Covered Wagon Women, Volume 3: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1851

by Kenneth L. Holmes

Book Overview

The wagon trains to California greatly decreased in 1851 as reports of deadly cholera on the trail the year before and strikeouts in gold prospecting became known. Those who did go west--about 2,160 men and 1,440 women--tended toward Oregon's rich Willamette Valley because of a new federal land law that awarded a husband and wife a full section.

Volume 3 of Covered Wagon Women contains the diaries and letters of six Oregon-bound women, as...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0803272871
• ISBN13: 9780803272873
• Release Date: August 1996
• Publisher: Bison Books
• Length: 291 Pages
• Weight: 0.72 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.3" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Covered Wagon Women

We appreciate the research that's gone into documenting the history of my great-great-grandmother. Her diary has been published many times, but here there is more information to add to the total picture. What a brave, great woman she was!

Honorable, virtuous

More heartfelt, lively accounts from the Oregon Trail during the year 1851.Harriet Talcott Buckingham's diary is both poetic and colorful, describing prairies, mountain passes, river crossings, flora, Indians and other travelers met along the way.Amelia Hadley's writing style is very sincere. She not only visually describes streams, buffalo, landforms and Indians, but along with counting the number of graves they encounter, she also puts names to these graves (very historical).Susan Amelia Cranston talks much about the availability, or lack of, water, fuel and grass. Lucia Loraine Williams's party had quite an exciting but also quite dispirited journey. She lost her ten year old son due to a runaway wagon; had an Indian offer to swap her child for Lucia's three year old; thievery surrounding Fort Hall; etc. Her letter is just, truthful and illustrative of life on the trail.Esther Lockhart was also in Lucia's wagon train and her reminisces are both vivid and picturesque of the trek.The diaries of Elizabeth Wood and Eugenia Zieber are a delight to read.The jewel of the book lies in Jean Rio Baker's diary. A Mormon widow with seven children, she leaves England to make the pilgrimage to Salt Lake City. A fascinating read of courage, tenacity and nerve.Excellent book.

Librarians say one of the best

This is a treat to listen to in the car on the way to work. An extraordinary story - women, migration, inner strength. I shared this with four other librarians who all enjoyed the tapes and proclaimed this one of the best audio books they had ever listened to.