Lavinia Honeyman Porter, 1836-1910, was born in West Virginia in 1836 and lived the average early American life until several bad business decisions drove them to poverty. As they reached destitution with no foreseeable way of recovering, Lavinia and her husband saw only one remaining option: travel to the far West in search of a new life and fortune.

It was a risky decision, not only because of the great distance across wild, savage lands, but because there was no guarantee that anything good awaited them on the other side. To complicate things even more, Lavinia’s husband was not like the other rough, road-weary pioneers. He was a sophisticated, professional man who had no experience in the hard life of travel, much less in leading an ox team through hostile Native American lands and wagon trains riddled with disease, hunger, and life-threatening storms.

However, with little choice, in 1859, 23-year-old Lavinia and her young family set out on the long journey west with three yokes of oxen and a covered wagon. They brought what they could with them to start their new lives.

While the journey was long and brutal, Lavinia found time to keep a daily journal of the entire adventure. Later in life, upon the urging of her children and grandchildren, she wrote this book to share her overland journey in great detail with anyone who wanted to learn what it was like for those old pioneers. They risked everything for a new land and a new start, and many died on the way, but for many who made it, the risk was well worth the reward.