Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/283

Rh Booneville, Missouri. Here he fell in with Col. Nathan Ford, a local politician of some considerable reputation in that locality, and a man who was very much interested in Oregon. Colonel Ford was just about to start for Oregon with a few others, and as a young man was considered a valuable addition to the party, Mr. Hinman was invited to join and decided to do so.

The immigration of 1844 followed, in the main, the trail which has been described in a former number of the. It consisted of several parties which traveled separately on account of the greater convenience in pasturing the stock in small groups rather than large. The first part of the journey was made with difficulty on account of the rains and the soft prairie soil, but after the Platte River was reached the trail was comparatively easy. To the present generation this journey seems unprecedented in the history of emigration, but the old pioneers speak of it in a matter of fact way. Mr. Hinman regards it as a remarkably easy undertaking on the whole, with nothing that could be called hardship, except the tediousness of the journey that arose from the time consumed. The Ford party had no encounter with hostile Indians, and only one horse was stolen on the whole journey. No one in the party considered himself a hero, or realized that he was to become a part of a movement which would determine the future of the Northwest. The immigrants knew considerable about the country, principally from the letters which Peter Burnett had written to the local papers of Missouri. They knew also of the discussion in congress, and they confidently expected the passage of the bill then before congress granting to each settler six hundred and forty acres of land. No one in the party seems to have doubted that the United States possessed a good title to the