he also married the daughter of a very powerful senator thomas hart benton. it is that connection, benten, benton helped his son-in-law get this job. when will came threw he was 30 years old. pretty young man to lead a sizeable expedition. this expedition consisted of 104 horses and mules and cattle they were bring eight long to feed and 25 men including kid carson and thomas fitzpatrick and charles price. the primary reason of mapping this oregon trail and providing the detail it takes to get out here on a wagon was to populate washington and oregon so the population would be such that we would not have a military conflict with the british. they were pretty well encamped here with the hudson bay company. there were designs by the british to have this territory. congress was interested in claiming this part of the northwest. in the november of 1843, after he had done his mission here, accomplished his work, he makes a decision not to stay there not to stay there for the winter but makes a decision to move south. they started on november 25 1843. they came sou

he also married the daughter of a very powerful senator, thomas hart benton. it is that connection -- benton helped his son-in-law get this job on these expeditions. when he came through here, december of 1843, he was 33 years old. a pretty young man to lead a sizable expedition. so he had a lot of responsibility. the expedition consisted of 104 horses and mules, cattle that they brought along, 25 men, including kit carson and thomas fitzpatrick and charles preuss, who was a photographer. -- the cartographer. the purpose was to populate -- the purpose of providing the detail it takes to get out here on a wagon was to populate oregon and washington so that the population would be such that we would not have a military conflict with the british. they were pretty well encamped here with the hudson bay company. there were designs by the british to have this territory. but congress was very interested in claiming this part of the northwest. in november of 1843, after he had done his mission here, accomplished his work, he was sitting and made the decision not to st