“However mean your life is, meet it and live it: do not shun it and call it hard names. Cultivate poverty
like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or
friends. Things do not change, we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.
~Henry David Thoreau
It took approximately 300 years from 1500 to 1800 for the European population to extend from the East Coast of America to the Mississippi River. Popular wisdom at the beginning of the 19th century hypothesized it would take at least another 300 years, or most likely longer, to fill the area between the Mississippi and the Pacific coast.
But that was not to be the case.
Beginning with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the US government acquired domain over the land to the west of the Mississippi through war, treaty and purchase. In addition, the discovery of gold in California and the promise of fertile land lured an estimated 300,000 to the Pacific Coast prior to 1860. Moreover, in the midst of the Civil War, Congress enacted the Homestead Act entitling any head of family, anyone over the age of 21, or any veteran of military service to 160 acres of land. With the end of the war, many took advantage of the offer filling the westward trails with wagon trains loaded with all their worldly possessions.
Although America’s frontier had been extended to the Pacific coast before the century had ended, simply completing the journey didn’t necessarily guarantee a comfortable life. Indeed, tens of thousands of settlers lived hand-to-mouth for years and untold more perished from starvation and disease. Historical accounts record that many of the early sojourners, if given a second chance, would not have attempted to grab for more than their fair share.
Vestiges of dreams dashed, Trinidad, CA
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