Describes the experiences of families heading west across prairies, mountains, and dangerous rivers to start a new life from the 1850s to the mid-1860s.
Published in 1845, this guidebook for pioneers is a reproduction of one of the most collectible books about California and the Western movement. It was the guidebook used by the Donner Party on their fateful journey. In addition, because Hastings' shortcut route through the Rockies produced such tragedy, the War Department commissioned The Prairie Traveler.
It has been over 150 years since pioneers first went west from Missouri, across Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Nevada into California, across the vast plains, formidable mountains, and desert. Although the route known as the California Emigrant Trail is mostly unmarked today, much evidence remains. Photographer Greg MacGregor has researched the trail and traveled it for thousands of miles. He has photographed the eroded ruts, emigrant graves, pieces of burned and abandoned wagons. He has also photographed what has sprung up over the trail: KOA campgrounds, golf courses, housing developments. The images are poignant, sometimes amusing, occasionally downright terrifying, and always fascinating in what they reveal about pioneer overland travel. Showing these photographs with excerpts from emigrants' diaries and advice from nineteenth-century guidebooks, Greg MacGregor presents us with a vivid and intimate picture of what the journey was like for those with no idea of what lay ahead. At the same time he captures the ironies in the landscape of the late-twentieth-century West.
This unique story of the Southern Emigrant Trail through Riverside County, based almost entirely on historic records, identifies the location of the trail and tells the stories of those who traveled along the route or lived in the area during the mid-1800s. Surveyors' field notes, newspaper articles, diaries and journals, military records, censuses, and many other records provide the reader the opportunity to "experience" this exciting era in Southern California history. Detailed maps with the route and other information are included along with many historic and current photographs.
In 1841 and 1842 small groups of emigrants tried to discover a route to California passable by wagons. Without reliable maps or guides, they pushed ahead, retreated, detoured, split up, and regrouped, reaching their destination only at great cost of property and life. But they had found a trail, or cleared one, and by their mistakes had shown others how to take wagon trains across half a continent. By 1844 a great migration was in progress. Each successive party learned from those who went before where to cross rivers and mountains, when to rest, when to forge ahead, and how to find food and water. Increased experience was translated into better wagon designs, improved understanding of climate and terrain, and better-supplied and -organized caravans. George R. Stewart's California Trail describes the trail's year-by-year changes as weather conditions, new exploration, and the changing character of emigrants affected it. Successes and disasters (like the Donner party's fate) are presented in nearly personal detail. More than a history of the trail, this book tells how to travel it, what it felt like, what was feared and hoped for.
"The Emigrant Trail" by Geraldine Bonner is a captivating and evocative novel that follows the trials and triumphs of brave pioneers on their journey along the emigrant trail. Set against the backdrop of the American West during the 19th century, this ebook immerses readers in a gripping tale of courage, hope, and resilience. Bonner's vivid storytelling and authentic portrayal of the hardships faced by emigrants make this ebook a powerful and emotionally resonant read. With its exploration of human endurance and the indomitable spirit of those who dared to seek a better life, "The Emigrant Trail" is a compelling and immersive historical novel.
With numbers swelled by Oregon-bound settlers as well as hordes of gold-seekers destined for California, the 1852 overland migration was the largest on record in a year taking a terrible toll in lives mainly due to deadly cholera. Included here are firsthand accounts of this fateful year, including the words and thoughts of a young married couple, Mary Ann and Willis Boatman, released for the first time in book-length form. In its immediacy, Surviving the Oregon Trail, 1852 opens a window to the travails of the overland journeyers--their stark camps, treacherous river fordings, and dishonest countrymen; the shimmering plains and mountain vastnesses; trepidation at crossing ancient Indian lands; and the dark angel of death hovering over the wagon columns. But also found here are acts of valor, compassion, and kindness, and the hope for a new life in a new land at the end of the trail.
In the first book to focus on relations between Indians and emigrants on the overland trails, Michael L. Tate shows that such encounters were far more often characterized by cooperation than by conflict. Having combed hundreds of unpublished sources and Indian oral traditions, Tate finds Indians and Anglo-Americans continuously trading goods and news with each other, and Indians providing various forms of assistance to overlanders. Tate admits that both sides normally followed their own best interests and ethical standards, which sometimes created distrust. But many acts of kindness by emigrants and by Indians can be attributed to simple human compassion. Not until the mid-1850s did Plains tribes begin to see their independence and cultural traditions threatened by the flood of white travelers. As buffalo herds dwindled and more Indians died from diseases brought by emigrants, violent clashes between wagon trains and Indians became more frequent, and the first Anglo-Indian wars erupted on the plains. Yet, even in the 1860s, Tate finds, friendly encounters were still the rule. Despite thousands of mutually beneficial exchanges between whites and Indians between 1840 and 1870, the image of Plains Indians as the overland pioneers’ worst enemies prevailed in American popular culture. In explaining the persistence of that stereotype, Tate seeks to dispel one of the West’s oldest cultural misunderstandings.