Of the party, the following named persons turned back on the Platte: Nicholas Biddle, Alexander Francis, F. Lugur, John Loughborough and Jackson Moore.
Rather unfortunately the names of the women and children in the Great Immigration of 1843 were not recorded, a form of literary discrimination rather prevalent in the nineteenth century and in a lesser degree still with us 139 years later. The actual number of men in this very considerable wagon train who made it on to the Willamette Valley was 268, a bit short of the 1000 figure so often quoted in general histories of the Pacific Northwest.
It was estimated by James Willis Nesmith, one of the more prominent members of the Great Immigration of 1843, that there were about 50 French Canadians and retired Hudson's Bay Company employees in Oregon in 1843, a group basically Catholic in religous preference. There was also a small group made up of U.S. citizens, a few rough and ready trappers who were choosing to settle down as the beaver population became pretty well trapped out. This U.S. group included a goodly number of Protestant missionaries. The total of these U.S. settlers or persons with U.S. sympathies was estimated by Nesmith at 157 persons, which total would include some women and children. Nesmith added up these various groups and came up with a total of 424 males aged 16 or above, which total included the 268 men in the Great Immigration of 1843. Nesmith states further that in 1843 there were no settlers between the Missouri border and the Cascade Mountains. There were a number of British and U.S. trappers intent on decimating the beaver population. They were very successful in this endeavor but it was rather hard on the industrious dam building beavers.
Although Johnson and Winter started from Missouri with the main wagon train such a large train proved to be unwieldly and some men in the train broke off from the main body and traveled by themselves, including our authors, Overton Johnson and William H. Winter.
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