Curious! 52 Ancestors in a Year

2022--Curious   52 Ancestors in a Year

John Lloyd  (1796-1877)

John was born in Caswell County, North Caroline and died in Whitman County, Washington

Once of my biggest curiosities in family history is “why did my 4th Great grandfather John Lloyd take his family to Oregon in 1845?

John owned land in Clay County, Missouri moving there in 1824 from Caswell County, North Carolina. His father Thomas, owned land in Grainger County, Tennessee.

John wrote to his brother, Robert, who lived near Rutledge in Grainger County, Tennessee a letter on 10 June 1844 from Clay County, Missouri:   

I will try to say something about the times and seasons   we had quite a moderate winter the fore part of the spring was very good since that time the weather has been very wet and sometimes so therez a great deal of corn to plant yet I had the good luck to get my corn planted before the wet weather commenced and have it plowed over the second time with the exception of about half a days plowing   there is at thiz time a bad prospect for corn and hemp wheat and oats looks well provision is plenty and money very scarce I have eight or nine thousand pounds of tobacco on hand at this time which will not bring more than two dollars per hundred if that much at this time  I am trying  to raise for  _____ thousand this season  I have as handsone a place as in Clay County

I have built a large frame barn  calculated for a grain barn but is using it as a tobaco barn at this time  the floor when put in will be twenty nine by twenty nine feet and half square as I have a one hundred and twenty or one hundred thirty acres of land under fence but more than one one third of the ground under fence is in pasture   we have a fine grass county  there is vast quantityes of people moveing from Missouri to Oregon and Texas but numbers coming to fill the places   So they are not missed   

He wrote again to Robert on 25 March 1847: 

We was 6 months and 3 days from the time we left our old home untill we got to linton on the Wallumette___ river we had no bad luck more than is common for Oregon imegrants  we lost 18 head of cattle out of 37 and one horse  we found the road ____able (passable) good nataral one but many bad places _____ wagons to travel and had to drive teams at times   neither of my wagons got  turned over on the trip 

In order to take his family on the Oregon trail and move west, John had to outfit 2 wagons with supplies (flour, bacon, sugar, coffee, etc) along with oxen to pull 2 wagons.  He took 37 head of cattle and horses.  And he took his family consisting of his wife Nancy, and 9 children.  Wagon trains had rules for how much bacon, flour, sugar were to be carried per person.  Since cattle were taken on the trail, there were recommendations of the number of riders per head of cattle taken.  There were also rules as to the amount of ammunition per person/gun.  So it wasn’t cheap to take 2 wagons  & family on the trail.

It is evident from his letter that John had property and crops as well as nice buildings in Missouri.  One daughter, Jane had married George Murphy and she & her family stayed behind; never to see her mother or father again.  

Was it free land in Oregon Territory?  Oregon wasn’t a state yet and the Oregon donation land claim Act of 1850 gave land to eligible white men (or partial Native Americans mixed with white) who had arrived before 1850.

Was it political?  Was it religious?  Was it economic reasons?  To learn more, a study of Missouri and United States history is required.  I have read quite a bit; but still can’t answer the question?  I remain curious!

What do you think?