The Wake of the Prairie Schooner

Gerald, Missouri: The Patrice Press, 1985. Deluxe Edition Reprint . Hard Back. Fine/Very Good. 5 3/4" x 8 3/4. Paden, Irene D. - Pen-and-Ink Drawings. 514 Pages Indexed.Tan boards with gold impressed lettering to spine and front. This is a 1985 Deluxe Edition Patrice Press reprint of the 1943 original. Illustrated with 30 pen-and-ink drawings by the author. This is an authentic saga of the emigrant trails across America's plains to the Pacific Coast, from its beginning in 1812, through the thick of the greatest migration in all history, to its deterioration after completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869. Here those trails and sites are described as experienced by a modern family following again the old wheel tracks left in past areas. There is not a fictitious person or imaginary incident in the book. Well known characters of history are described and well known incidents related just as emigrants set them down. More than 350 diaries, letters and reminiscences have been drawn upon and not a description has been lightly written. The dignified rivalry between England and the United States for the Oregon country, the much decried extermination of the buffalo, the keeping and breaking of the Indian treaties, the unbiased and on the spot comments of the "Gentile" emigrants on the brusque, efficient Mormon people. All of these and many other relevant subjects have been sifted from contemporary documents and presented in a simple and colloquial style. When you have read this book you will know better than from any other book what the pioneer trails were like.