Late in 1848, nine-year-old Joshua McCullough starts a second journal, this time recording events in Willamette Valley, Oregon Territory, as his family and others they met on the trail begin to get settled.

In Elizabeth Barker's second diary, the Jamestown colony continues to suffer. There is little food, and disease has gripped the settlers, shrinking their numbers each day. Lizzie ramains brave, clinging to the hope that soon her brother Caleb will arrive.