Overland Migrations Settlers To Oregon California And Utah

Excerpt from The Overland Migrations: Settlers to Oregon, California, and Utah The busy outfitters of the neighboring towns of Independence and Westport, Missouri - merchants, innkeepers, blacksmiths, saddlers, and the rest - had never before seen such a crowd of movers as the one that poured through their muddy streets in the spring of 1843. Not that the frontier businessmen weren't used to travelers. Each spring for the past 20 years specially built freight wagons had been traveling from Missouri along the famed Santa Fe Trail to New Mexico and, some of them, on south as far as Chihuahua. But the sinewy roustabouts and the Mexican and American proprietors of those caravans were entirely male - adventurers, not set tlers seeking new homes. By fall most would be back with the bars of gold and silver bullion, the jingling silver pesos, the sacks of coarse wool, and the herds of fine Spanish mules that were the fruit of their bartering. This influx was different. Numbering close to a thousand persons, it was composed for the most part of families. Members ranged in age from an occasional grandfather and grandmother down to a scattering of babes - even unborn babes to judge from the appearance of a few of the women. They planned to journey to the Pacific Coast - more than twice as far as Santa Fe - ih ordinary farm wagons covered with flimsy roofs of canvas. What was more, none of those setting forth that year intended, at least at the outset, to come back again. When news of this gathering reached New York, Horace Greeley, editor of the influential Tribune, picked up his pen in amazement. Years later, Gree ley would advise the youth of the nation, Go west, young man, and grow up with the country. In 1843, however, he wasn't ready for so radical an idea. Instead he wrote scornfully, This migration of more than a thousand persons in one body to Oregon wears an aspect of insanity. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This official government handbook published by the National Park Service tells the story tells the story of the pioneers and Mormons who set out for the West in wagon trains, and crossed the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains to settle in Oregon, Utah, and California. Also serves as a guide to the principal sites that illustrate the pioneers' journeys. Included are color maps, photographs, and historical illustrations.

Between 1841 and 1866, more than a half-million people followed trails to Oregon, California, and Utah in one of the largest mass migrations in American history. The Great Medicine Road, Part 4 collects the letters, diaries, and reminiscences of some of the emigrants who made this journey between 1856 and 1869, as a second generation of miners, farmers, town builders, and religious believers turned their adventurous eyes westward in search of new beginnings. Here, in their own words, are the experiences of young men hoping to make their fortunes in mining operations that had sprung up as the gold rush wore down, in California but also now in the silver mines of Nevada's Comstock Lode and the recently discovered gold mines of Colorado's Denver and Pike's Peak regions. Here also are families and farmers looking for land in the fertile Willamette Valley of Oregon, or joining the Mormon community in Utah. And here are the stories of intrepid sojourners traveling with--or without--military escorts as the Civil War, conflicts with Indians, and the Mormon stand against the U.S. government altered the circumstances of westward traffic. These documents, with an introduction and editorial notes written by historian Michael L. Tate to provide context and commentary, comprise the fourth and final installment in a documentary history of the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails. They give a living voice to the history of the American experience at a time of westward expansion and profound, unprecedented change.