Which Pioneer Are You?

This pioneer, after being widowed in England, converted to Mormonism and then married again. She and her husband planned to go to America and then to Utah with their five children. Unfortunately her husband died. Her rich family (inventors of the grandfather clock) begged her not to go. She sailed anyway. When she got to America, she bought a handcart and WALKED herself and her children to Utah.

The mother of famous Comanche Chief Quanah Parker, Cynthia was a pioneer girl of ten when her family left Illinois. Cynthia was kidnapped by the Comanche in a raid and was raised in the tribe, later marrying the chief. After she had been a mother of three for some years, she was captured by a Texas Ranger and forced to live in white society. She wanted to return home to her people, but she was seen as a 'redeemed' national treasure, and even though she tried to escape, she wasn't let go.

Boone forged the way West by being the pioneer that crossed the Cumberland Gap, thereby blazing the Wilderness Road in the 1700s. He helped settle Kentucky, and the legendary tales of his exploits and explorations sparked inspiration in pioneers of the next generation.

'The King of the Wild Frontier' is one of the most famous pioneers in history and is quoted often--most famously, 'You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas.' He was a frontiersman and statesman, and died at the Alamo. If legend is true, he could bound the Ohio River in a single leap and wade across the Mississippi.

This physician and missionary laid the Oregon Trail. He was the leader of the very first wagon train West to Oregon. His wife--along with their fellow traveler, Eliza Spalding--was the first European woman to cross the Rocky Mountains. They settled near Walla Walla, Washington, where they built a mission.

'The Mother of Oregon' was born in 1780 in Massachusetts. Her first trek West happened after the death of her husband, when she followed her brother-in-law to Missouri. There, she became a teacher. When she was 63, her son, who had gone to Oregon, came back for her, his sister, and his uncle. When they reached Oregon, the son went one way, the daughter another, and Tabitha settled in the middle. She had a single gold coin and used it to buy sewing supplies. After trading with local Native Americans, she was able to make herself some buckskin, with which she began a glove-making business. She later founded an orphanage and then an academy, which went on to become Pacific University.