HISTORY OF THE BARLOW ROAD.
From "Recollections of Seventy Years," by William Barlow.
Quite a remarkable coincidence in name and purpose is evident from the facts that Dr. Samuel K. Barlow of Massachusetts was the first man to propose a transcontinental railroad across the Rocky Mountains, and that Samuel K. Barlow of Kentucky, a generation later, proposed and executed the first wagon road over the Cascade Mountains, thus completing the circuit of one third of the land circumference of the globe. The life action of the latter fully realized the thought of the former.
Samuel Kimbrough Barlow was of Scotch descent and was imbued with the spirit of that type of men who fear not. In 1844 he worked with might and main to elect the great Kentuckian, whom the nation failed to honor. Failure with Mr. Barlow was not dispair, but renewed and tactful ardor. He was a whole emergency corps in himself. The nation failed to elect Clay, so Mr. Barlow declared his determination to go where he could not feel the force of the failure.
Illinois became the stepping stone to the final goal—Oregon. S. K. Barlow was captain of one of the large immigration companies of 1845. Five thousand men, women, and children moved out of Independence, Missouri, westward bound, armed with the spirit of the name of the lonely little town left behind. There were about one thousand wagons, all under the leadership of Dr. William Welch. But independence soon prevailed and each little company became a law unto itself. At Fort
