The year in which Frémont made his first expedition to the mountains was also the year of the first formal, conducted emigration to Oregon. Missionaries beyond the mountains had urged upon Congress the appointment of an American representative and magistrate for the country, with such effect that Dr. Elijah White, who had some acquaintance with Oregon, was sent out as sub-Indian agent in the spring of 1842. With him began the regular migration of homeseekers that peopled Oregon during the next ten years. His emigration was not large, perhaps eighteen Pennsylvania wagons and 130 persons; but it seems to have been larger than he expected, and large enough to raise doubt as to the practicability of taking so many persons across the plains at once. In the decade following, every May, when pasturage was fresh and green, saw pioneers gathering, with or without premeditation, at the bend of the Missouri, bound for Oregon. Independence and its neighbor villages continued to be the posts of outfit. How many in the aggregate crossed the plains can never be determined, in spite of the efforts of the pioneer societies of Oregon to record their names. The distinguishing feature of the emigration was its spontaneous individualistic character. Small parties, too late for the caravan, frequently set forth alone. Single families tried it often enough to have their wanderings recorded in the border papers. In the spring following the crossing of Elijah White emigrants gathered by hundreds at the Missouri ferries, until an estimate of a thousand in all is probably not too high. In 1844 the tide subsided a little, but in 1845 it established a new mark in the vicinity of three thousand, and in 1847 ran between four and five thousand. These were the highest figures, yet throughout the decade the current flowed unceasingly.