The Oregon Trail of Francis Parkman Author:Francis Parkman Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE OREGON TRAIL CHAPTER I The Frontier Last spring, 1846,l was a busy season in the city of St. Louis. Not only were emigrants from every part of the c... more »ountry preparing for the journey to Oregon and California,2 but an unusual number of traders were making ready their wagons and outfits for Santa F6". Many of the emigrants, especially of those bound for California, were persons of wealth and standing. The hotels were crowded, and the gunsmiths and saddlers were kept constantly at work in providing arms and equipments for the different parties of travelers. Almost every day steamboats were leaving the levee and passing up the Missouri, crowded with passengers on their way to the frontier. In one of these, the Radnor, since snagged and lost, my friend and relative, Quincy A. Shaw, and myself, left St. Louis on the twenty-eighth of April, on a tour of curiosity and amusement to the RockyMountains. The boat was loaded until the water broke alternately over her guards. Her upper deck was covered with large wagons1 of a peculiar form, for the Santa F6 trade, and her hold was crammed with goods for the same destination. There were also the equipments and provisions of a party of Oregon emigrants, a band of mules and horses, piles of saddles and harness, and a multitude of nondescript articles, indispensable on the prairies. Almost hidden in this medley one might have seen a small French cart, of the sort very appropriately called a " mule-killer" beyond the frontiers, and not far distant a tent, together with a miscellaneous assortment of boxes and barrels. The whole equipage was far from prepossessing in its appearance; yet, such as it was, it was destined to a long and arduous journey, on which the persevering reader will accompany it. The passengers on board the Radnor ...« less