Tree in the Trail

Book Description

The history of the Great Plains and the Santa Fe Trail is told in text and pictures by focusing on a cottonwood tree and the events that happen around it.

Customer Reviews:

History of a Tree.......2007-03-27

TREE IN THE TRAIL is a story about a cottonwood sapling that stood along an ancient buffalo trail somewhere in the Great Plains. Holling Clancy Holling writes an enriched narrative that centers on history, which involved early contact between Europeans and Native Americans, and the exchange of goods and resources that occurred between these groups of people. Holling stresses the beauty of the natural landscape and environment of the Great Plains and the Southwest region of North America, and the encounters that the people observed and experienced as a result of several technological advances - the steamboat and the Conestoga Wagon, which allowed increased contact and relations.

The story takes place within a span of 300 years. From the arrival of Coronado for the search for gold in 1540 to the establishment of New Mexico, Holling tells the story of a tree that lived over hundred years, but succumbed to age and natural destruction. However, a part of the tree was revived in the form of an ox yoke that two mountain men, Buck Smith and Jed Simpson happened to carve out from a portion of her trunk, and transformed it into a beautiful yoke. The unique aspect of Holling's stories and books are that he provides little side notes in the form of illustrations that are positioned within each different chapter that provide an additional historical interpretation of Indian, French trappers, and cultural life of the people that inhabited and ventured into Taos, Santa Fe, and Kansas territory.

History is a major part of the book. Holling illustrated and wrote the story, but also acknowledged his wife, Lucille Webster Holling, as a major contributor to the illustrations and research that was conducted about the trail and the map. He also credits Arthur Woodward of the Los Angeles Museum for the accuracy of the costume and ornament of Spanish Southwest and the Conestoga wagon.

TREE IN THE TRAIL will engage the history reader as well as those curious about how Europeans and Native Americans thrived together in an environment and time in American history that was experiencing a transformation. This is a story that is sure to entertain every reader, and take each one back to a time of discovery.

A "Forever Favourite".......2007-03-12

I first read "The Tree in the Trail" about 45 years ago - then shared it with my son years later. It sparked my imagination as a 10 year old girl living in Australia and it did the same for him years later. It does not speak down to children. It is literate and assumes an average 10 year old has imagination and concentration and is able to dream! We went on to "Paddle to the Sea" and he remembers that with great fondness as well. They are both on the list for my 3 year old granddaughter in a few years. We need more books like this one!

Good book, poor print lineup........2007-01-10

The book is great, but the printing is cut off on the left hand pages, shouldn't have been sold as 1st quality product.

Not That Great.......2006-10-04

I bought this book hoping to use it in the classroom. I was so disappointed. It is extremely long that a student gets bored with it after just a few pages. The storyline of the book sounded great, but I did not know it would be written with difficult syntax structure. The illustrations are not very interesting to younger kids either. I think this book would only be relevant to those very very very interested in the U.S. expansion and to those who want a challenge of trying to read through each page for comprehension.

Wonderful..........2002-08-12

My 5 year old loves it and he is learning so much!

Down the Santa Fe Trail and into Mexico: The Diary of Susan Shelby Magoffin, 1846-1847 (Yale Western Americana Paperbound, Yw-3.)

Average customer rating:

Good reading!
"The curtain raises now with a new scene."
Primary Source tale of a honeymoon on the Santa Fe Trail

Down the Santa Fe Trail and into Mexico: The Diary of Susan Shelby Magoffin, 1846-1847 (Yale Western Americana Paperbound, Yw-3.)
Susan Shelby Magoffin
Manufacturer: Bison Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Everyday Life in Early America
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Land of Enchantment: Memoirs of Marian Russell Along the Santa Fe Trail
Denver: Mining Camp to Metropolis

ASIN: 0803281161

Book Description

In June 1846 Susan Shelby Magoffin, eighteen years old and a bride of less than eight months, set out with her husband, a veteran Santa Fe trader, on a trek from Independence, Missouri, through New Mexico and south to Chihuahua. Her travel journal was written at a crucial time, when the Mexican War was beginning and New Mexico was occupied by Stephen Watts Kearny and the Army of the West.

Her journal describes the excitement, routine, and dangers of a successful merchant's wife. On the trail for fifteen months, moving from house to house and town to town, she became adept in Spanish and the lingo of traders, and wrote down in detail the customs and appearances of places she went. She gave birth to her first child during the journey and admitted, "This thing of marrying is not what it is cracked up to be."

Valuable as a social and historical record of her encounters—she met Zachary Taylor and was agreeably disappointed to find him disheveled but kindly—her journal is equally important as a chronicle of her growing intelligence, experience, and strength, her lost illusions and her coming to terms with herself.

Customer Reviews:

Good reading!.......2007-09-19

I am an author. I am writing a novel based on my grandmother's life. I'm using this book as a guide to writing her story. She was born in 1863 in Clinton, Iowa and traveled west. The route she took is not know but this book gives a vivid account of the trail and its tribulations and high points.

"The curtain raises now with a new scene.".......2006-02-27

Many journals of travelers along the Santa Fe (and Oregon and California) Trail have been published, but Susan Magoffin's ranks among the best of them. Susan Magoffin was born of a wealthy family in Kentucky and had recently married the successful Santa Fe trader Samuel Magoffin. They had spent six months on a honeymoon trip to New York and Philadelphia (about which Susan also kept a journal, though to my knowledge it has not been published), and now, two months after their return to Independence, Missouri, she was to accompany her husband on a caravan transporting goods along the Santa Fe Trail to northern Mexico. She was 18 years old.

Magoffin is as charming as any 18 year old could be, and it's a joy for the reader to share her sense of adventure. She is obviously having the time of her life, despite the inconveniences of broken wagon bows and stormy weather. We also get a view of what life was like for typical travelers on the trail. There is also intrigue to a degree: Samuel's older brother James was on a mission for President Polk preceding Stephen Kearny's troops during the initial stages of the Mexican War, and news about James enters the journal at certain points, including once where he was robbed by the Apaches but somehow escaped with his life. After the trading caravan reached Santa Fe, the Magoffins contined on into Mexico, spending time at Chihuahua. The journal ends on September 8, 1847, and does not include her contracting yellow fever at Matamoras where she also gave birth to a son (he died a few days later). The couple then sailed across the Gulf of Mexico to the Mississippi River and to Susan's family in Kentucky. (Susan would live only another eight years, dying of childbirth at age 27.)

It's a wonderful first-hand account. My only complaint is that I wish editor Stella Drumm had identified locations (camping sites, geographic sites, etc.) mentioned by Magoffin in the journal. Other than that, it's a chronicle that can be read often and always seem fresh and exciting. A must-read record of an important and lively adventure.

Primary Source tale of a honeymoon on the Santa Fe Trail.......1998-11-01

Magoffin was a name familiar to the Mexicans who had trading relations with Susan's husband for years before he married her and took her with him from the states on an expedition to Chihuahua, Mexico. She kept a diary from which she drew her information for the only book I know written by a woman, young and pregnant, whose fate it was to die in her 26th year, at home. Accounts from her perspective at such a crucial time in relations between the United States and Mexico, in a venacular peculiarly her own, make her work one of considerable importance to the serious student of the time. Revealing also are individual encounters with men, some from her own country, and her opinion of Gen. Stephen Watts Kearny, commander of the U.S. Army of the West stationed in Sante Fe. Susan was a young lady of class the exercise of which makes the reader proud, and whose elegance charmed all who came to know her.

In Search of the Spanish Trail: Santa Fe to Los Angeles, 1829-1848

Average customer rating:

In Search of the Spanish Trail: Santa Fe to Los Angeles, 1829-1848
C. Gregory Crampton , and Steven K. Madsen
Manufacturer: Gibbs Smith Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Spain | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

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Old Spanish Trail

ASIN: 0879056142

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Bringing the riders of the Santa Fe Trail to Life

On the Santa Fe Trail

Manufacturer: University Press of Kansas
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

The Santa Fe Trail: Its History, Legends, and Lore
Yesterday in Santa Fe (Western Legacy History Series)
Down the Santa Fe Trail and into Mexico: The Diary of Susan Shelby Magoffin, 1846-1847 (Yale Western Americana Paperbound, Yw-3.)
Commerce of the Prairies
New Mexico: An Interpretive History

ASIN: 0700603166

Book Description

On the Santa Fe Trail, a collection of first-hand accounts by nineteenth-century overlanders, offers an intensely personal view of that arduous trip. In retrospect, the history of the Santa Fe Trail--crossing forests, prairies, rivers, and deserts--seems overlayed with the gloss of romance and chivalry. It is set off by heroic attitudes and picturesque adventures. And it has left a deep imprint on one region of the American West.

The trail crossed parts of five modern states--Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, and New Mexico. From the perspective of the overland trade, those five are forever bound in historical communion. The route began in Missouri and ended, after almost a thousand miles, in New Mexico. But it was Kansas that claimed the largest share of the trail: from a beginning point at either Kansas City or Fort Leavenworth it angled across the entire state, exiting over four hundred miles later in the southwestern corner. It would be no exaggeration to say that trade and travel on the Santa Fe Trail derived much of its special flavor from the Kansas experience and that, in turn, the presence of the trail went a long way toward shaping the early history of the state.

Many participants in this story, overlanders of various kinds, wrote down what they saw and learned on the way to Santa Fe. It is with that in mind that Marc Simmons has here collected a dozen narratives and reports from the middle years of the trail's history--from the early 1840s to the late '60s--that is, just after New Mexico had passed into American hands. It was a period of intense Indian-white conflict and before the establishment of rail lines along the route. The authors of these narratives--among them several teenagers, a Spanish aristocrat, an Indian agent, a German immigrant lady, a government scout, and a young New Mexican drover of the peon class--qualify as plain folk who, without quite intending to, got swept up in the westering adventure. Simmons has written an introduction to the collection and to each of the narratives.

Customer Reviews:

Bringing the riders of the Santa Fe Trail to Life.......2001-05-21

I knew I would be spending part of the summer living in raton, NM exactly on the Santa Fe Trail so I thought I'd try this book. I later found out from my brother in Santa Fe that the author is an extremely respected local journalist and historian.

the book are monographs or case studies of some of the people who lived and often died making the long trek. It was sort of an expressway of its day, the hardship and speed depending on whether or not you had the political clout ot have US Cavalry troops as escorts.

Product Description

Why Armstrong Sperry, one of the more versatile and vivid authors and illustrators this country has produced, is not more appreciated staggers our imagination. His great grandfather, Sereno Armstrong, was a clipper captain, and his tales of life under sail in the South Pacific obviously captivated the Connecticut youngster, and ultimately provided the setting for his Newbery Award winner, Call It Courage. But his historical novels, all based on solid research and a strong narrative line featuring younger boys facing daunting challenges, are real page turners. This is one of his best, and despite a whiff of period chauvinism, it will really give you a sense of what a journey along the Santa Fe Trail in 1846 must have been like and how a restless America managed to wrestle much of the Southwest from Mexico and the Indians. As always, the book is illustrated with spirited drawings by the author, and darn good ones they are, too!

The Santa Fe Trail: Its History, Legends, and Lore

Average customer rating:

Still the Classic on the Trail
The Great Western Highway.
Very informative but where are the Maps?
A Trail to Nowhere
Captivating

The Santa Fe Trail: Its History, Legends, and Lore
David Dary
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

The Oregon Trail: An American Saga
Bound for Santa Fe: The Road to New Mexico and the American Conquest, 1806-1848
A Newer World : Kit Carson John C Fremont And The Claiming Of The American West
Bent's Fort
Down the Santa Fe Trail and into Mexico: The Diary of Susan Shelby Magoffin, 1846-1847 (Yale Western Americana Paperbound, Yw-3.)

ASIN: 0142000582

Book Description

From 1610 to the 1860s the Santa Fe Trail, which ran from Missouri and Kansas to New Mexico, was a principal artery to and from the Southwest. Drawing from letters, journals, expedition reports, and newspaper articles, David Dary opens a window into the lives of the people who forged this trail and opened commerce with Spanish America. These firsthand accounts from Native Americans, mountain men, traders, trappers, freighters, surveyors, and soldiers reveal the spectacular details of life on the trail-from the early years when trade was controlled by the Spanish to the gradual establishment of towns that brought new prosperity and the advent of the railroads that changed an entire way of life.

Customer Reviews:

Still the Classic on the Trail.......2007-10-04

This is still the classic on the Santa Fe Trail. Dary is full of facts and information it would take a lifetime to ferret out from other sources. Unfortunately, he misses the point entirely. Traders flocked to the trail to get rich. How? What goods went to Santa Fe? What goods returned to Missouri?

New Mexico prior to the arrival of the railroads had a subsistance economy. It was metal poor. The tins that came down the Trail sparked an industry; the New Mexicans valued the empty cans and turned them into art. Poor in metal they lacked table utensils and even iron plows. They lacked basic metal tools to build furniture and so sat on adobe bancos. What wealth did the New Mexicans have to buy from the Missouri traders and make the traders rich?

The truth is out there. Try Commerce of the Prairies.

The Great Western Highway........2005-03-07

Francisco Coronado. Juan de Onate. William Becknell. Kit Carson. Jedediah Smith. Bent's Old Fort. Fort Union. Fort Larned. Fort Dodge. Raton Pass. Glorieta Pass.

Names resounding with history, lore, enterprise, bravery and honor; conjuring up images of treks and trading posts, stagecoaches and scouts, gunfights and gold seekers, cowboys and cavallery regiments, blizzards and buffalo herds, Indians armed to their teeth, army forts, dust, mud, heat, and just about every other cliche in the book of Western storytelling. And, of course, the name that connects them one and all: that of the Santa Fe Trail, the 900 mile-long famous trade route linking Missouri and Kansas with the West until the advent of the railroad in 1880.

Already used by Indian traders long before the white man's arrival, the trail was traveled by 16th century Spanish conquistadors Coronado and Onate during their northward advance from Mexico, searching in vain for the famed golden cities of Cibola. But regular trade relationships with the lands further to the east didn't develop until 200 years later, when the French began to send commercial travelers towards what was then known as "New Spain." This took a great deal of courage on the part of the envoys, not only because of the perils of a voyage into largely uncharted territory but also because the Spanish - seeing a threat to their territorial claims and their fiercely maintained trade monopoly in their territory's northern provinces - often imprisoned French and American parties caught south of the Arkansas River, since 1819 the boundary between the United States and New Spain and, as of 1821, the newly-independent Mexico. But Santa Fe merchants welcomed and secretly promoted trade with the U.S., which they saw as a way to get out of the Spanish government's stranglehold on the economy; and after 1821, the new Mexican government actively promoted trade with the U.S. American suppliers of whiskey, food, medicine, textiles and hardware soon gained profits up to 500 percent in the newly-opened market. After the Unites States' substantial territorial gains resulting from the 1846 - 48 Mexican War, which also included New Mexico, the U.S. Army built a number of forts along the trail to secure it against increasingly fierce Native American raids, which however only stopped with the forced migration of the Indian nations to government-assigned reservations in the 1870s, shortly before the trail's history itself came to an end with the arrival of a railroad locomotive in Santa Fe in early 1880. In 1987 - a little more than a century later - Congress designated the Santa Fe Trail a national historic trail.

Over the course of its history, the Santa Fe Trail saw some of the most prominent faces of the old West; from William Becknell, whose 1821 trip made the city of Franklin, MO, its first major eastern terminus, to Kit Carson, barely sixteen years old when he started working as a wagon train teamster in 1826, and Jedidiah Smith, who reportedly killed no less than thirteen Comanches before succumbing to their lances near Cimarron Spring in southwestern Kansas in 1831. Events such as the 1862 battle at Glorieta Pass, where Union troops crushed Confederate hopes of taking over New Mexico as a major Civil War prize, and the 1864 Kiowa raid of Fort Larned's entire herd of 172 horses, further fueled the danger-shrouded, mythical status of the trail, its travelers, and the events surrounding both.

David Dary's fascinating "Santa Fe Trail" condenses the trail's history into a little over 300 pages, leaving ample room, however, for the dramatic stories, achievements and failures on which the fame of the "great western highway" is built. Despite its richness in detail, Dary's prose is engaging and easily holds the reader's attention (not surprising, given the subject matter). While it certainly helps to have at least a minimal understanding of the described events' general historic context, the author's narration makes up for any bits and pieces that may have slipped the reader's recollection and also adds numerous lesser-known pieces of information, without neglecting to establish the relevant larger historic framework, such as the development of money trade in North America and the Lewis and Clark expedition, and their respective impact on the development of a trade route into Santa Fe. To a substantial extent, the book draws on primary sources: travel accounts and journals, trade invoices, contracts, newspaper articles, government documents, and more; many of them from Dary's own library - the number of illustrations alone bearing the note "Author's Collection" will be hard-pressed to find their equals elsewhere. (No small wonder: Dary reveals in the introduction that his interest in the trail's history goes all the way back to his childhood.) While a few larger maps might have been desirable - those that are provided are somewhat difficult to read - this is no serious shortcoming; the author's considerable descriptive gifts largely make up for the lack of easily decipherable cartographic devices, and the photographs, drawings, sketches, and paintings supplied throughout the book provide ample food for the reader's imagination in fleshing out the stories' narrative core and visualizing their protagonists. Although not reveling in the often bloody details of the trail's history, Dary pulls no punches, neither in his own summary of the events nor in the selected quotes. For example, he concludes the history of the whites' interactions with Indian tribes along the trail with an excerpt from Charles E. Campbell's "Down among the Red Men" (1928), beginning with the unequivocal statement that "[t]he origin of nearly every war with Indians can be traced to some offense on the part of the white man."

The book ends with a detailed glossary, annotations by chapter, as well as a fourteen-page bibliography: for the serious enthusiast, these alone should make its acquisition a virtual no-brainer. But even a first-time visitor to Santa Fe or any of the cities along the famous trail - heck, even an armchair traveler - will find plenty to marvel, agonize over and enjoy here.

Very informative but where are the Maps?.......2003-04-23

I found this book to be very rewarding and interesting, but not without fault. I found the lack of maps (or the absence of a map with more of the placenames mentioned) in the book to be very annoying - and I confess I got geographically lost at some points. I found the book very well researched and some of the stories and anecdotes very entertaining. In fact, I wished that there could have been room for more traveller's stories within the book. I must say that I got a bit disorientated in the middel of the book but it came together well. The additon of many photographs (rare in a book of this type) was a fantasic bonus and really added to the enjoyment of the book. Overall a highly entertaining and educational book but would have been so much better with the addition of more detailed maps.

A Trail to Nowhere.......2003-01-26

Life on the Santa Fe Trail was no doubt dramatic and colorful, but you would not know it from this book. More than 300 pages of stitched together factual recitations and short anecdotes, the narrative lacks any central characters, themes, or ideas. None of the individuals featured in the book survives more than a few pages, and just as a story starts to draw in the reader, it ends, only to be followed by another quite similar episode, and another and another. Great events dominate the times, but the book seems to separate life on the trail from those events, making the trail itself seem to be almost boring, which it surely was not. The largest contribution this book can hope to make is to point another writer to promising source material with which to bring the story of this trail to life.

Captivating.......2003-01-24

An absorbing, compelling and very readable account on the history of the Sante Fe Trail. From the early beginnings of 1500's Spanish exploration and the founding of Sante Fe by Juan de Onate in 1610, Dary takes the reader through five centuries of the magic and mystique of the Trail. Relationships, many times hostile, between the Spanish, Indians and Americans are very well documented in this descriptive chronology along with tensions between Mexico and the U.S., influences of the Civil War and the railroads, etc. all having significant ramifications on commerce between the two nations. An excellent book and very well researched.

Following the Santa Fe Trail: A Guide for Modern Travelers

Average customer rating:

Excellent travelers guide to the SF Trail today
With directions, maps, anecdotes, historical information
Santa Fe Trail Redux
The Almost Handy Guide to the Santa Fe Trail

Following the Santa Fe Trail: A Guide for Modern Travelers
Marc Simmons
Manufacturer: Ancient City Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Guidebooks | Reference & Tips | Travel | Subjects | Books

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Similar Items:

The Santa Fe Trail: Its History, Legends, and Lore
Commerce of the Prairies
Down the Santa Fe Trail and into Mexico: The Diary of Susan Shelby Magoffin, 1846-1847 (Yale Western Americana Paperbound, Yw-3.)
Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West
The Shape Shifter (Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee Novels)

ASIN: 0941270386

Book Description

Historic pioneer trails serve as some of the most fascinating links to our nation's past and retracing them can be an exhilarating and educational experience. Following the Santa Fe Trail is aimed at assisting modern travelers to enlarge their understanding of the trail and increase the enjoyment that comes from following in the wagon tracks of pioneers.

Originating in Franklin, Missouri, the Santa Fe Trail was the first and most exotic of America's great trans-Mississippi pathways to the west. Although the era of the trail ceased, its glory-days are still part of the collective imagination of America.

Complete with directions, maps, anecdotes, and historical information, Following the Santa Fe Trail takes the traveler on an authentic historic journey. Modern paved highways now parallel much of the old wagon route and with this guide a modern adventurer can retrace large sections of the trail.

Since Following the Santa Fe Trail first appeared in 1984, the trail was designated a National Historic Trail under the National Park Service and public interest has mushroomed.

This completely revised third edition now updates all directions and clarifies the changes that have taken place in the last 15 years.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent travelers guide to the SF Trail today.......2006-01-11

All those planning on exploring the Santa Fe Trail should have this book with them. It is an excellent guide, filled with detailed maps, very specific driving instructions, and a great deal of background information on the sites referred to. The book begins with a brief introduction, which includes information on general histories, other guidebooks, trail ruts, various markers and the groups that placed them, and a bibliography. Then Simmons gets into the specifics of the trail, beginning at Franklin, MO, proceeding through Kansas, and covering both the Mountain Branch and the Cimarron Cut-Off separately before continuing through New Mexico to Santa Fe (with brief side trips to Taos and Albuquerque included).

Simmons is interested in all remnants and markings of the trail and pinpoints even the most forlorn DAR marker. But it's his willingness to expose just about all that can be noted by the modern traveler (even sites on private property, though he is careful about warning against trespassing) that makes this guide book so valuable. This is the Second edition, published in 1986 after a careful note-taking retracing of the trail in 1985; probably a new edition is needed to update further changes made during the last 20 years (if it hasn't been done already). Highly recommended.

With directions, maps, anecdotes, historical information.......2001-09-12

Now in a revised and updated third edition, Marc Simmons and Hal Jackson's Following The Santa Fe Trail: A Guide For Modern Travelers is written specifically to assist modern travelers who enjoy following the wagon tracks of pioneers. Following The Santa Fe Trail is packed with directions, maps, anecdotes, historical information, and everything else necessary to follow the trail of history. Now that the Santa Fe Trail has been designated a National Historic Trail under the National Park Service,it is bringing more public interest than ever to this fascinating pathway that transcends the generations. If the Santa Fe Trail perks your interest to, then Following The Santa Fe Trail is a must-read!

Santa Fe Trail Redux.......2001-09-09

Marc Simmons is the pre-eminent author on Santa Fe Trail lore and this updated version of his "Following the Trail" is better than ever! He has captured those significant, visible elements of the SFT that make it impossible to follow the Trail without this book. The pictures and maps are explicit and easy to follow. His stories and anecdotes bring the Trail to life.
If you're an SFT buff be sure to also read his book: "The Old Santa Fe Trail", a collection of essays; and his new book: "Spanish Pathways" on the history of Hispanic New Mexico.
Jim Ryan

The Almost Handy Guide to the Santa Fe Trail.......2001-05-21

Don't count on AAA or Fodor's to guide you to the wagon wheel ruts, remnants of watering wholes, or Indian ambush points along the Santa Fe Trail. On one had I was pleased to see that the noted Santa Fe Trail historian had put together a guide to the location of the remnants of the trail. Unfortunately I found details lacking, particularly when it came to local observances and current road and off-road access to the location. I was particularly disappointed by the lack of detail for the Raton, NM area of the trail.

Land of Enchantment: Memoirs of Marian Russell Along the Santa Fe Trail

Average customer rating:

History becomes personal

Land of Enchantment: Memoirs of Marian Russell Along the Santa Fe Trail
Marian Russell
Manufacturer: University of New Mexico Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Historical | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

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Similar Items:

Down the Santa Fe Trail and into Mexico: The Diary of Susan Shelby Magoffin, 1846-1847 (Yale Western Americana Paperbound, Yw-3.)
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The Santa Fe Trail
Eating Up the Santa Fe Trail

ASIN: 0826308058

Book Description

The Santa Fe Trail was one of the great commercial routes across the West, frequented more by merchants than by emigrants. Hence women travelers were few on the Santa Fe Trail, and Land of Enchantment is one of the few firsthand accounts by a woman of life on the trail. The author, Marian Russell (1845-1936), dictated her story to her daughter-in-law in the 1930s. Published in a limited edition in 1954 and highly praised by scholars, that edition has become virtually impossible to obtain.

This forgotten classic paints a vivid picture of nineteenth-century New Mexico as seen by a bright young girl from the age of seven on. Mrs. RussellÂ's memories of several well-known western figures are not only delightful reading but make this book a useful addition to the regionÂ's history.

Facsimile edition of one of the few accounts of life on the trail.

Customer Reviews:

History becomes personal.......2000-10-06

I purchased this book originally to help me pass the time on a business trip in my hotel room - my mother grew up on a farm in Kansas traversed by trail and I had heard stories all of my life - mostly a lot of legends - I had occasion to visit northeast New Mexico several times over the past twenty years and now having read this book I have a deep respect and reverence for those persons whose dreams and visions made possible the taming of the American frontier - I became personally involved in the life story of Marian Russell and came away at the conclusion of the book feeling as if I had heard the story of a close family member - it was as if I were there with her living the story as well - wished there were more

Average customer rating:

HISTORIC ADVENTURE FOR YOUNG READERS

The Santa Fe Trail
David Lavender
Manufacturer: Holiday House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | History & Historical Fiction | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

General | Ages 9-12 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

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Similar Items:

The Santa Fe Trail: Its History, Legends, and Lore

ASIN: 0823411532

Customer Reviews:

HISTORIC ADVENTURE FOR YOUNG READERS.......2004-04-18

Much adventure was found traveling the 775-mile long wagon road between Missouri and Santa Fe, New Mexico. This thoughtfully prepared volume not only shows youngsters how the journey was made but describes the purpose for it.

Lavender documents that two-month trek with photographs, illustrations, and concise, well written text.

"The Santa Fe Trail" is an enjoyable history lesson for young readers.

All the Stars in the Sky: the Santa Fe Trail Diary of Florrie Mack Ryder
Average customer rating:

I'm a fan of Dear America, but...

Not the best, but still great

All The Stars In The Sky

An interesting historical read

A thought provoking picture.

All the Stars in the Sky: the Santa Fe Trail Diary of Florrie Mack Ryder
Megan McDonald
Manufacturer: Scholastic Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

1800s | Fiction | United States | History & Historical Fiction | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
General | Ages 9-12 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
McDonald, Megan | ( M ) | Authors & Illustrators, A-Z | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
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Land of the Buffalo Bones: The Diary of Mary Ann Elizabeth Rodgers, An English Girl in Minnesota, New Yeovil, Minnesota 1873 (Dear America Series)

Look to the Hills: The Diary of Lozette Moreau, a French Slave Girl, New York Colony 1763 (Dear America Series)

I Walk in Dread: The Diary of Deliverance Trembly, Witness to the Salem Witch Trials, Massachusetts Bay Colony 1691 (Dear America Series)

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ASIN: 0439169631

Book Description

Starting their journey from their home in Missouri, Florrie Ryder and her family are headed towards the promise of a new life in Santa Fe. As they cross the Great Plains of the midwestern prairie, fording rivers and climbing mountains, the Ryders encounter endless hardship as they undertake this great adventure.

Customer Reviews:

I'm a fan of Dear America, but..........2006-05-24

This one just didn't do anything for me. I thought it was bland, and boring.

Not the best, but still great.......2005-03-03

Although I have read better books from this series, this one is still worth reading and I'm glad I did.
Again (like I say in all my reviews), I won't take the time to discuss the story, but I will say that this was an interesting book.
This story has a few twists and turns, so you really can't predict what exactly will happen...my kind of book!
Because I have read better, I'm giving it 4 stars instead of 5.

All The Stars In The Sky.......2005-01-01

When I first went to Borders, I picked any books at random, and happened to get my hands on "All The Stars In The Sky". And I have to admit...when I first started reading it, it took me a while to understand. I even considered taking it back. However, after turning page after page, I finally came to an understanding with this book, and I ended up loving it after all. I recommend it to all fans of the Dear America series.

An interesting historical read.......2004-10-17

When Florrie's widowed mother remarries, she and her brother Jem must become a part of a historical event rarely depicted in young adult historical fiction. The Mack Ryders are uprooted in 1848 from their peaceful home in Arrow Rock, Missouri, embarking on the Santa Fe Trail to start a new life in New Mexico Territory. Though it is exciting to have such an adventure, Florrie can't help but worry about the rigors of trail life, meeting girls her own age, and the mysterious Indians she hears so much about. There is also her budding career as an artist to consider, and the state of her pregnant mother - so much to think about between all the camps and forts!

Megan McDonald has created a beautiful story in diary format, woven together by legends, folk stories, and tall tales of the era. It is easy to become immersed in the believable characters, their relationships and conflicts. As is the case with most Dear America books, I found All the Stars in the Sky difficult to put down.

A thought provoking picture........2004-07-01

Florrie Ryder is having a hard time leaving everything she has ever known behind. Her best friend, her grandparents, and even the grave of her father must all remain in Arrow Rock, Missouri. Florrie, her younger brother Jem, her mother, and her mother's new husband are going to travel down the Santa Fe Trail to begin a new life in New Mexico in the town of Santa Fe. Unlike the Oregon Trail and others that went towards the west coast, the Santa Fe Trail was used mostly by traders rather than by settlers.

Nevertheless, it was still a grueling journey and Florrie witnesses more than her fair share of suffering and hardship. She develops friendships that come to mean a great deal to her and that sustain her. We are drawn into the story as Florrie and her family battle their way down the trail, and we are charmed by Florrie's likable and determined personality. Florrie sees things with a clarity that can be quite startling at times, even to her. For example, she comments early in the journey that she feels lost "like a stick figure drawn in the dust, erased by wagon tracks." Later she remarks, "I am lonely and have fallen under the cloud of my own bad weather."

Written in a style that suggests Florrie's own speech, Megan McDonald has created a wonderful character and has gone to great lengths to study the times and the people she writes about. Her inclusion of Spanish words, as Florrie begins to learn the language, is a particularly effective device. Both sad and at times humorous, Florrie's story provides us with a thought-provoking picture of a time and place not often written about.

--- Reviewed by Marya Jansen-Gruber (mjansengruber@mindspring.com)

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