A settler's westward progress was stopped by the Pacific (the gold country of California).

The evidence

• “Since that time I have been constantly working westward fill the nasty Pacific has made a stop to further progress in that direction. In the fall of 1849, my western progress was suddenly stopped by the Pacific, and yet the sun sets west of me, and my wife positively refuses to go to the Sandwich Islands, and the bark is starting off ray rails and that is longer than I ever allowed myself to remain on one farm, so that I am at loss how to act in the present dilemma.”

  1879-history-of-rock-county/14-rock-county-ch08-janesville.md, PDF p. 542 / book p. 546

  Butterfield, C. W., et al. The History of Rock County, Wisconsin: its early settlement, growth, development, resources, etc. Chicago: Western Historical Company, 1879. Cornell University Library via the Internet Archive, archive.org/details/cu31924028871585.

  Grade A: Found on a page of one of our sources

  

• “to the "Gazette" from Camp Curtis, Cal., which was published in the "Gazette" of January 31, 1867, in which he gives his experience in settling Janesville, and ends up in the following words : "In the fall of 1849, the Pacific coast put an end to my further progress towards the setting sun, and as I never varied much from north to south, my wanderings are at an end. I managed to keep ahead of all railroads and telegraphs, and now, in my sixty-third year, I have never yet seen a railroad or a telegraph."”

  1908-brown-rock-county/26-history-of-janesville.md, Vol. 2, PDF p. 19 / book p. 534

  Brown, William Fiske, editor. Rock County, Wisconsin: A New History of Its Cities, Villages, Towns, Citizens and Varied Interests, from the Earliest Times, Up to Date. Chicago: C. F. Cooper & Co., 1908. 2 vols. archive.org/details/rockcountywiscon01brow, archive.org/details/rockcountywiscon02brow.

  Grade A: Found on a page of one of our sources