Westward Railroad Connections—
After leaving the ship Westmoreland at the city port of Philadelphia, the eight day journey by railroad began. The Nicolai Sorensen family changed trains at least five times, in crossing the eastern portion of the United States. Changes had to be made at Baltimore, Wheeling, Cincinnati, Chicago and at Rock Island before ariving at Iowa City, Iowa. Here they picked up the wagon and oxen for the long treck across the Great Plains, and up towards the Rocky Mountains.
At the time there were no through trains. Each railroad ran from just "from here to there," on a segment of line they owned. If you wanted to go further, you would need to change to another railroad and their cars. Also please note that this modern map shows Wheeling, in the state of West Virginia, but in 1857, prior to the Civil War, there was only one Virginia.
It was some 300 miles to Florence, Nebraska, south and west of Iowa City, the starting point. It was during this time that the emigrants got to meet and get used to the ox-teams they would use to cross the Great Plains, and Rocky Mountains. Omaha, Council Bluffs, Winter Quarters and Florance are all, more or less the same place. Just on different sides of the Missouri River.
The transcontinental railroad and major through rail carriers were still just a dream some twelve years distant, at the time the Nicolai Sorensen family crossed this portion of America. Many of the Sorensen boys' worked on the laying of the grade from Weber Canyon to Promontory Summit. Later they would work on the narrow gauge Utah Northern Railroad from Brigham City, Utah to Battle Creek, north of Preston, Idaho.
Isaac Sorensen gives us the following from his journal—
And we now stepped into the railroad cars to cross the continent towards the west. We were some eight days on the railroad, being much tired when we arrived at the City of Iowa, where we received our outfit for crossing the plains. A greater trial than we had experienced before on our journey was now on hand. We were presented with two yoke of oxen to each wagon that never before had been yoked. They had their tails tied together and one of ours had broken his tail trying to get loose. We had a glorious time with our new team, we didn’t know woa from gee, and the oxen knew less than we did, however we arrived at camp in the evening with less damage than could have been expected.
Father had one wagon small size, on which he had one yoke of broke oxen, them I drove the first day or two, so unbroke was the oxen, that our Captain dare not permit us to unyoke them at night, and we traveled 300 miles the oxen carrying the yoke night and day. Then they was released. It might be supposed by the reader that changing from a life like we had been used to before leaving our native country, changing it to that of a company on the plains, might cause serious feelings, the oxen wild, the men not used to driving them, no houses to go into after a days labor, fires to make and supper to cook, with very often poor wood and but little of it. But this was hardly even thought of, we had a mark in view and for that we sought the land of Zion, where prophets dwelt and where God would instruct his saints and learn them of his ways. This hope inspired us and the troubles and trials of the journey seemed lighter than they might have been otherwise, and thus we reached Florence and there we stopped for a few days fitting out for the journey across the plains.(1)
- Isaac Sorensen, The History of Isaac Sorensen, Unpublished journal manuscript. Transcribed to typescript by Rodney J. Sorensen, 3-4 July 1987.
