He then returned to Missouri about 1830, settled in Clay County, married a German-American woman and raised a family of boys.
In 1843, Marcus Whitman made his famous trip from Oregon to the national capital and excited the whole country by his stories of the great possible future of the extreme Northwest and the duty of the Government to insist upon its claim to dominion over the western coast from the Mexican settlement in California up to the Russian possessions in the far north.
Everything got into politics then, even more than now, and the Democratic party, which until then had been the most aggressive in extending the national bounds, took up the cry of "Fifty-four Forty or Fight", to win what they knew would be a close contest for President in 1844.
This meant the taking possession of the whole thousand miles or more of coast by settlement and driving the English out by threats or force.
As I have indicated before, the people of St. Louis and Missouri had become deeply interested in the extreme west through their trading interests, and as the retired voyager was one of the very few who knew about the western coast and had sufficient fitness for leadership he was encouraged by his friends to make up a party and cross the plains to the new Oregon.
This was in the winter of 1843-4 and early in the spring, he, with four other families and three single men, set out with a large outfit of wagons and live stock over what is now known as the "Old Oregon Trail."
The names of this company were as follows:
George Bush, his wife and sons (Wm. Owen, Joseph, R. B., Sanford—now living—and Jackson);
Col. M. T. Simmons, wife and seven children;
David Kindred, wife and one son;