Between 1841 and 1865, some 40,000 children participated in the great overland journeys from the banks of the Missouri River to the shores of the Pacific Ocean. In this book, Emmy Werner gives 120 of these young emigrants, ranging from ages four to seventeen, a chance to tell the stories of their journeys west. Incorporating primary materials in the form of diaries, letters, journals and reminiscences, the author tells a tale fof juman resiliance. For six months or more, the young travelers traversed 2000 miles of unchartered prairies, deserts and mountain ranges. Some became part of makeshift families; others adopted the task of keeping younger siblings alive. they encountered strangers who risked their own lives for youngsters and guides whose erroneuos advice led to detours and desolation. The children endured excessive heat and cold and often suffered from cholera, dysentary, fever and scurvy. They also faced thirst and starvation, cannibalism among famished members of their own parties, kidnappings and the deaths of family members and friends.
From the teenaged Nancy Kelsey, who carried her infant daughter across the Sierra Nevada, to the survivors of the ill-fated Donner party in 1846-1847, Gold Rush orphans of 1849, and the youngsters who crossed Death Valley and the southwestern deserts in the 1850s, the eyewitness accounts of these pioneer children speak of fortitude, faith and invincibility in the face of great odds.
- ISBN10 0813320267
- ISBN13 9780813320267
- Publish Date 21 March 1995
- Publish Status Out of Stock
- Out of Print 11 October 2009
- Publish Country US
- Publisher Taylor & Francis Inc
- Imprint Westview Press Inc
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 202
- Language English