pleasingly dramatic, but oftentimes tragic and terrible. We speak
of the Oregon Trail, but it means little to us today; nor will
any mere generalities ever make it mean much to us. But what did
it mean to the men and women of that day? What and who were those
men and women? What did it mean to take the Overland Trail in the
great adventure of abandoning forever the known and the safe and
setting out for Oregon or California at a time when everything in
the far West was new and unknown? How did those good folk travel?
Why and whither did they travel?

There is a book done by C. F. McGlashan, a resident of Truckee,
California, known as "The History of the Donner Party," holding a
great deal of actual history. McGlashan, living close to Donner
Lake, wrote in 1879, describing scenes with which he was
perfectly familiar, and recounting facts which he had from direct
association with participants in the ill-fated Donner Party. He
chronicles events which happened in 1846--a date before the
discovery of gold in California. The Donner Party was one of the
typical American caravans of homeseekers who started for the
Pacific Slope with no other purpose than that of founding homes
there, and with no expectation of sudden wealth to be gained in
the mines. I desire therefore to quote largely from the pages of
this book, believing that, in this fashion, we shall come upon
history of a fundamental sort, which shall make us acquainted
with the men and women of that day, with the purposes and the
ambitions which animated them, and with the hardships which they
encountered.

"The States along the Mississippi were but sparsely settled in
1846, yet the fame of the fruitfulness, the healthfulness, and