Robert Cartwright Cunningham

In 1863, the Cunningham family immigrated to America from Liverpool, England. After arriving in New York, they took a train and to the Missouri River. There, they boarded a steamboat headed to Omaha, Nebraska.

Exhaustive travel conditions, disease, injury, lack of food and medicine, prematurity, and extreme weather were some of the greatest threats to pioneers. During the journey, one of the boat crew lifted a trap door in the bottom of the boat and took a bucket to draw water up from the river, forgetting to replace the door as he finished. Robert Cartwright, 7-years-old, became frightened when some mules started kicking in the stall nearby. In his excitement, he fell through the trap door.

The crew stopped the boat and searched the river, but never recovered a body. They thought he might have been struck by one of the large paddle wheels on either side of the boat.