VOICES FROM AMERICA’S PAST THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT 1832-1889 Edited by Richard B. Morris Gouverneur Morris Professor of History Columbia University New York, New York James Woodress Chairman, Department of English San Fernando Valley State College Northridge, California WEBSTER PUBLISHING COMPANY ST. LOUIS ATLANTA DALLAS VOICES FROM AMERICA’S PAST _The Beginnings of America 1607-1763_ _The Times That Tried Men’s Souls 1770-1783_ _The Age of Washington 1783-1801_ _The Jeffersonians 1801-1829_ _Jacksonian Democracy 1829-1848_ _The Westward Movement 1832-1889_ _The House Divided: The Civil War 1850-1865_ (_Other titles in preparation_) Acknowledgments Pages 5-8. From Sarah Royce, _A Frontier Lady_. Reprinted by permission of Yale University Press. Pages 8-11. From Henry Ellsworth, _Washington Irving on the Prairie_, edited by Williams and Simison, reprinted by permission of American Book Company. Pages 14-16. From the _Autobiography of Isaac Jones Wistar_, reprinted by permission of The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology. Pages 51-55. From _Giants in the Earth_, by O. E. Rölvaag. Copyright 1927 by Harper and Brothers. Reprinted by permission of Harper and Brothers. Copyright ©, 1961, by Webster Publishing Company Printed in the United States of America All rights reserved TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface v I The Land and the People Frémont Crosses the Sierras 1 Colonel John Frémont Describes His Expedition 1 The Desert Barrier 5 Sarah Royce Crosses the Desert 5 A Tour on the Prairies 8 Henry Ellsworth Accompanies Washington Irving Across the Plains 8 The Indians 11 Francis Parkman Describes the Dahcotahs 11 The Trappers 13 Isaac Jones Wistar Endures a Hard Winter 13 The Emigrants 16 Francis Parkman Encounters a Wagon Train 16 II The Conquest To California by Sea 19 Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Visits the Coast of California 20 A Day with the Cow Column 22 Jesse Applegate Herds Cattle on the Oregon Trail 22