THE COVERED WAGON

In the early 1840's thousands of emigrants came out West via wagon train on the Oregon Trail seeking rich farmland and a better way of life. Others came for the gold and the riches it could bring. THE WIND BLEW HIM WEST is a true story of my pioneer father, David M. Sutton born in New Jersey in 1842, who was shipped west on the Oregon Trail by his Quaker father at the beginning of the Civil War. His father Jacob, with his abhorrence of war, sent his son west to keep him out of it. At the tender age of twenty, young David left for Omaha, Nebraska where he met wagon master Captain Leroy Crawford and crossed the plains in oxen-driven covered wagons in 1862. The Oregon Trail began on the banks of the Missouri River in Independence, Missouri (the jumping-off point) and ended on the banks of the Willamette River at Oregon City, Oregon. The Oregon Trail has been called "The Trail That Won the West."