Researching family history is like putting a puzzle together. I was getting my wagon trains mixed up. Two separate events and two different families. Henry Pertle Linder was born in 1830 in Illinois and died in 1908 in Idaho. He was a Captain in the Union Army during the Civil War, and stayed in the full four years (1861-1865). Cassey McKee was born in 1835 and died in 1931. The wagon train stopped in Colorado because they had gotten a late start that Summer. A wagon train moves very slowly. They got as far as Colorado before the cold arrived. Some of the families in the wagon train stayed in Idaho and others moved on towards the Williamette Valley in Oregon. After arriving in Middle Valley (known today as Midvale) they had a cattle ranch called the ‘Half-Moon Ranch.’ The reason for the name - The Weiser River made a half moon bend on the property.
This story is documented in my Grandmother Alice Fletcher Cann’s diary and in the Linder Tale of genealogy.
