1844. The Stevens-Murphy company left Missouri to be the first wagons into California through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Mostly Irish Catholics, the party sought religious freedom and education in the mission-dominated land. When a heavy snowstorm hits in October, the party separates in three directions. Now young Mary Sullivan, newlywed Sarah Montgomery, widowed Ellen Murphy, and her pregnant sister-in-law Maolisa each risks losing those they loved....

Cal Vallian knew the best way to stay out of trouble was to mind his own business. Then he stopped for a cup of coffee at a stranger's campfire and found himself guiding a family of greenhorns across the prairie-fighting a pack of rustlers on one hand and some mighty unpredictable indians on the other!

A survivor of the Donner Party excursion recounts her life as a teenager escaping an abusive family, taking the journey with the Donner family and enduring a tragic winter in the Sierras.

With the Civil War ended and Reconstruction begun, fifteen-year-old Billy resolves to make the dangerous and challenging journey West in search of real fortune--his true father.

Saga of the first wagon train west toward Oregon begins in Independence, Missouri, and ends when the five hundred brave pioneers reach the great plains of Nebraska. Centers on "Whip" Holt, the ruggedly quiet leader of the caravan and Cathy van Ayl, who leaves her family behind in Missouri to travel with Whip Holt's train and perhaps win his heart.

An account of several families and individuals making the long and often dangerous trek across the United States from Missouri to the West Coast in the 1800s.