Read complete books and articles on: U.S. Frontier Letters and Diaries

At Questia, we offer:

Exclusive access to more than 67,000 books and 1.5 million articles.
Trusted resources from leading publishers.
Time saving tools to do better, faster research!

15 of the Best Books and Articles on: U.S. Frontier Letters and Diaries

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

Emily, the Diary of a Hard-Worked Woman » Read Now
by Emily French, Janet Lecompte. 166 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...before. According to the U. S. Census the population...1890 Who shall seperate us from Christ Up early, had breakfast, wrote three letters. Will I get my home...
2.

The Adventures of the Woman Homesteader: The Life and Letters of Elinore Pruitt Stewart » Read Now
by Susanne K. George, Elinore Pruitt Stewart. 218 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...Generations of reders have delighted in Elinore Pruitt Stewart's Letters of a Woman Homesteader (1914) and Letters on an Elk Hunt (1915), among the most engaging accounts...
3.

The Colonel's Lady on the Western Frontier: The Correspondence of Alice Kirk Grierson » Read Now
by Shirley A. Leckie, Alice Kirk Grierson. 258 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...5. West U.S. --History...Years on the Frontier 11...all. The letters of Alice...thing for us, I believe...to recent letters from Ellen...even on the frontier...
4.

A Journey to Ohio in 1810: As Recorded in the Journal of Margaret Van Horn Dwight » Read Now
by Max Farrand, Margaret Van Horn Dwight. 64 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...In his introduction, Jay Gitlin, says more about Margaret Van Horn Dwight's wagon journey in 1810 from New Haven, Connecticut, to Warren, Ohio, where she would find a...
5.

The Mountains We Have Crossed: Diaries and Letters of the Oregon Mission, 1838 » Read Now
by Clifford Merrill Drury, Sarah Gilbert White Smith. 336 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, History, Entire Library

Four newly wed couples, along with one single man, were sent to Oregon in 1838 to reinforce the two-year-old mission established by Marcus Whitman and Henry Spalding. These reinforcements were to become legendary in the history of the Pacific Northwest for the incessant bickering and petty...
Read More

Four newly wed couples, along with one single man, were sent to Oregon in 1838 to reinforce the two-year-old mission established by Marcus Whitman and Henry Spalding. These reinforcements were to become legendary in the history of the Pacific Northwest for the incessant bickering and petty jealousies that eventually caused the deaths of Marcus and Narcissa Whitman and forced the abandonment of the mission effort.
Uncertainty and conflict as well as willpower and endurance mark the story of the Oregon Mission and its charismatic, though contentious, missionaries. Simply getting to Oregon in the 1830s was a feat. Once they arrived, their efforts were doomed by their inability to agree on strategies for converting the Nez Perce and Spokane Indians.
This Bison Books edition contains the very personal diary of Sarah Smith, "the weeping one" as the Indians remembered her. When read in chronological sequence with the nearly one hundred letters written by her husband, Asa, a compelling picture of their journey to Oregon and subsequent life at the mission emerges. Other letters, documents, and biographical sketches enhance the volume.
Show less
6.

First White Women over the Rockies: Diaries, Letters, and Biographical Sketches of the Six Women of the Oregon Mission Who Made the Overland Journey in 1836 and 1838, Vol. 1 » Read Now
by Clifford Merrill Drury. 286 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, History, Entire Library

...out from the frontier with two wagons...Board leaves us somewhat amazed...some favorable letters of recommendation...to be on the frontier in April in...form of travel...
7.

A Pioneer Gentlewoman in British Columbia: The Recollections of Susan Allison » Read Now
by Margaret A. Ormsby. 144 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
8.

Osborne Russell's Journal of a Trapper » Read Now
by Aubrey L. Haines, Osborne Russell. 208 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...River near the residence of the U S agent for those Indians. 3...some white Hunters who informed us that the grand rendezvous of...we expected supplies from the U S about...
9.

Covered Wagon Women: Diaries & Letters from the Western Trails, Vol. I » Read Now
by Kenneth L. Holmes, Anne M. Butler. 282 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

Forty years after the legendary overland travels of Oregon pioneers in the 1840s, Lucy Clark Allen wrote, "the excitement continues". Economic hard times in Minnesota sent Allen and her husband to Montana in hopes of evading the droughts, grasshoppers, and failed crops that had plagued their farm...
Read More

Forty years after the legendary overland travels of Oregon pioneers in the 1840s, Lucy Clark Allen wrote, "the excitement continues". Economic hard times in Minnesota sent Allen and her husband to Montana in hopes of evading the droughts, grasshoppers, and failed crops that had plagued their farm. Allen and her compatriots, in this volume of Covered Wagon Women, experienced a journey much different than that of their predecessors. Many settlements now awaited those bound for the West, with amenities such as hotels and restaurants as well as grain suppliers to provide feed for the horses and mules that had replaced the slower oxen in pulling wagons. Routes were clearly marked -- some had been replaced entirely by railroad tracks. Nevertheless, many of the same dangers, fears, and aspirations confronted these dauntless women who traveled the overland trails.
Show less
10.

Overland in 1846: Diaries and Letters of the California-Oregon Trail, Vol. I » Read Now
by Dale Lowell Morgan. 457 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...Pioneers--West U.S. --Diaries. 3. Oregon...With Letters by J. F...far western frontier experience...it invites us to share...from the U. S. a very...received some letters...
11.

Overland in 1846: Diaries and Letters of the California-Oregon Trail, Vol II » Read Now
by Dale Morgan. 826 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
12.

Journals of Forty-Niners: Salt Lake to Los Angeles with Diaries and Contemporary Records of Sheldon Young, James S. Brown, Jacob Y. Stover, Charles C. Rich, Addison Pratt, Howard Egan, Henry W. Bigler, and Others » Read Now
by Ann W. Hafen, Le Roy Reuben Hafen, Leroy R. Hafen. 333 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, History, Entire Library

Western history is all the richer thanks to LeRoy and Ann Hafen, who have assembled a fascinating array of diaries and memoirs of forty-niners who set out from Salt Lake City toward California's gold fields over the Old Spanish Trail. For many would-be gold miners, this dry, dangerous route was...
Read More

Western history is all the richer thanks to LeRoy and Ann Hafen, who have assembled a fascinating array of diaries and memoirs of forty-niners who set out from Salt Lake City toward California's gold fields over the Old Spanish Trail. For many would-be gold miners, this dry, dangerous route was preferable to crossing the Sierra Nevada. The Donner party disaster was only three years prior and fresh in the minds of many.
In reality, the choice of the southern route did not ease travelers' efforts. The unremitting heat and lack of water killed more people and animals than did the snows of the mountains. Jacob Stover's narrative provides fine descriptions of these challenges, especially the difficulty in transporting supplies. Of added interest is the journal of Henry Bigler, a former member of the Mormon Battalion, who was the first person to record Marshall's discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill.
Show less
13.

Buckskin Joe: Being the Unique and Vivid Memoirs of Edward Jonathan Hoyt, Hunter-Trapper, Scout, Soldier, Showman, Frontiersman, and Friend of the Indians, 1840-1918 » Read Now
by Edward Jonathan Hoyt, Glenn Shirley. 194 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
14.

Daughter of the Regiment: Memoirs of a Childhood in the Frontier Army, 1878-1898 » Read Now
by Mary Leefe Laurence, Thomas T. Smith. 208 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

"For children, who didn't know they were living under hardship, life on a western military post was exciting. . . . This account records a child's view of the military's last hurrah in the West."-Denver Post. "Written in 1944-45, the book offers Mary Leefe Laurence's eyewitness account, from ages...
Read More

"For children, who didn't know they were living under hardship, life on a western military post was exciting. . . . This account records a child's view of the military's last hurrah in the West."-Denver Post. "Written in 1944-45, the book offers Mary Leefe Laurence's eyewitness account, from ages six to 26, of life at a series of frontier forts, including Fort Dodge and Fort Leavenworth. . . . Laurence offers rare glimpses of Western life and of a handful of historic figures, including Geronimo."-Publishers Weekly. "The only known book-length memoir of childhood in the post-Civil War army . . . This rare memoir deserves a wide audience."-Kansas History.The young daughter of an English-born U. S. infantry officer on the post-Civil War frontier, Mary Leefe Laurence had the childhood of an army nomad, accompanying the regiment from south Texas to the Canadian border. In faithfully recording her travels, she offers extensive and unique insight into life as a child and adolescent in the twilight of the Indian-fighting army.Thomas T. Smith is a Regular Army Major of Infantry on assignment to the United States Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He is the editor of A Dose of Frontier Soldiering: The Memoirs of Coporal E. A. Bode, Frontier Regular Infantry, 1877-1882.
Show less
15.

Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 » Read Now
by Frances M. A. Roe, I. W. Taber. 394 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library