Gold Rush Diary: Being the Journal of Elisha Douglas Perkins on the Overland Trail in the Spring and Summer of 1849 - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0813156025 ISBN 13: 9780813156026

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky, 2014

Synopsis

Among the hundreds captivated by the vision of quick riches in the gold fields of California was Elisha Douglass Perkins, a tall handsome youth from Marietta, Ohio, who has here left a remarkable first-hand account of the great trek westward in 1849. Perkins' diary is an unusually full and intimate record of crossing the plains and mountains of the Great West.

Extensive notes supplement the text, associating it with numerous other published and unpublished accounts, while an appendix of reports and letters from the Marietta newspaper reveals the involvement of those at home with the Gold Rush. An annotated map shows Perkins' progress along the Overland Trail.

About this title

About the Author:

Thomas D. Clark is widely known for his many books on the South and the frontier. He is Distinguished Professor in the department of history at the University of Kentucky.

Review:

"What is untypical about Perkin's account is his narrative and descriptive powers and the skill of his editor, Thomas Clark, who has masterfully placed Perkins in the perspective of his times. Indeed Clark's Perkins joins the select handful of other gold rush diaries such as Potter's and Morgan's Pritchard as deserving a place in every collection of Western Americana."― Library Journal

About this edition

• Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0813156025
• ISBN 13: 9780813156026
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 232
• Editor: Clark Thomas D.