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The Prairie Traveler

Randolph Barnes Marcy

220 ratings
The Prairie Traveler | Randolph Barnes Marcy

The Prairie Traveler

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Commissioned by the US War Department and written by a decorated US Army captain, The Prairie Traveler is a complete how-to travel guide for the westward-bound pioneer. Covering topics from first aid for rattlesnake bites to how to travel 70 miles across the desert without water for one's livestock, the guide includes 28 travel itineraries with mileage and firewood availability
with cords. The knees are retained in their proper curvature by cords around the ends. After a sufficient number of them have been placed upon the keel, two poles of suitable dimensions are heated, bent around the ends for a gunwale, and firmly lashed to each knee. Smaller willows are then interwoven, so as to model the frame.

Green or soaked hides are cut into the proper shape to fit the frame, and sewed together with buckskin strings; then the frame of the boat is placed in the middle, the hide drawn up snug around the sides, and secured with raw-hide thongs to the gunwale. The boat is then turned bottom upward and left to dry, after which the seams where they have been sewed are covered with a mixture of melted tallow and pitch: the craft is now ready for launching.

A boat of this kind is very light and serviceable, but after a while becomes water-soaked, and should always be turned bottom upward to dry whenever it is not in the water. Two men can easily build a bull-boat of three hides in two days which will carry ten men with perfect safety.

A small party traveling with a pack train and arriving upon the banks of a deep stream will not always have the time to stop or the means to make any of the boats that have been described. Should their luggage be such as to become seriously injured by a wetting, and there be an India-rubber or gutta-percha cloth disposable, or if even a green beef or buffalo hide can be procured, it may be spread out upon the ground, and the articles of baggage placed in the centre, in a square or rectangular form; the ends and sides are then brought up so as entirely to envelop the package, and the whole secured with ropes or raw hide. It is then placed in the water with a rope attached to one end, and towed across by men in the same manner as the boats before described. If hides be used they will require greasing occasionally, to prevent their becoming water-soaked.

Rebecca 01/03/2024
Fascinating book. Marcy must have been an interesting person to know. This really puts a perspective on what people encountered when moving across the country at the time.
Jeff 12/28/2023
The Prairie Traveler, Randolph Marcy (nonfiction, classic)
Jeff Book Review #229

A really old 1859 field guide written for the US military instructing survival in the west, Marcy's "Prairie Traveler" was referenced in a L'Amour book and I got it at the Gateway Arch museum in St. Louis when we visited
kimberly 01/13/2020
It was fun just to flip through and read this and that in this book and see what kind of advise was given to people back then for traveling
Jay 06/07/2019
This is an old book written at the time of the Western migration. It is a practical book therefore in today's world it has nothing practical. However, from a historical view it is fascinating. I enjoyed the book.
Marilyn 07/29/2017
The bravery of the pioneers who set off westward in a Conestoga wagon during the second half of the 19th century is greater than I have known. I greatly admire their courage and fortitude, even more so since having read The Prairie Traveler by U.S. Army Captain Randolph B. Marcy.
This book fascinate
Dean 06/19/2017
National Best Seller!!!!....in 1859.
The Prairie Traveler was written by Randolph B. Marcy, Captain US Army for the use of settlers as they crossed the Great Plains in the middle of the 19th century.
252+ pages (not including the list of itineraries, worth the book alone!) of facts for the intrepid pi
Becky 05/16/2016
This was good old book. It was interesting to realize that it was probably the only book available to help new pioneers cross the plains. They would have to rely on it and read it and follow it to get across rivers, deal with Indians and know what to do in emergencies in the middle of the unknown wo

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