WEBER COUNTY TO 1847
1:.846 was indeed a "year of decision" as described by Ogdenborn historian Bernard DeVoto. The Smithsonian Institution was founded by Congress and Francis Parkman, a twenty-three-year-old Harvard student, began to travel west on the Oregon Trail and write his monumental history of the westward movement. More than 2,700 travelers journeyed west on the Oregon and California trails that year. John A. Roebling revolutionized bridge engineering by using twisted wire cables to support a suspension bridge over the Monongahela River in Pennsylvania. Violence was widespread in the country and included the Mormons being driven from their settlements in Illinois westward into Iowa, where they established temporary settlements at places like Mount Pisgah and Garden Grove as well as along the Missouri River at Council Bluffs. The first recorded baseball game was played at Elysian Field in Hoboken, New Jersey, between the New York Nine and the Knickerbockers. The New York Nine won 23-1. In 1846 James K. Polk was nearly halfway through his only term as president of the United States, and he was pushing for expansion 1
