The Oregon Trail

Harvard Law School graduate Francis Parkman never took the bar - nor did he exalt the New England soil from which he had sprung. Instead, Parkman looked westward; his travels carried him to the Oregon trail, where he lived for some time among the Sioux. Despite a debilitating illness which often prevented him from writing more than six lines a day, Parkman completed several works exploring the history of the Northwest, of Canada, and of the French Middlewest, and also found time to serve as overseer of Harvard Univerrsity. Noted works include The Discover of the Great West (1869), The Old Regime in Canada (1874), and his lost Journals (1948).