Westward Movement

THE EXPANSION OF THE AMERICAN WEST
Key Dates
1804 - Under order of President Thomas Jefferson, the Lewis and Clark Expedition depart from St.Louis, Mo., on May 14, to chart a course to the Pacific Ocean.
1841 - First emigrant wagon train for California. Forty-seven people leave Independence, Mo., on May 1, and reach California on November 4.
1842 - Settlement of Oregon begins via the Oregon Trail.
1847 - After violent clashes with settlers over polygamy, Mormons leave Nauvoo, Ill., and head for the West under Brigham Young. They eventually settle at Salt Lake City, Utah.
1848 - Gold discovered January 24 in California. In February, Mexico ceded claims to Texas, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and portions of Colorado. U.S. pays Mexico $15 million.
1849 - 80,000 prospectors emigrate to California to follow the gold boom.
1859 - First commercially productive oil well drilled near Titusville, Pa. by Edwin Drake on August 27; led to expansion of oil fields in the southwest territories.
1861 - First transcontinental telegraph line completed October 24.
1862 - Homestead Act was approved on May 20, grants free family farms to settlers.
1867 - The Grange was organized December 4 to protect farmers interests.
1869 - Transcontinental railroad completed; golden spike driven at Promontory, Utah, May 10, marking the junction of Central Pacific and Union Pacific railways.

For thousands of men and women fleeing the opression of slavery, the Underground Railroad became their lifeline, their passage to freedom. Known alternatively as the Freedom Line, the Lightning Train, the Freedom Train, Mysterious Tracks, or the Trackless Train, the Underground Railroad wasn't a system of rails or trains but a loose organization of freed slaves and abolitionists -people- who harbored fugitives often at great peril to themselves. The federal Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 made assisting of fugitives a crime, and anti-abolitionist sentiment made life unsafe for freed blacks and white sympathizers alike. The entire movement was shrouded in mystery, but the place of its birth has been alternately placed in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Even the origin of the term "Underground Railroad" is much disputed. Some sources indicate that as slave catchers came north, their quarry seemed to disappear underground and the term "Underground Railroad" was born.

Alter, J. LUKE AND THE VAN ZANDT COUNTY WAR.
A fourteen-year-old girl relates how Van Zandt County withdrew from Texas after the Civil War.

Auch, M. JOURNEY TO NOWHERE.
In 1815, while traveling by covered wagon to settle in the wilderness of western New York, eleven-year-old Mem experiences a flood and separation from her family.

Baker, B. THE SPIRIT IS WILLING.
Carrie rebels against the restrictions of the town and creates some excitement when she holds a seance and sneaks into the saloon. Set in Arizona during the 1880's...............