This letter was written in 1849 by a forty-niner in St. Louis, one William H. Morse, to a friend back home in New England. He’s been in St. Louis for three weeks, the last stop on the frontier, as he prepares to embark on a journey westward on the overland trail, making his way to California in search of gold. He describes his 35 day trip thus far, from an unnamed town in the northeast, south