I offered the following words of advice on packing for this 2,000-mile journey:

All persons, designing to travel by this route, should, invariably, equip themselves with a good gun; at least, five pounds of powder, and twenty pounds of lead...the emigrant may consider himself, as far as his equipment is concerned, prepared, for any warlike emergency, especially, if nature has, also, equipped him with the requisite energy and courage. In procuring supplies for this journey, the emigrant should provide himself with, at least, two hundred pounds of flour, or meal; one hundred and fifty pounds of bacon; ten pounds of coffee; twenty pounds of sugar; and ten pounds of salt...It would, perhaps, be advisable for emigrants, not to encumber themselves with any other, than those just enumerated; as it is impracticable for them, to take all the luxuries, to which they have been accustomed; and as it is found, by experience, that, when upon this kind of expedition, they are not desired, even by the most devoted epicurean.

As far as the matter of packing went, James Frazier Reed perhaps had the most promising of professions, yet he made the gravest of errors: he was a furniture-maker by trade—a man who knew how to make the most of a tree and undoubtedly knew there are trees in California—yet he grossly misdirected this skill set to design and build what he grandiosely dubbed a "PALACE WAGON."

PALACE WAGON?

PALACE WAGON!

Did I recommend a PALACE WAGON? Sweet Jesus Christ, no I did not! Energy, yes; courage, yes; bacon, yes. PALACE WAGON? NO!

[The fiddler reprises "Loop #5, Sisyphus."]

Oh, but the missus, you see, suffered from terrible headaches. She could not be made to suffer on the Frontier! And, yes, of course, traveling a couple of thousand miles overland is a splendid idea for one in precarious health! Perhaps the Reeds believed those California zephyrs might have cured migraine headaches, but that still does not account for overlooking that small matter of getting there!

Here is my theory of what might have caused those headaches: though a furniture-maker by trade, Reed was actually the owner of a furniture factory and dabbled in a number of other agricultural and real estate ventures, most of which had suffered mightily in the financial panics that dogged the Jackson administration. So, while he sought his Fortune out West, he could scarcely deny his wife the very amenities that had been so threatened as they traveled there. In short, that Palace Wagon comprised the very waters she took, but the cure found therein was most likely of a more psychological nature than physical one.

Furthermore, the Reeds more or less threw a corpse on board their rolling palace: James Frazier Reed's mother-in-law was on her way out, but, as mothers-in-law will, she decided to make herself a final burden—just as callously as her son-in-law decided not to wait out her death another year or two back East. So, no, this was not the rare case of the apple falling far afield from the tree. There were four children in tow, too, and I cannot imagine they were of much different molds.