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When William Clark of Freeport, Illinois, and his party participated in the westward movement that carried thousands of American to the Pacific Coast during the mid-nineteenth century, they demonstrated remarkable fidelity to a Christian institution. Leaving Leavenworth in 1857, Clark and three others joined up with a firm that was to haul freight to army posts in Utah. The four man contracted "with the express understanding that we should not be asked to drive Sundays, unless for the want of grass or water." The men pledged to each other to stand by their bargain.

Shortly after setting out, on a Sunday when the bullwhackers were resting after a hard week's work, Chatham Rennick, the train boss, directed the four to hitch up their cattle in order to drive the remainder of the day. The men refused. Rennick did not press the point. When this experience was repeated on the next Sabbath, the man declared, "drive Sunday we would not."

After another such encounter, Rennick discharged the four and refused to let them take their guns. A tense confrontation with guns drawn followed. Clark and his companions feared for their lives. Rennick had "men enough to massacre us," Clark retaliated, "but not enough … to make us drive a single rod." Rennick pleaded with the men, who remained adamant. Never again were they asked to drive on the Sabbath.

This encounter might have been exceptional, but it illustrates that Sabbath observance was still important when Americans set out on the Overland Trail for the Pacific Coast. "He who starts across the continent," wrote one overland diarist in 1852, "is most sure to leave his religion on the east side of the Missouri river." This notion entered the history books. But first-hand accounts of the westward movement reveal a more complex reality.

Crossing the plains, the desert, and the mountains was a serious undertaking, and in 1849 and 1850 most emigrants traveled in organized wagon trains for mutual assistance and protection. Before jumping off, some companies drafted a constitution stipulating that the Sabbath was to be a day of rest except in cases of absolute necessity. The reasons for Sabbath observance were practical as well as religious. "Never travel on the Sabbath," advised Joseph E. Ware in The Emigrant's Guide to California (1849). "Those who lay by on the Sabbath, resting themselves and their teams," Ware added, "would get to California 20 days sooner that those who traveled seven days a week.

Sabbath observance was generally best during the early weeks on the trail, but even people reared under religious influences often lost their moral bearings once they entered a land where neither law nor common practice restrained. The issue caused dissension and split otherwise harmonious parties. In addition, the passion for speed fed on itself, fracturing companies into even smaller units that treated all days alike. Necessity ruled with an iron hand. Trains depended on campsites with water, grass, and wood. Each train competed with hundreds of others for these essentials.

Sixty-five diaries and reminiscences for the gold-rush years of 1849 and 1850 reveal diverse patterns of Sabbath observance on the Overland Trail. Eighteen diarists simply disregard the Lord's Day, while 23 described companies that traveled as readily on the Sabbath as on other days. George W.B. Evans, a devoted Presbyterian from Defiance, Ohio, characterized Sunday as "the day of rest, set apart for the good of mankind." Yet his company usually traveled on Sundays. Members did celebrate the Fourth of July, which Evans called the "great National Sabbath."

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