Journal of a Trapper

Journal of a Trapper – Osborne Russell

Born in a little Maine Village in 1814, Osborne Russell ran away to sea at the age of sixteen, but he soon gave up seafaring to serve with a trading a tapping company in Wisconsin and Minnesota. In 1834 he signed up for Nathaniel Wyeth’s expedition to the Rocky Mountains and the mouth of the Columbia. Subsequently he joined Jim Bridger’s brigade of Old Rocky Mountain Fur Company men, continuing with them after a merger that left the American Fur Company in control of the trade. When the fur trade declined, he became a free trapper operating out of Fort Hall, staying in the mountains until the great westward migration began.

ISBN: 978-0-8032-5166-3
203 Pages
Softback
5 1/4″ x 8″

University of Nebraska Press, 1965

Kit Carson’s Autobiography

“Notice is hereby given to all persons, That Christopher Carson, a boy about 16 years old, small of his age, but thick-set; light hair, ran away from the subscriber, living in Franklin, Howard County, Missouri, to whom he had been bound to learn the Saddler’s trade….One cent reward will be given to any person who will bring back the said boy.”

This notice appeared in the Missouri Intelligencer of October 6, 1826, at about the same time that Kit Carson, in the humble role of “cavvy boy” in Bent’s Santa Fe caravan, embarked upon his career. Thirty years later, a postgraduate of the University of the Wilderness, and for a decade past a national hero, he was persuaded to dictate to a literate friend his own story of his life to date.

ISBN: 978-0-8032-5031-4
192 Pages
Softback
5 1/4″ x 8″

University of Nebraska Press, 1935

Kunu

Kunu – Winnebago Boy Escapes

Kunu, a ten-year-old boy, and his grandfather vow to return to their homeland in Minnesota. Knowing they will be shot on sight if caught trying to leave, Kunu and his grandfather secretly make plans to escape in a dugout boat.

Readers will gain a great appreciation of the struggles of the Winnebago people through the story of Kunu and his grandfather. Their eventful trip over hundreds of miles of river is told here with all its adventures and danger.

ISBN: 1-880114-03-8
183 Pages
Softback
5 1/4″ x 7 5/8″

Grandview Publishing Company, 1989

Land Is the Cry!

Land is the Cry! -Warren Angus Ferris, Pioneer Texas Surveyor and Founder of Dallas County

Land Is the Cry! is the fascinating story of Warren Ferris, a New York Yankee who deserves to be remembered as the “Father of Dallas County.” Except for a twist of fate, Dallas, Texas, would have been named “Warwick” by its two founders, surveyor Ferris and land speculator William P. King.

Historian A. C. Greene calls Warren Ferris the most “unappreciated figure in Dallas history.” But Ferris has more than regional significance, for his remarkable story encompasses 3 arenas: the Niagara frontier of western New York, the fur-trading country of the Rocky Mountains, and frontier northeast Texas during the years of the Republic. Ferris merited fame even before he came to Texas in 1837. While working as a trapper and fur trader in the Rocky Mountains for six years, Ferris kept a diary of his adventures. This journal, the classic Life in the Rocky Mountains, accompanied by a map which he drew from memory, provided a unique and valuable picture of trapper and Indian life in the 1830s. Ferris also gave the public its first written description of Yellowstone’s amazing geysers.

As a businessman seeking to become a landowner, fur trader Ferris followed his brother Charles to Texas the year after the Texas Revolution. He became the official surveyor for Nacogdoches County, which then included much of northeast Texas west to the Trinity River. Although his brother returned to their hometown of Buffalo, New York, Warren Ferris spent another 35 years of his eventful life in Texas.

Surveying at the Three Forks of the Trinity in 1839, Ferris entered the area before John Neely Bryan, the traditionally recognized founder of Dallas, and Ferris’s surveys determined the line of streets and roads that shaped the future county. In 1847, Ferris settled down to farming east of White Rock Creek where he raised a family and helped build a community. This literate and versatile character was also a prolific letter writer, and much of the family correspondence to and from Buffalo has been preserved.

These Ferris letters, and other family materials covering the period 1828-1885, help reconstruct the exciting life and times of Warren Ferris. Although Ferris might appear to be a stereotypical figure of Frederick Jackson Turner’s trans-Mississippi West—fur trapper, surveyor, farmer—he is a complex and fascinating man. His long and varied career reveals some of the best and worst characteristics of the 19th century frontiersman.

ISBN – 0-87611-161-4
247 Pages
Hardback
6 1/4″ x 9 1/4″

Texas State Historical Association, 1998

Last Rides – Cowboys, Indians, Generals and Chiefs

This book presents the closing days of America’s untamed West as lived and recorded through the lens of three of the best-known photographers of the era: David Francis Barry, John C.H. Grabill, and L.A. Huffman. These men knew Custer and the 7th Cavalry, as well as the leaders of the Native people who fought valiantly to preserve their lands and their historic way of life.

Through the publication of their work, the photographs these men took gave people from coast to coast a realistic and sometimes spectacular image of what was happening on the frontier as the relentless waves of immigrants swept westward in search of land, gold, and new lives.

ISBN – 978-1-941052-32-7

256 Pages

Prong Horn Press, 2018

Letters of a Woman Homesteader

As a young widow with a small child, Elinore Pruitt left Denver in 1909 and set out for Wyoming, where she hoped to buy a ranch. Determined to prove that a lone woman could survive the hardships of homesteading, she initially worked as a housekeeper and hired hand for a neighbor–a kind but taciturn Scottish bachelor who she eventually married.

Spring and summers were hard, she concedes, and were taken up with branding, farming, doctoring cattle, and other chores. But with the arrival of fall, Pruitt found time to take her young daughter on camping trips and serve her neighbors as midwife, doctor, teacher, Santa Claus, and friend.

ISBN – 978-0-486-45142-8
130 Pages
Softback
5 1/2″ x 8 1/2″

Dover Publications, 2006

Lewis & Clark

A wonderfully amusing yet historical comic of the great adventure of Lewis & Clark.

“A Wonderful introduction to one of the most important expeditions and dramatic stories in American History.” – Ken Burns

ISBN: 978-1-59643-450-9
138 Pages
Softback
8 1/2″ x 10 3/4″

First Second, 2011

Lewis & Clark Tailor Made, Trail Worn

Lewis & Clark Tailor Made, Trail Worn – Army Life, Clothing, & Weapons of the Corps of Discovery

During the years 1803 to 1806 President Thomas Jefferson sent an official U.S. Army expedition across the North American continent. Although many aspects of the Lewis and Clark Expedition have been written about, the material objects worn and carried by its members have not received much attention. This book describes military life at the time of Lewis and Clark, individual items of clothing they used, and the weapons and equipment that made their trek a success.

Robert J. Moore, Jr. has used materials in archives and museums to locate and verify what the men wore, and Michael Haynes has painted and sketched a rich new version of the expedition based upon painstaking research. Items of Indian clothing and the wardrobes of interpreters and the French boatmen give a full picture of the many cultures that composed and influenced the Corps of Discovery. Weapons and accessories round out this complete record of what the expedition wore — and why.

ISBN – 1-56037-238-9
288 Pages
Hardback
10 1/2″ x 10 1/4″

Farcountry Press, 2003

Lewis & Clark Coloring Book

Follow the Missouri River to the Pacific Northwest’s pristine beaches and back again. Follow the expedition as they discover new-to-science plants and animals, map half a continent, befriend local tribes, and preserve against the odds in an uncharted wilderness.

ISBN: 978-1-56037-713-9
63 Pages
Softback
8 3/8″ x 10 3/4″

Farcountry Press, 2018

Lewis And Clark And Me: A Dog’s Tale

Lewis and Clark and Me – A Dog’s Tale

In 1803, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set off on a journey to explore the vast territory of the United States west of the Mississippi River. Accompanying Lewis and Clark and their team of explorers through this uncharted wilderness was Lewis’s dog, Seaman.

This is Seaman’s story. From his first meeting with Lewis to being mistaken for a bear by Indians who had never seen such a large dog to his encounters with wild animals both familiar and unfamiliar, Seaman’s tale is filled with joys of companionship and the tingling excitement of adventure.

ISBN: 978-0-8050-6368-4
64 Pages
Hardback
7 1/4″ x 9 1/4″

Henry Holt and Company, 2002

Life in the Far West

In this classic of western Americana, George Frederick Ruxton, who died in Saint Louis in 1848 at the youthful age of twenty-seven, brilliantly brings to life the heroic age of the Mountain Man. The author, from his intimate acquaintance with trappers and traders of the American Far West, vividly recounts the story of two of the most adventurous of these hardy pioneers — Killbuck and La Bonte, whose daring bravery, and hairbreadth escapes from their many Indian and “Spaniard” enemies were legend among their fellow frontiersmen.

ISBN – 978-0-8061-1534-4
252 Pages
Softback
5 1/2″ x 8 1/4″

University of Oklahoma Press, 1951

Life of George Bent

Life of George Bent – Written from his Letters

George Bent was in his sixties in 1905 when he began exchanging letters with George E. Hyde of Omaha. The son of William Bent, one of the founders of Bent’s Fort on the Arkansas, and Owl Woman, a Cheyenne, Bent had lived and fought as a Cheyenne warrior. In his letters, he wrote about his life at the fort, his experiences with his Cheyenne kinsmen, and the events that finally led to the military suppression of the Indians on the southern Great Plains.

ISBN: 978-0-8061-1577-1
389 Pages
Softback
6″ x 9″

University of Oklahoma Press, 1979

Lige Mounts

Lige Mounts – Free Trapper

In 1822 Elijah Mounts, barely eighteen, shoulders rifle and walks from his uncle’s Missouri farm to St. Louis to seek his fortune in the fur trade. Frank B. Linderman’s 1922 novel is a first-person account, based on a true story and his own trapping experience, of a young man’s coming of age among the trappers and Indians in remote Montana, on the upper reaches of the wild Missouri River. Befriended by Wash Lamkin, “Dad” to all who know him, “Lige” learns to live on the trail, trap the beaver hunt the buffalo, speak the Cree language, and observe the customs of the country and its people. Enamored of the freedom, wildness, and beauty of the high plains and tied to the people at whose hands he has experienced kindness, welcome, and acceptance, he must ultimately decide whether he will return to civilization or choose the life of a plainsman.

ISBN: 978-0-8032-8041-0
339 Pages
Softback
5 1/4″ x 8″

University of Nebraska Press, 2005

Little Chief’s Gatherings

Little Chief’s gatherings: The Smithsonian Institution’s G.K. Warren 1855-1856 Plains Indian collection and the New York State Library’s 1855-1857 Warren Expeditions Journals

The book provides the fascinating story of the Smithsonian’s Warren Collection, one of the earliest and largest scientific collections of Plains Indian material culture in existence. Warren attended numerous conferences with Plains tribes and recorded the conversations. He was the first to enter and examine the Black Hills, a feat incorrectly credited to Custer.

ISBN – 0-932845-73-8
203 Pages
Hardback
9 1/4″ x 12 1/4″

Fur Press, 1996

Lord Grizzly

Hunter, Trapper, Resourceful fighter, and scout, Hugh Glass was a rugged man among other rugged American frontiersmen until he was mauled by a grizzly bear and left for dead by his best friends. Hugh’s rage drove him to crawl two hundred miles across dangerous territory to seek revenge until he was no longer Hugh Glass but had become Lord Grizzly.

ISBN: 978-0-8032-3523-6
281 Pages
Softback
5 1/2″ x 8 1/2″

University of Nebraska Press, 2011

Lost Mines & Buried Treasures of Old Wyoming

W.C Jameson, one of the leading experts on treasure hinting in the U.S., now turns his attention to Wyoming’s lost fortunes. With his gift for storytelling, he relates intriguing legends and historical accounts about lost gold, buried payrolls, and hidden strongboxes.

Jameson has written more than 60 books on treasure hunting and served as an advisor to Walt Disney Productions on the National Treasure movies starring Nicholas Cage. An amateur treasure hunter in Texas testified in court that he had found a multi-million dollar lost treasure by using only a copy of one of Jameson’s books and Google Earth for directions.

In this book Jameson takes readers on an adventure to the four corners of Wyoming to investigate the Snake River Pothole Gold, the Hallelujah Gulch Robbery Loot, the Lost Treasure of Big Nose George, the Lost Cabin Gold Mine, Nate Champion’s Lost Treasure, and eleven other action-packed tales.

ISBN: 978-0-931271-95-3
144 Pages
Softback
5 1/4″ x 7 1/2″

High Plains Press, 2010

Museum of the Mountain Man

Pinedale, Wyoming

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