In the days when wagon trains rumbled westward, wheel axles would break and horses would tire. So families, to lighten the weight, would unload their heaviest pieces of furniture and leave them behind on the plains.

Imagine coming upon a piano, abandoned and dust-drenched, years later, the wind playing over its hammers and strings. Or picture a great mahogany chest of drawers, hand carved and carried by ship to the New World,…