| The earliest wagon trains of settlers headed into | | | | tools, and other dry goods western emigrants |
| the Old West beginning in the early 1840s. That | | | | took along, that book recommended the following |
| was no accident: It was a response to the | | | | food supplies per person: 200 pounds of flour, 150 |
| realities of economic hard times that hurt nearly | | | | pounds of bacon, 10 pounds of coffee, 20 pounds |
| every American in the East and Midwest following | | | | of sugar, and 10 pounds of salt. Such supplies as |
| an economic "panic" and ongoing depression in the | | | | chipped beef, rice, tea, dried beans, dried fruit, |
| mid- to late-1830s. Most of those settlers were | | | | baking soda, vinegar, pickles, and tallow also were |
| staking all they had on the hope of finding new | | | | recommended, though no amounts suggested. |
| land, new lives, and happy times in the California | | | | So exactly what might have pushed these |
| and Oregon Territories. | | | | pioneers to abandon the security of life in the |
| Like most pioneers and adventurers, those | | | | Eastern cities, or sometimes newly settled towns |
| settlers were willing to take risks as they looked | | | | and farms in the Midwest? |
| at fulfilling their dreams -- most of them based on | | | | The 1837 "panic" or depression left much of the |
| hope and false reports about life in the Territories. | | | | U.S. economy in shambles. By 1839, wages had |
| Few who went West prior to the 1840s returned | | | | fallen 30 to 50 percent from what they were in |
| to spread those tales of utopia; most tall tales of | | | | pre-depression days only a few years earlier. That |
| lands flowing with near biblical milk and honey | | | | same year, 20,000 out of work laborers |
| were spread by those eager to sell claims to gold | | | | demonstrated in Philadelphia and 200,000 workers |
| and fertile farm land they never owned. Other | | | | in New York City were unemployed and seeking |
| entrepreneurs were more than happy to sell | | | | ways to provide for the winter. |
| wagons, bedding, food supplies, tools, and all the | | | | Did those who took the radical step of westward |
| other outfitting the Westerners would need for | | | | emigration solve their problems and find success? |
| the arduous journey. | | | | Some of them did, some of them didn't. In many |
| According to a fascinating collection of excerpts | | | | cases, history records disease and ill planning left |
| from diaries kept by wives and mothers who | | | | small groups and large wagon trains of settlers |
| made the westward trip ("Women's Diaries of the | | | | decimated. It was said that prominent river |
| Westward Journey" by historian Lillian Schlissel) the | | | | crossings along the Oregon Trail were often |
| first wagon trains headed west from departure | | | | littered with abandoned furniture, silverware, |
| points in Missouri in 1841. Something like 100 | | | | pianos, and many other household goods left |
| people migrated to the California or Oregon | | | | behind because the desperate folks in their |
| Territories that year. By end of 1866, according | | | | western trek had to choose between their goods |
| to the same source, about 350,000 men, women, | | | | and their lives. |
| and children had made the trip. This despite the | | | | Some of those who survived the journey were |
| social and economic upheaval of the Civil War | | | | left bitter and disillusioned when they got to |
| from 1860-65. | | | | California or Oregon Territory. Others eventually |
| A popular book of the mid-1840s suggested what | | | | turned back. A few found land and settled down |
| sort of provisions each person should take along | | | | to raise their families and form the communities |
| for a wagon trip over the western trails and to | | | | that became the basis of all of our Western |
| the Territories. Besides the clothes, furnishings, | | | | states today. |