Wagons North: Minnesota to Oregon

Today, taking a trip halfway across the country is accomplished with a flight in a few hours. It took four long months by wagon train. The westward movement was part of America from colonial days. Americans went over the Appalachians, then to the edge of the Great Plains, seeking land, a new beginning and perhaps an escape from the past. The westward movement hesitated when it reached the end of the forests and faced the empty prairie territories. There seemed to be "nothing there." But by the 1860s the attractions of the gold fields of Montana and the deep soil of the Williamette Valley in Oregon drew settlers to move through the Northern Plains, and even to settle there. This volume details the 1500-mile journey of one of a northern overland wagon train, the Davy expedition of 1867. Two diaries from Davy train participants form the heart of this volume: the Abraham Maricle diary and the Henry Leug diary. Before the diaries are set forth, a series of short essays gives the reader a perspective on the "adventures" the travelers underwent as they moved through the northern prairies. The Davy travelers were venturing into lands that, with the exception of several military forts, contained no non-native settlements. The Davy train was "on its own," far from "civilization" as they knew it. And, once again, that journey would last for four long months.