this age so unconventional a thing as to cross the continent, passing through the hearts of the largest cities in the country with an outfit such as was used by the gold seekers of '49. Small minds, if they cannot travel de luxe, prefer to preserve their dignity by staying at home.
    But Berrang's outfit is a meeting place of those ancient days and the present, for on his Pullman, as he calls it, he has an icebox, a phonograph, a radio, a typewriter, a desk, a two-burner oil stove, gas lighting, running water and everything that goes to make a complete bathroom equipment, except the bathtub and lavatory. In the line of livestock he once had a dog, a cat, a rooster and three oxen. En route he never wanted for fresh eggs and fresh milk. The rooster and one ox died in Colorado. But he managed to buy eggs from ranchers.
    Berrang found before he had traversed Connecticut, his home state, that people clamored for mementos. He ordered 100 picture postals of himself to be delivered at a town along his route. When he arrived there and opened the package containing the cards in the P.O., people catching a glimpse of the cards demanded, "How much?" Before leaving town the cards were sold and another batch wired for. Before long he ordered cards by the 1000 lot. Then by the 5000 lot. In New York City 1000-1200 cards a day was not an unusual busy day.
    Then along came the moving picture concerns, offering him big money for a picture. Berrang has enjoyed the distinction of paying admission to see himself at a distance driving his outfit down Broadway, congesting and blocking traffic and causing an untold amount of profanity, terrible in its uselessness.
    From New York City the trail led through Philadelphia, where the natives, we are assured, had to step unusually lively to keep out of the way of the oxen. Thence the trail led to Baltimore, thence to Washington, where the natives, unlike those of New York, made no comment on the bovine, stupid expression of the faces of the oxen, being accustomed to it. Congress was in session.
    The next large city was Cincinnati, then through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois to St. Louis, making sometimes 10 miles a day, sometimes as much as 18 miles. Why hurry? The Berrangs were enjoying themselves and seeing the country; the natives along the route looked up, blinked, stopped work, wondered whether it was a mirage, approached tentatively, and ended by buying cards. They got what they wanted, the Berrangs got what they wanted, and so everything was lovely.
    Denver was finally reached in the fall of 1922. Here one of the oxen very unwisely broke through a fence into an alfalfa field. The result was that the scavenger's wagon became a hearse, and Mr. Berrang was the possessor of two oxen.
    Calamities have a habit of coming in groups. The rooster accidentally came in contact with the highly charged radio aerial on the roof of the wagon, and died a sad, horrible death of electrocution.
    It was eight months before [the] Berrangs could tear themselves from this scene of their bereavement. Another oxified beast had been procured, and things again moved along at a prodigious rate. This Colorado ox, it is alleged, immediately attempted to impress his more effete brethren with the glories of the western climate, the gorgeous western scenery, the astounding fertility, but despite all his efforts it was observed that the other oxen refused to be enthused and preserved consistently their wonted glumness. In vain did he orate, declaim, elocute until finally in utter dejection his strength was sapped, his constitution undermined, and in a fit of unspeakable despondency he dropped on the road not to rise again. The veterinary could do nothing, explaining that the seat of the trouble was in the spirit, not the flesh, and that the encheerfulling of an ox's psychological dumps was in the province of Coué art, or some other scientific nonsense. So he was put out of misery and was more or less tenderly interred in his numerous stomachic sarcophagi.
    Berrangs had a cold reception entering Oregon. Crossing the Blue Mountains about the holidays they encountered below zero weather. Their oil stove did double duty--two burners going day and night.
    As the oxen do not like the hard-surfaced roads, Berrang decided not to go to Portland and down via the Pacific Highway, but to go south from The Dalles to Bend, thence to Klamath Falls, Ashland and Medford.
    Berrangs started their trip Dec. 1, 1920. They have seen the country as few others have. They have met with many different kinds of people. They have traversed areas where everybody was generous, cordial, open; and areas where they were close, suspicious, ungenerous. While they enjoyed their trip, they endured many hardships. Should they return to their farm in Connecticut, they will not return in the manner they came. They are yet undecided as to their future. They may remain in our valley. They may go to California. People with their grit make good citizens. Let us try to keep them!
Medford Mail Tribune, April 18, 1924, page 14