Research Bibliography

Primary Sources

• Burton Family Collection, Coll. 112, Oregon Historical Society Research Library, 1200 SW Park Avenue, Portland, OR 97205. Papers, 1879–1925 (1 box). The Burton family arrived in Oregon in 1844; the collection includes a description of an 1881 voyage from Portland to San Francisco and by rail to Utah, along with family letters, documents, and miscellaneous materials.

  Relevance: framing device — evidence of how an 1840s arrival remained a living, documented identity for the family across the next 35–80 years, even though the surviving papers postdate the crossing itself.

• Looney, Jesse. Letter, October 27, 1843. Typed copy, Oregon Historical Society. Written from Waiilatpu (Whitman Mission) to John C. Bond, advising him on preparations for crossing the plains.

  Relevance: real-time trail-preparation advice, written in the same year as the Great Migration.

• Applegate, Jesse. “A Day with the Cow Column in 1843.” Read before the Oregon Pioneer Association, 1876. First published in Overland Monthly, Vol. 1 (1868); reprinted in Oregon Historical Quarterly, Vol. 1 (1900); republished by Ye Galleon Press, 1990.

  Relevance: leadership and organization under pressure; also the source for the drowning of Applegate's son and nephew on the Columbia River.

• Burnett, Peter H. “Letters of Peter H. Burnett.” Oregon Historical Society Quarterly, Vol. III, pp. 398–426.

  Relevance: leadership perspective — Burnett was elected captain of part of the 1843 wagon train before William Martin took over.

• Tetherow, Solomon. “The Organizational Journal of an Emigrant Train of 1845, Captained by Solomon Tetherow.” Eugene, OR: Lane County Pioneer-Historical Society, 1960.

  Relevance: a captain's day-to-day operational record from the following emigration year.

• Holmes, Kenneth L., ed. Covered Wagon Women: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840–1849, Vol. 1. Reprint, University of Nebraska Press.

  Relevance: the single best-organized anthology for this exact decade — includes Tamsen Donner, Virginia Reed, Patty Sessions, and Rachel Fisher, footnoted to archival sources throughout. Best source for the “loss as expected, not exceptional” theme.

Secondary / Context Sources

• “Jesse Applegate (1811–1888).” The Oregon Encyclopedia, Oregon Historical Society & Portland State University.

  Relevance: biographical detail on the Cow Column drownings, the founding of the Applegate Trail, and Applegate's subsequent civic and political life.

• “Jesse Applegate.” Wikipedia.

  Relevance: corroborating biographical and chronological detail.

• “A Day with the Cow Column in 1843.” Wikipedia.

  Relevance: publication history of the essay.

• Hupp, Theresa. “Jesse Applegate and the Great Migration of 1843.” Theresa Hupp, Author (blog), May 2013.

  Relevance: popular-history account with useful narrative framing; author of a novel set in the 1847 Oregon Trail migration.

• “The Wagon Train of 1843 — Its Dual Significance.” Oregon Historical Quarterly, Vol. 44. Available via Wikisource.

  Relevance: scholarly account of the 1843 migration's organization and its split into “cow column” and “light column.”

• “Donation Land Claim Act.” Wikipedia; and Robbins, William G. “Oregon Donation Land Act.” The Oregon Encyclopedia.

  Relevance: legislative detail on the 1850 act converting arrival into legal landownership.

• “Donation Land Claim Act, spur to American settlement of Oregon Territory, takes effect on September 27, 1850.” HistoryLink.org, 2010.

• “The US government took the land of Oregon's native people 170 years ago this week.” Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB), September 2020.

  Relevance: context on the act's dispossession of Native land — necessary counterweight to any “transformation” narrative built around the Donation Land Claim Act.

• Coleman, Kenneth R. “‘We'll All Start at Even.’” Oregon Historical Quarterly, Vol. 120, No. 4 (Winter 2019), pp. 414–415.

  Relevance: scholarly analysis of the Donation Land Claim Act's role in Oregon's transformation into U.S. territory.