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The 'Peoria Party', early trail-blazers on the Oregon Trail...
The 'Peoria Party', early trail-blazers on the Oregon Trail...
Item # 683704
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November 23, 1839
NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER, Washington, D.C., Nov. 23, 1839
* Peoria Party
* Oregon Country
* American pioneers
The front page begins with a legal-focused report concerning: "The Case of the Amistad", made famous by the 1997 Stephen Spielberg movie of the same name.
But more intriguing is a front page article: "Emigration West" which reports on travelers heading west from 10 years before the California gold rush. Irt notes in part: "The tide the past season has been setting toward the West stronger than ever...The national road has the whole season been literally blocked up with 'movers', wagons...people enough have changed homes from the East to the Weset in 1839 to add another state to the national constellation...Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin have received a large portion of the 'new comers'...a few years before the swelling wave will break over the Rocky Mountains & the quiet vales of the Columbia will seem with a people whose progenitors dwelt in rugged New England...".
But by far the most notable report consumes nearly 3 1/2 columns on page 2, which is a detailed travelogue of what is famously known as the "Peoria Party". This was a group of men from Peoria in Illinois, who set out about May 1, 1839 with the intention to colonize the Oregon Country on behalf of the United States and drive out the English fur trading companies operating there. The men of the Peoria Party were among the first pioneers to blaze the Oregon Trail. Photos show only portions of the full article.
Great to have this report in a newspaper from the nation's capital, this title being the mouthpiece of the federal government.
Four pages, very nice condition.
Four pages, very nice condition.
Category: Pre-Civil War
No Longer Available
