Water, cool, clear, water.

[oscar]

I realize that in the 1800's the water available to the pioneer cozie was very clean. However do you think they boiled alot anyway.

i have been in Far Northern Canada, super remote and still questioned my decision to drink right from the brook but I did and I did not suffer any ill effects that I know of. Wells from the aquafer below ground in Nebraska. An under ground ocean. Do you think the pioneer knew it was there?

 

[Marshal Will Wingam]

The ones that dowsed well sites sure had to. Nobody was going to hand dig a well without knowing there was water below them before they started.

[Ozark Tracker]

I think Marshall Will's right about the dowsers,  I don't know if you've ever seen one in action, but it'll make you scratch your head the first time or two. I know several people who witch wells and have for years and people seek these people out before drilling a well,  when they say it's right here, that means right here, not in this general area.  a few feet can mean the difference between wet or dry around here.

as for the water used on the trail, true it was pure conpared to the toxins we as people have brought to it over the years, but there were millions of Buffalo to pollute the streams and rivers. I think as the pioneers and Indians moved across the country, their immune systems adjusted to the type of water, they were drinking and built up a natural immunity.  As a kid in Oklahoma, we drank out of every little spring we came too. nobody got sick but we had done it since we were small.

I really doubt that when the cosie went out and got water he brought it back and and pre-boiled it. he had other things to worry about. like getting supper ready.

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[Delmonico]

Warter borne diseases killed a lot of people through out the west, the knowledge of what caused it was in it's infancy so no, most folks didn't know to boil it.   A lot of the water on the Oregon trail was not fit to drinl hence the cholera epidemics. 

It was noticed that in the building of the Central Pacific RR that the Chinese almost never died of some diseases, where the rest dripped like flies.  It was the fact the Chinese boiled their water to make tea.  There is no place left in the US where it is really safe to drink the water, you may get away with it many times, but the one you don't will not be fun.  This is from experiance.

[Delmonico]

In many places in Nebraska the ground water is just a few feet below and in others in can be 200 or more.  There were a lot of well diggers who did the dangerous job of digging wells up to 250 feet deep.  Many of these were the homesteaders and many died trying. 

Another option was having a well drilled.  Back to Solomon Butcher for pics.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award98/nbhihtml/pshome.html

Type well drilling into the search.  there are 5 good pictures.  But searching all his pictures of homesteads will show other drilled wells.

[Ozark Tracker]

The water up here is about 150 feet.  but there are a lot old cistren systems,  we have one in our front yard with a little like a wishing well over it. I don't know how many gallons it holds but it is about 25 feet deep and maybe 10 feet across, faced with stones underground. it always has water in it. we never have used it but from the neighbors it's been here as long as anybody can remember, always had a rope & pulley to get a cool drink.

[Arcey]

Here it's two lenghts and a point.  They used to tell us not to drink it when we were kids, we did anyway............