May be reproduced for classroom use.

Toolkit Texts: Short Nonfiction for American History, Westward Expansion, by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis, ©2016 (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann).
Library of Congress

Entire families often

traveled together,

Heading West
but sometimes the
decision to head
West meant parting
from loved ones.
What made America’s early pioneers want to pull up stakes and
embark on a perilous journey into the unknown West?
Why did they sell their property, load their belongings onto wagons,
say good-bye to their friends, and head for California?

The Great Migration

Most of the first travelers to the West were simply farmers and
families looking for land and opportunity. Later, during the gold rush
of the mid-nineteenth century, many went west hoping to get rich.
Whatever the reasons, all of the early settlers of the American West
were willing to take risks to find a better life for themselves and
their families.

Across the Plains and Over the Mountains

Ever since the Revolutionary War, the American frontier had pushed
steadily westward. That movement came to a halt, however, by about
1840, along what is today the western border of Missouri. There,
the lay of the land changed. It no longer was covered with forests.
The prairie is an
Settlers could not simply chop down a few trees, build a house, and
extensive area of
flat, treeless land. start a farm. The frontier landscape turned into sweeping prairie lands
known today as the Great Plains (in those days, however, it was called

60 By John Krizek, Cobblestone, © by Carus Publishing Company. Reproduced with permission.

 the Great American Desert). It was Indian Territory, which meant that
Malaria is an
the land was beyond the safety or control of the U.S. government.
infectious disease
To the west of the plains were the Rocky Mountains. Somewhere characterized by
beyond the Rocky Mountains was the Oregon Territory. News of chills, fever, and
May be reproduced for classroom use. Toolkit Texts: Short Nonfiction for American History, Westward Expansion, by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis, ©2016 (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann).

fertile land there stirred excitement among the restless frontier settlers sweating.
of the mid-1800s. To the south of the Oregon Territory was a land A recession
called California. Word of these abundant lands was carried east by is an extended
missionaries and fur trappers. decline in general
business activity.
An Uncertain Fate Ford means to
Times were tough in the United States around 1840. Westward cross a body of
growth seemed to be held up at the Missouri border, malaria-carrying water at a shallow
mosquitoes were thick along the rivers there, and the country was in spot.
a recession. People were ready for opportunities that would improve
their lives. Although wagon parties headed for California set out from
the frontier in the early 1840s, back on the frontier, those planning
new wagon train expeditions had no way of knowing the fate of
these groups.
Pioneers to California
realized they had a limited
amount of time to make
their long journey. They
could not leave before May,
when the grass on the prairie
would be tall enough to feed
the cattle. And they had to
cross the western mountains
before the winter snows. If
all went well, the travelers
had six months to reach
their destination—more than
two thousand miles from
frontier to coastline. During
the trip, they would have
to ford rivers and streams,
hunt buffalo and antelope
for food (while carrying
enough provisions to feed
themselves when game was
scarce), deal with stoppages
for illness or broken wagons,
accommodate bad weather
Library of Congress

and other hazards, and

A wood engraving,
remain near rivers so they
“Caravan of Emigrants
could provide food and water
for California”
for their animals.

By John Krizek, Cobblestone, © by Carus Publishing Company. Reproduced with permission. 61

 Pioneering the Way
In the spring of 1844, two wagon train parties
combined and prepared to set out for the West
Coast. The travelers planned to follow the Oregon

May be reproduced for classroom use. Toolkit Texts: Short Nonfiction for American History, Westward Expansion, by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis, ©2016 (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann).
Trail together, moving along the Platte River to the
Rockies and across the mountains at South Pass as
far as Fort Hall on the Snake River (in present-day
Idaho). From there, one of the parties, the
Stephens-Townsend-Murphy group, would head
southwest instead of northwest.
Beyond Fort Hall, though, there was no
road—not even tracks—to California.
Despite the hardships, the Stephens-
Townsend-Murphy party proved that it was
possible to get wagons over the Sierra Nevada
mountain range. The route those pioneers took
was used later not only by tens of thousands
of western settlers, but also by the first
railroad across the United States and even
Guidebooks were published in today’s Interstate 80. Their first, exploring
an attempt to attract emigrants steps eventually became the tracks that other
to Oregon and California.
travelers followed, and their story embodies the
In the case of this 1845 book,
however, untraveled routes
American pioneer spirit.
were recommended, leading to
disaster for some wagon parties. As descriptions of
the remarkable lands
in the West trickled
back East, it was
with great hope that
families joined wagon
trains and journeyed
Top: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Bottom: Library of Congress.

across the prairie.

62 By John Krizek, Cobblestone, © by Carus Publishing Company. Reproduced with permission.

 PRIMARY SOURCE

From The Homestead Act, 1862

May be reproduced for classroom use. Toolkit Texts: Short Nonfiction for American History, Westward Expansion, by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis, ©2016 (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann).

(U.S. STATUTES AT LARGE, VOL. XII, P.392 FF)

Under the Homestead Act, the government offered plots of 160 acres of land to
anyone who settled and improved the land for five years.

Be it enacted, That any person who is the head of a family, or who had arrived
at the age of twenty-one years, and is a citizen of the United States, or who
shall have filed his declaration of intention to become such, as required by the
naturalization laws of the United States, and who has never borne arms against
the United States Government or given aid and comfort to its enemies, shall,
from and after the first of January, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, be entitled
to enter one quarter section or a less quantity of unappropriated public lands,
upon which said which may, at the time application is made, be subject to
pre-emption claim, or which may, at the time application is made, be subject to
pre-emption at one dollar and twenty five cents, or less, per acre; or eighty acres
or less of such unappropriated lands, at two dollars and fifty cents per acre, to
be located in a body, in conformity to the legal subdivisions of the public lands,
and after the same shall have been surveyed: Provided, That any person owning
or residing on land may, under the provisions of this act, enter other land lying
contiguous to his or her said land, which shall not, with the land so already
owned and occupied, exceed in the aggregate one hundred and sixty acres.

This photograph
taken in 1904 shows
a man standing in
front of the Daniel
Freeman homestead
in Gage County,
Nebraska, the first
homestead claim
under the 1862
Homestead Act.

63