In
April, 1847, Brigham Young had taken his first overland party of
Mormons to the promised land of Deseret. Where they had crossed the
Missouri, a ferry was running prosperously in 1849 (left). Many
of the emigrants from the northern states crossed by it from Kanesville
to what is now Omaha, Nebraska, and thereafter converged on the Platte.
At Kanesville (below), the
Mormons drove a thriving trade in guidebooks: crudely printed leaves
sewn together which promised "good water here—wood to the left—good
grass." All of it might have been true the previous year.
