What We Do
The Santa Fe Trail Chapter, NSDAR, promotes education, encourages historic preservation, and champions patriotism through a variety of events, programs, projects, and awards.
Ancestors
Patriot Name |
Location of Service |
Service Description |
| Archibald Allison | Pennsylvania | Private |
| Muscoe Boulware | Virginia | Soldier |
| David Bowers | Massachusetts | Patriotic Service, Captain |
| Gasper Butcher | Virginia | Private |
| William Cook | Maryland | Private |
| John DeJamette | North Carolina | Private |
| John Gearhart | Pennsylvania | Ensign |
| Peter Hartman | Pennsylvania | Corporal |
| Adam Henning | Pennsylvania | Non-Commissioned Officer |
| Christophel Henning, Sr. | Pennsylvania | Sergeant, Patriotic Service |
| William Holman | Virginia | Civil Service, Patriotic Service |
| John Kelly | Pennsylvania | Colonel |
| John Marshall | Virginia | Captain |
| Abraham Neighbours | South Carolina | Patriotic Service |
| Jacob Preston | Connecticut | Ensign |
| Rachael Derrin Quattlebaum | South Carolina | Civil Service |
| Westall Ridgely | Maryland | Patriotic Service, Lieutenant |
| Cornelius Sale | North Carolina | Civil Service, Patriotic Service |
| Henry Schott | Pennsylvania | Non-Commissioned Officer |
| Jacob Sharpsteen | New York | Private |
| Jacob Stoneking | Pennsylvania | Soldier |
| updated August 31, 2022 | ||
Chapter History
The Daughters of the American Revolution have a long association with the Santa Fe Trail. In about 1900, enterprising members of the organization began the very progressive project of marking remnants of the Old Trail all the way from Franklin, Missouri, to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Most of the small granite markers they placed along the way are still there. They mark ruts left in the prairies by the heavy freight wagons, watering holes, camp spots, and natural landmarks such as mountain passes and remarkable rock formations.
The Santa Fe Trail Chapter, NSDAR, has provided two markers, one in Trinidad’s Kit Carson Park and the other just east of Trinidad.
The Santa Fe Trail was not an immigrant trail. It was an international road of commerce between a Mexico newly independent of the Spanish crown and a rapidly expanding United States of America. Commerce on the trail began in 1821 when Missouri businessman William Becknell took a mule train of trade goods to product-hungry Santa Fe. Soon, strings of pack mules and lumbering freight wagons were crossing the 800-plus miles of virtually barren wilderness.
In 1846, Colonel Stephen W. Kearny led his approximately 1,600-man “Army of The West” from Missouri across the “Great American Desert” to a camp right here in what is now Trinidad, on the Rio de las Animas Perdido en Purgatorio (now called the Purgatoire River), across Raton Pass and on down the trail to Santa Fe. In addition to his 1,600 men, Kearny’s army included 1,400 wagons and field pieces, 15,000 oxen, 4,000 mules, and uncounted teamsters, muleteers, and drovers. Ultimately, Kearny’s journey, his bloodless occupation of Santa Fe, and his trip onward from there to help raise the Bear Flag in California, were responsible for adding southern Colorado, west Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and all of California to the Union. It was a pivotal event in American history, and it took place in Trinidad on the Santa Fe Trail.
A chapter was previously here from 1912-1983, but it disbanded. Twenty years later, individuals in the community felt the chapter needed to reappear and started the chapter again. With new members and new projects, the chapter has a fresh start.
