Regarding New Yorkers who went west:

William Morris Stewart was born in the town of Galen in Wayne County, N.Y.,  in the 1820s. His family then moved to Ohio, but he returned to Wayne County, became a high school math teacher in Lyons, and began studying law in the office of a local attorney. After a stint at Yale Law School (which he didn't finish), he followed the gold rush out west, studied some more law, and ended up a prominent lawyer associated with corporate mining interests, first in California and then in Nevada. In 1864 he was elected as one of Nevada's first U.S. senators. Yet, for all his prominence, no one seems to know the precise year in which he was born. Perhaps, someone in Wayne Co. could look it up.