Don Wildman

The story happens in 1846, which is in the earlier half of the Great Western Migration, which actually goes back to the 1700s, of course, but ramps up in the 1840s and lasts then until the 1880s.

At this point, what were people like those in the Donner Party expecting to gain from their new lives out West?

And were they cognizant of the danger at hand?

Boy, it speaks to the lack of hygiene in those days.

The fact that back east, you had terrible water systems and terrible sewage systems, if they existed at all.

And it was creating these terrible plagues in the cities especially, but all over the place.

And we don't talk about that as much as we talk about economic distress as being the prompter for so much.

But really, that was what was going on.

And California figures heavily into this conversation, into this whole tale, really, because there's a pivotal moment we'll get to in a moment.

I'm really fascinated by the fact that there were guidebooks that were published for these settlers and such a sort of popular information was available to people.

I guess they had been hearing about it through magazines and so forth.

I mean, that's how they'd order these pamphlets.

I just I'm interested in that kind of nuts and bolts of life.

We're part of a series of podcasts here on the frontier in general, and we, of course, talked about the Oregon Trail.

That figures centrally into this, but there are also many other trails as well.

And that's the kind of thing they were hearing about and reading about and interested in.

But in general, in summary, these folks were basically looking for a way to a better life.

free or very cheap land and general opportunity for them and their younger ones.

Let's introduce some of the main characters in the story.

But we should first say that this is a larger group of travelers than most folks.