Across the Great Divide : Robert Stuart and the Discovery of the Oregon Trail

by Laton Mccartney

• ISBN13: 9780743249355
• ISBN10: 0743249356
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2010-12-31
• Publisher: Free Press

Summary

"This is the story of Robert Stuart and his trailblazing discovery of the Oregon Trail. Lewis and Clark had struggled across the high Rockies in present-day Montana and Idaho, but their route had been too perilous for wagon trains to follow. Then, six years after the Corps of Discovery returned from the Pacific, Stuart found the route that would make westward migration possible." "Across the Great Divide brings to life Stuart's ten-month journey and the remarkable courage, perseverance, and resourcefulness these seven men displayed in overcoming unimaginable hardships. Stuart had come to the Pacific Northwest to make his fortune in the fur trade, but during his stay in the wilderness he emerged as a pioneering western naturalist of the first rank, a perceptive student of Native American cultures, and one of America's most important, if least-known, explorers. Today Stuart's expedition has largely been forgotten, but it ranks as one of the great adventure odysseys of the nineteenth century."--BOOK JACKET.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. 1
Mr. Astor's Proposal	p. 7
A Highlander's Progress	p. 12
Hidden Agenda	p. 22
In Pursuit of Castor canadensis	p. 29
Starting Over	p. 34
Final Preparations	p. 38
Aboard the Tonquin: New York to the Falkland Islands	p. 45
Paradise	p. 57
Arrival	p. 64
Getting Settled	p. 68
The Overlanders: From Montreal to the Missouri	p. 78
Visitors	p. 88
The Diplomat	p. 96
The Rainy Season	p. 106
The Overlanders: From the Missouri to Astoria	p. 111
Dangerous Passage, Reunion, and Rescue	p. 127
Bearers of Bad News	p. 136
Taking Stock	p. 141
Send-Off	p. 147
Jeopardy	p. 151
Up the Columbia	p. 155
The Snake	p. 170
Shortcut	p. 186
Crows	p. 191
To the Tetons	p. 199
Hunger	p. 211
South Pass	p. 217
The Chateau of Indolence	p. 226
Reversals	p. 233
Uprooted	p. 237
Winter March	p. 241
Surrender	p. 246
Down the Platte	p. 249
St. Louis and New York	p. 262
Afterword	p. 271
Notes	p. 277
Bibliography	p. 289
Acknowledgments	p. 293
Index	p. 295
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.