Ancestry Magazine

The genealogist who overlooks the effect that mass western migration might have had on family history risks ignoring potentially invaluable information. In 1790, 97 percent of all Americans lived on the East Coast; by 1910, that number had dropped to 41 percent. Between 1841 and 1866 alone, 350,000 people were estimated to have migrated west (other estimates say 500,000). Even if no one from your immediate family was ever thought to have left the East Coast home, it’s almost certain that someone you’re related to had a western connection.

Michener consulted thirty-six journals; Merril J. Mattes, author of Platte River Road Narratives: A Descriptive Bibliography of Travel Over the Great Central Overland Route to Oregon, California, Utah, Colorado, Montana and Other Western States and Territories, 1812–1866, evaluated more than two thousand pioneer accounts. Each one has the potential to open up another chapter in the lives of your ancestors.

The result—a vital record that genealogists of this family are not likely to get from any other source. You may find other gems this way, too.

I learned this by experience. While tracing the descendants of all five daughters of my great-great-great-great-grandfather Abraham Vanderpool, a small clue in a county history—A History of Watauga County, North Carolina—ment-ioned that “By his second wife (Betsy Vanderpool) Daniel Lewis had Jonathan, who went to California in 1849” and that “Jonathan Lewis left Zionville [North Carolina] for California in 1849, settled in Fresno and got rich. He went from Watauga County, alone, joining a party in Missouri.” Additional research shows Jonathan Lewis was born in July 1831 in North Carolina and died 29 November 1900 in Madera County, California. My sleuthing turned to California where I discovered additional family history.

From the Fresno (California) Republican newspaper 31 October 1885, the following specks of gold were panned:

“A box of apples grown by Jonathan Lewis, near Fresno Flats, were on exhibition at the Grand Central this week, and attracted the attention of many strangers who generally have the im pression that really fine apples cannot be grown in this portion of California. There were three varieties in the box—Baldwin, Winesap and Fall Pippin—the dark red, the green and yellow colors of the different varieties making a beautiful contrast.”

A 1937 local history booklet Manzanita [California] District, provided more genealogical gems.

“Soon after Hills Speckerman made settlement, Jonathan Lewis took up a very fertile spot on the creek which now bears his name. This ranch has since been known as the Chew Ranch, and is now owned by Ole Goth. Lewis was a native of North Carolina who had traveled across the plains by covered wagon, also to make his fortune in the mines. He too, like Speckerman, determined to turn his interest to farming and stock raising. The ways of the woods had been bred into Lewis, his great-grandfather belonged to one of the first settlers in Virginia who had migrated to North Carolina at an early date.

“Lewis was a very industrious man and intelligent also. His sisters in North Carolina sent him many apple trees from the old plantation. He had considerable knowledge of horticulture, so soon he had a very profitable orchard producing fine apples, which he often hauled to Fresno and sold at a big price. Like Speckerman, Lewis took an Indian wife of a nearby tribe known as the Fresno Tribe.”

Compiled pioneer accounts, journals, and stories can provide you with first-person information to help you better appreciate your ancestors’ lifestyles. In Fred Lockley’s Conversations with Bullwhackers, Muleskinners, Pioneers, Prospectors, ‘49ers, Indian Fighters, Trappers, Ex-Barkeepers, Authors, Preachers, Poets & Near Poets, & All Sorts & Conditions of Men comes a 1922 interview with William T. Toney, age ninety-five, who traveled across the plains when he was only twenty-two. Toney tells the story of Henderson Luelling whom eve ryone thought was some kind of fool for bringing his traveling nursery across the Plains. Luelling, says Toney, built two long, narrow boxes that fit into the bed of his wagon, filled each with charcoal, manure, and earth and planted apples, pears, plums, cherries, quinces, grapes, and other fruits in them. Luelling watered his plants night and morning. In spite of everyone’s advice that he would never get them across the Plains, Luelling got the plants and trees to The Dalles, Oregon, where he took them out of their boxes, wrapped them carefully, and took them to the Columbia River to start a nursery. Ultimately Luelling’s fruit trees became the parent stock of most of the orchards in Oregon’s Willamette Valley.

Some of the stories might also relate directly to your family history. In Lockley’s Conversations with Pioneer Women is a 1928 interview with Elizabeth Shepard Hollgrieve, a sister of the woman who married my ancestor, Francis Vanderpool. Hollgrieve provides specifics about when and where her sister was married—details that my family did not previously know. She said, “My sister, while we wintered at The Dalles in 1852, worked for a family at Cascade Falls, Washington. On 24 January 1853, she married Francis M. Vanderpool. They were married at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Bush, the man father had worked for helping to build the boat. . . . My sister and her husband took up a place later known as the Bevins place. It joined my father’s place. The Stevenson Cemetery is now located on the Vanderpool place.”

There is also a chance that pioneer accounts will do nothing to progress your family history research. In this case, you might want to read them just for fun. For example, when Mary Eliza Buxton, who was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1855, was interviewed in 1930, she noted that, “No, I have never been married and neither has my sister, Nancy. Nancy says the reason she was never married is the men that s he wanted she couldn’t get and the ones she could get, the devil wouldn’t have, so she stayed single.”