Other editions of book The Oregon Trail

Francis Parkman has been hailed as one of America's first great historians and as a master of narrative history. His work has been praised by historians who have published essays in new editions of his work, including Pulitzer Prize winners C. Vann Woodward, Allan Nevins and Samuel Eliot Morison. Numerous translations have spread the books around the world. Be forewarned that Parkman was a man of his time and he does little to hide his prejudices, especially against Native Americans.

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[This is the MP3CD audiobook format in vinyl case.] [Read by Robert Morris] This is the classic account of Francis Parkman's rugged trip over the eastern part of the Oregon Trail with his cousin, Quincy Adams Shaw, in the spring and summer of 1846. They left St. Louis by steamboat and arrived in Oregon on horseback, in company with guides and occasional other travelers. They encountered storms, buffalo hunts, and meetings with Indians, soldiers, sportsmen, and emigrants. The Oregon Trail is an eyewitness account of the Mormons and outlaws, trappers and Indians, pioneers and adventurers who struggled to conquer the frontier.

Francis Parkman was a 23-year-old scion of a prominent Boston family when he decided to write the history of the struggle of French and English for domination of the North American continent. In order to learn firsthand about the Indians of the Plains, he prepared himself with guides, supplies, and information, setting out from Westport, Missouri, in spring 1846 and returning that September. From that trip emerged one of the seminal books of American literature, The Oregon Trail.

Last spring, 1846, was a busy season in the City of St. Louis. Not only were emigrants from every part of the country preparing for the journey to Oregon and California, but an unusual number of traders were making ready their wagons and outfits for Santa Fe. Many of the emigrants, especially of those bound for California, were persons of wealth and standing. The hotels were crowded, and the gunsmiths and saddlers were kept constantly at work in providing arms and equipments for the different parties of travelers. Almost every day steamboats were leaving the levee and passing up the Missouri, crowded with passengers on their way to the frontier. In one of these, the Radnor, since snagged and lost, my friend and relative, Quincy A. Shaw, and myself, left St. Louis on the 28th of April, on a tour of curiosity and amusement to the Rocky Mountains. The boat was loaded until the water broke alternately over her guards. Her upper deck was covered with large weapons of a peculiar form, for the Santa Fe trade, and her hold was crammed with goods for the same destination. There were also the equipments and provisions of a party of Oregon emigrants, a band of mules and horses, piles of saddles and harness, and a multitude of nondescript articles, indispensable on the prairies. Almost hidden in this medley one might have seen a small French cart, of the sort very appropriately called a "mule-killer" beyond the frontiers, and not far distant a tent, together with a miscellaneous assortment of boxes and barrels. The whole equipage was far from prepossessing in its appearance; yet, such as it was, it was destined to a long and arduous journey, on which the persevering reader will accompany it.

The Oregon Trail is the gripping account of Francis Parkman's journey west across North America in 1846. After crossing the Allegheny Mountains by coach and continuing by boat and wagon to Westport, Missouri, he set out with three companions on a horseback journey that would ultimately take him over two thousand miles. His detailed description of the journey, set against the vast majesty of the Great Plains, has emerged through the generations as a classic narrative of one man's exploration of the American Wilderness.