One Continual Stream

One Continual Stream. . "One continual stream of honest looking open harted people going west" - James Cayman, mountain man, captured this sentiment in his diary as he watched pioneers heading west in 1846. , Between 1841 and 1869 nearly 300,000 farmers, merchants, miners and adventurers bid farewell to friends and relatives before beginning the daunting 2,000-mile Oregon/California Trail to the fertile farmland of Oregon's Willamette Valley or to California's warmth - and even gold. Still others were traveling to Utah to join the new Mormon settlements in the Salt Lake Valley, Utah., From Sea to Shining Sea....Manifest Destiny , Many in the United States believed that it was the obligation of Americans to expand the young country from sea to sea. , Allure of the West , An eagerness to see the West began when the Lewis and Clark Expedition to the Pacific Northwest (1804-1806) returned with tantalizing tales of fertile land, bountiful water, and open spaces. Later, fur trappers, traders, mountain men, and explorers returning from the West confirming the tales. , Naturally, these accounts caught the attention of farmers and business people eking out livelihoods and suffering from the economic Panic of 1837 and, later, the Civil War. With little awareness of the trials and tribulations that lay ahead, thousands of brave men, women, and children, abandoned all they knew and headed westward on the Oregon/California Trail. Hand-pulled carts and small covered wagons drawn by horses or oxen transported the emigrants' furniture, supplies, food, and family treasures. Many would never see their relatives again, and many would die before completing their great journey.