In 1851, Nikolas Daniel Walter packed all his worldly belongings into this trunk and left Germany with his wife and three small children to settle in Pope County, Illinois. Their journey took them on an eight-week voyage across the ocean to New Orleans by ship, then up the Mississippi River and east on the Ohio River by steamboat before they reached their destination. The Walters were among the millions of Germans who immigrated to the United States in the 1850s to escape economic hardship and political unrest at home.