July 1851: A Month That Changed the Denny Party’s Future
By late July 1851, the Denny Party had been on the Oregon Trail for more than three months. They had crossed the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, followed the Platte and Sweetwater Rivers westward, traversed the desert to the Snake River, endured hailstorms, nursed sick children, and left the familiar landscapes of Illinois far behind. Yet […]
Denny Party: Through Mountains and Desert
By June 1851, the Denny Party had already traveled more than a thousand miles from their homes in Illinois. The excitement of beginning their journey west had given way to the daily realities of the Oregon Trail—dust, illness, exhaustion, and uncertainty about what lay ahead. Whooping cough continued to trouble two of the children in […]
Jumping Off with the Denny Party in 1851
I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been researching the Denny party, who traveled from Illinois to Oregon in 1851. Once there, most of the group decided to continue north to Puget Sound, where they would eventually found Seattle. I decided to share some of my research about the Denny party in monthly blog posts this year. […]
Carkeek Park: Beaches and Beavers and History
On the fourth Wednesday of the month, I usually write a post with a historical theme—an event or place that features in one of my historical novels, for example. Today, I am detouring slightly to write about a place I recently went to that brought historical events to mind. One of my favorite things about […]