Plainsmen period reading resources

[TwoWalks Baldridge]

Been sitting a reading online for the past few days about the period 1840 - 1865.  Here is a couple of the online books that I have found informational.

Rocky Mountain Life - http://www.xmission.com/~drudy/mtman/html/sage/rufussage.html

And

The Prairie Traveler - http://www.kancoll.org/books/marcy/

I also blindly ordered "The Black powder Plainsman" looked interesting but that is about all I can say at this point.  It should arrive in a week or so.

Please list any online reading you recommend for the Plainsmen period.

[Jake MacReedy]

Commerce on the Prairie by Josiah Gregg is an excellent source.  It was first published in 1844, and is an excellent first-hand account of life and travel on the Santa Fe Trail.  In it, if memory serves me, Gregg talks about how Kit Carson and a bunch of trappers from Santa Fe rescued a wagon train under attack from Indians, in which they used Colt's Paterson revolvers.  A great read for the aspiring Plainsman!

Jake

[The Elderly Kid]

The Diary of Susan Shelby Magoffin, 1846-47, is a wonderful resource. The young woman (only 17 when the journey started) traveled the trail with her Santa Fe trader husband, then ended up with the u.s. Army headed into Mexico. A rare firsthand account. She was a keen observer and recorded everything she saw and every person she encountered.

[TwoWalks Baldridge]

Commerce on the Prairie recommended by Jake MacReedy  http://www.kancoll.org/books/gregg/

The title of the book recommended by Elderly Kid is "Down the Santa Fé Trail and into Mexico".  It does not appear to be online but can be ordered from a number of sources.

[Tascosa Joe]

Wah-a-toya and the Taos Trail by Lewis H. Garrad is another good primary
source.  It is available from the Bent's Fort Bookstore or Amazon.

[TwoWalks Baldridge]

Tascosa Joe, thanks for the heads up, it is also free to read online ...

http://www.newmexicohistory.org/filedetails.php?fileID=21674

[Tascosa Joe]

Check our the Museum of the Fur Trade Web Site.  Their museum covers some of this period of time.   

http://www.furtrade.org/

They sell a Plainsman/Buffalo Hunter Sketchbook, that has good information on clothing and accessories.

[JimBob]

Track of the Wolf http://www.trackofthewolf.com currently has set of three sketchbooks covering this period on sale for $19.95 plus P&h.They are titled "A Shining Time-Sketchbooks of the Early Western Frontier Era" the 3 seperate books are:
Vol.1 The Mountain Men
Vol.2 Hunters,Scouts,and Plainsmen 1835-1875
Vol.3 Horse Soldiers,The Dragoons   1776-1849

Each volumn is 100 to 130 pages of sketches and info on arms,clothing,and accoutrements.Good buy as they're normally $14.95 each.I bought a set for the library but haven't received them yet.They're in the "Books" section "Book of the Month Sale"

[Caleb Hobbs]

JimBob: I have the first two volumes of this series, and they are pretty good resources for our period.

Tascosa Joe: Same applies to the Buffalo Hunter's Sketchbook -- plus the MFT has a number of other good books that pertain to the 1840-1865 era.

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

http://www.amazon.com/Prairie-Traveler-Handbook-Westbound-Pioneers/dp/048645150X

I thought it might have been available as an online book , but I guess not.  But for ten dollars, who can quibble?

Here's the wiki-blurb;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randolph_B._Marcy

[JimBob]

http://www.amazon.com/Prairie-Traveler-Handbook-Westbound-Pioneers/dp/048645150X

I thought it might have been available as an online book , but I guess not.  But for ten dollars, who can quibble?

Here's the wiki-blurb;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randolph_B._Marcy

Two Walks posted an on-line link in the first post.

[Caleb Hobbs]

Adventures in the Santa Fe Trade, 1844-1847, by James Josiah Webb. Another first-person account of a Santa Fe Trader.

An interesting little book (70 pages, with photos and footnotes) is Four Forts of the South Platte, by Guy Peterson. It was published by The Council on America's Military Past, but the forts were built as trading posts. They were located along the front range of the Rocky Mountains, north of present Denver, and operated during the same period as Bent's Old Fort. They are Forts Jackson, Lupton, St. Vrain, and Vasquez. Fort Vasquez was partially reconstructed and had a small museum when I was there quite a few years ago. Hopefully they've expanded since then. As it was, I wouldn't go too far out of my way to see it, but if you're in the area, it's definately worth an hour of your time.

[Tascosa Joe]

We get to Northern Colo fairly regularly since the wife's sister lives at Boulder.  Vasquez is worth the visit if you are in the area.  Fort Lupton has a frontier village the local historical society has been building over the last few years.   Most of the village is later period, a 70's ranch house and a small school.  They have built a fairly large replica of the adobe trading post on the property.  It is fairly correct but......has a few issues.  The museum on the property has some fairly nice Native American and fur trade era items on display.  The book store is good also.  I would not drive 1000 miles to see it, but if you are in the area it is a good way to spend an hour or two. 

[Coal Creek Griff]

Take a look at "Very Close to Trouble", the memoirs of Johnny Grant.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0874221390

[Caleb Hobbs]

Griff:

I haven't read either, but will be getting "A Son of the Fur Trade" in the near future. (Had it on my wish list last for last Christmas, but you know how that goes...) "A Son of the Fur Trade" is apparently the complete version of Johnny Grant's memoirs, where "Very Close to Trouble" is the abridged version. Do you have any idea how the two compare?

Caleb

http://www.amazon.com/Son-Fur-Trade-Memoirs-Johnny/dp/0888644914/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313695777&sr=1-2

[Coal Creek Griff]

I bought my copy of "Very Close to Trouble" in Deer Lodge 1997.  At that time, the full memoirs had not been published.  The editor, Lyndel Meikle, was a ranger at the Grant-Kohrs Ranch and I talked with her a bit.  She had gone to great lengths to locate the original copy of the memoirs that had been passed down in Grant's family.  At that time, she didn't have the time to edit the entire manuscript and focused on the 1847-1867 period when Grant was in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and Oregon.  That portion was published as "Very Close to Trouble".  I believe that it is complete, although only for those years.

I wasn't aware that the entire manuscript had been published.  Of course the complete memoirs would include that portion in Meikle's book, so that is probably the way to go.  Thanks for pointing that out.

CC Griff

[Caleb Hobbs]

Johnny Grant sounds like a really colorful character. I'm looking forward to getting the book. Thanks for mentioning it.

[JimBob]

Randolph Marcy author of "The Prairie Traveler Handbook" also wrote a book on his time on the early frontier entitled "Thirty Years of Army Life on the Border" originally published in 1866.

[TwoWalks Baldridge]

Oregon Trail by Francis Parkman  Free online:  http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/oregon/oregon.html

Excerpt:
"THE FRONTIER

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 passengers on board the Radnor corresponded with her freight. In her cabin were Santa Fe traders, gamblers, speculators, and adventurers of various descriptions, and her steerage was crowded with Oregon emigrants, "mountain men," negroes, and a party of Kansas Indians, who had been on a visit to St. Louis.

Thus laden, the boat struggled upward for seven or eight days against the rapid current of the Missouri, grating upon snags, and hanging for two or three hours at a time upon sand-bars. We entered the mouth of the Missouri in a drizzling rain, but the weather soon became clear, and showed distinctly the broad and turbid river, with its eddies, its sand-bars, its ragged islands, and forest-covered shores. The Missouri is constantly changing its course; wearing away its banks on one side, while it forms new ones on the other. Its channel is shifting continually. Islands are formed, and then washed away; and while the old forests on one side are undermined and swept off, a young growth springs up from the new soil upon the other. With all these changes, the water is so charged with mud and sand that it is perfectly opaque, and in a few minutes deposits a sediment an inch thick in the bottom of a tumbler. The river was now high; but when we descended in the autumn it was fallen very low, and all the secrets of its treacherous shallows were exposed to view. It was frightful to see the dead and broken trees, thick-set as a military abatis, firmly imbedded in the sand, and all pointing down stream, ready to impale any unhappy steamboat that at high water should pass over that dangerous ground.

In five or six days we began to see signs of the great western movement that was then taking place. Parties of emigrants, with their tents and wagons, would be encamped on open spots near the bank, on their way to the common rendezvous at Independence. On a rainy day, near sunset, we reached the landing of this place, which is situated some miles from the river, on the extreme frontier of Missouri. The scene was characteristic, for here were represented at one view the most remarkable features of this wild and enterprising region. On the muddy shore stood some thirty or forty dark slavish- looking Spaniards, gazing stupidly out from beneath their broad hats. They were attached to one of the Santa Fe companies, whose wagons were crowded together on the banks above. In the midst of these, crouching over a smoldering fire, was a group of Indians, belonging to a remote Mexican tribe. One or two French hunters from the mountains with their long hair and buckskin dresses, were looking at the boat; and seated on a log close at hand were three men, with rifles lying across their knees. The foremost of these, a tall, strong figure, with a clear blue eye and an open, intelligent face, might very well represent that race of restless and intrepid pioneers whose axes and rifles have opened a path from the Alleghenies to the western prairies. He was on his way to Oregon, probably a more congenial field to him than any that now remained on this side the great plains. "

[Caleb Hobbs]

TwoWalks -- Parkman wasn't much for PC, but he gave a good account of what he saw. Another writer of the same era is Frederick Ruxton. If I remember right, he fictionalized one of his books, but he did it after traveling the Southwest. He wrote "Ruxton of the Rockies" and "Life in the Far West."  I believe "Life" was the fictionalized account.

Does anyone know of any books similar to this from the 1850s?