I have my 3x great grandmas diary and she traveled with her parents to California from Magnolia, Illinois during the California gold rush when she 9 years old. I've been looking for wagon trails from Illinois and can't find anything from that starting place. 'm also looking for a rough estimate for how long the journey from Illinois would take.
A couple random follow up questions:
Her mother died during this journey, what would they of done with the body?
Would they most likely be in a wagon train or did a lot travel solo?
If anyone has any helpful links I would greatly appreciate it.
Thank you for any help you provide!
I suggest you read "the Prairie Traveler" by Captain Randolph B. Marcy. It was a guide written for settlers to the American West in 1859. In it he details routes, livestock preferences, wagon train set ups and countless other things. While dry in places it is very thorough.
Can I ask for some clarification here - do you have an exact date, and are you certain she travelled overland? For many Americans, even those in the mid west, it was much quicker, more comfortable and safer to travel east to the nearest railhead, take a train to the east coast, take ship to Panama or Nicaragua, travel overland across the central American isthmus, and then a second ship north to California than it was to risk the overland journey. I appreciate that the railways did not even get to Chicago until 1853, but that is certainly how a significant proportion of the miners racing to take part in the gold rush chose to travel, and after the mid 1850s it would have been the choice of the majority who could have afforded it.