FRONTIERSPIECE 



gon Trail, which bore northwesterly, through sage- 

 brush and bunchgrass, traversing desert, prairie, forest 

 and mountain, mainly through Oregon to the Pacific. 

 By 1840 this trail was established, and from that time 

 on it became a much traveled route for that restless 

 population which began its large migrations in 1843. 



This wagon train of one hundred and ten ox- 

 drawn white-covered prairie schooners crossed the 

 Missouri River with the first gallant one thousand Ore- 

 gon pioneers and entered the treacherous wilderness 

 under the leadership of Dr. Marcus Whitman. New 

 Englanders formed a small portion of the contingent, 

 some having trekked clear from the rock-bound coast 

 of Maine and Massachusetts. Then others followed. 



Through gulch and gully, rain and snow, mud and 

 bog, up steep grades and down sharp defiles through 

 hostile Indian tribes and attacked by terrible cholera; 

 through trackless deserts and down the perilously roar- 

 ing, raging rivers; over no well-defined trails they 

 passed, eventually to endure dreariness beyond concep- 

 tion through isolation and the many hardships in set- 

 tlement, "to which the history of mankind has few 

 parallels." 



Only the rocks along that trail, could they speak, 

 could complete a history of The Great American Trek 

 — but a paragraph of a few gathered fragments will 

 serve to show the tragedy of the old emigrant road. 

 As the caravans of Tripoli waited months to augment 

 their numerical strength against the fierce Touareg 

 buccaneers of the desert wastes of the Sahara before 

 starting on their way to the great trade marts of the 

 Sudan, so these pioneers united their forces at the 

 starting point of their long trail for protection against 

 the hostile Amerinds of the great plains. 



xxvii 



