Today, on the Keys between Key West and the mainland, some 40,000 residents and thousands of visitors fish, swim, sail, and dive in the crystal clear waters off a tropical reef; relax in the sun and cooling trade wind breezes; and sleep in the air-conditioned comfort of their homes and hotel rooms. On these same islands, as short a time as 80 years ago, fewer than 300 inhabitants tried to eke out a living without benefit of electricity, running water, radios, or telephones. Tormented by clouds of voracious mosquitoes and no-see-ums, broiled by the tropical sun, they lived in thatched-roof homes regularly flattened by hurricane winds. Weeks would go by before some passing sailboat brought them news of the outside world or their relatives. The stories of these hardy pioneers and their predecessors, as far back as the Native Americans who lived on the Keys at least 1,000 years ago, are told, many for the first time, in this book. As vividly portrayed as if they were characters in a novel, these true-life inhabitants of the Florida Keys will capture your admiration as you share in the dreams and realities of their daily lives. Includes Don Diego, a Spanish-speaking native who led in shipwreck plundering in the early 18th century; Jacob Housman, an unscrupulous wrecking captain who amassed a fortune and lost it when Indians burned his town to the ground; Dr. Perrine, a scientist who was killed by Indians; the African Americans who made charcoal for the stoves of Key West; and the indomitable Lily Bow, who eked out a living on remote Cudjoe Key. Next in series > > See all of the books in this series

Lovisa King, 17, comes of age on the Oregon Trail and finds the strength to help her family survive a deadly shortcut on their journey to the Willamette Valley.

Vol 1 905p Vol 2 961p.

In 1845, an estimated 2,500 emigrants left Independence and St. Joseph, Missouri, for the Willamette Valley in what was soon to become the Oregon Territory. It was general knowledge that the route of the Oregon Trail through the Blue Mountains and down the Columbia River to The Dalles was grueling and dangerous. About 1,200 men, women, and children in over two hundred wagons accepted fur trapper and guide Stephen Meek's offer to lead them on a shortcut across the trackless high desert of eastern Oregon. Those who followed Meek experienced a terrible ordeal when his memory of the terrain apparently failed. Lost for weeks with little or no water and a shortage of food, the Overlanders encountered deep dust, alkali lakes, and steep, rocky terrain. Many became ill and some died in the forty days it took to travel from the Snake River in present-day Idaho to the Deschutes River near Bend, Oregon. Stories persist that children in the group found gold nuggets in a small, dry creek bed along the way. From 2006 to 2011, Brooks Ragan and a team of specialists in history, geology, global positioning, metal detecting, and aerial photography spent weeks every spring and summer tracing the Meek Cutoff. They located wagon ruts, gravesites, and other physical evidence from the most difficult part of the trail, from Vale, Oregon, to the upper reaches of the Crooked River and to a location near Redmond where a section of the train reached the Deschutes. The Meek Cutoff moves readers back and forth in time, using surviving journals from members of the 1845 party, detailed day-to-day maps, aerial photographs, and descriptions of the modern-day exploration to document an extraordinary story of the Oregon Trail.

This E-book centers around one of the founders of Columbus, Ohio; namely, Isaiah Vorys (1750-1834), who was was descended from his 1660 CE Long Island, New York "Van Voorhees" Dutch ancestors. The descendants of these Van Voorhees (Vorys/Voris) progenitors purportedly represent the largest Dutch family in the USA today. The author has traced Isaiah Vorys' ancestry to 1400 CE, The Netherlands, and he offers a comprehensive genealogy of his numerous descendants. Isaiah himself was a New Jersey Revolutionary War soldier who served under General George Washington. He migrated to the Columbus, Ohio area around 1808 C.E., and his descendants (including the author) and collateral relatives eventually resided in 82 out of 88 Ohio Counties throughout the past 200 years!

This important, albeit scarce, three-volume collection of family histories pertaining to persons who migrated to the Midwest during the last quarter of the eighteenth or first quarter of the nineteenth century is now available in a consolidated edition. Mrs. Walden, who privately published these genealogies between 1939 and 1941, has here bridged the earliest known records pertaining to each family so that future researchers might be able to trace their lines with less difficulty. Although the Clearfield edition lacks an index to the work as a whole, a complete name index to Volumes 1 and 2 can be found at the end of the second volume. In all, the reader will find about 150 allied families and some 7,500 Midwestern pioneers treated within these pages. Listed below are the main families covered by Mrs. Walden together with the states in which they settled: Harper of OH, PA, MO, and MI; Rainey of OH, IN, IL, MI, MO, KS; Boal of OH, IA, MI, MN, IN, IL, and WI; Hope of VA, OH, MO, WI, OR, WV, and IN; Dewees of DE, PA, OH, IN, IL, and IA; Francis of OH, NY, IA, and OK; Smith of NJ, OH, IN, IL, IA, and CA; Dorr of CT, OH, IN, IL, KS, NE, and CA; Coe of CT, OH, IN, and IA; Fuller of CT, OH, IN, and MO; Allen of CT, OH, KS, and IL; Pratt of CT and OH; Davis of NH, ME, OH, IN, and IA; True of NH, OH, IA, and MO; Argo of DE, OH, IL, and IA; and Plumly of PA, OH, and IA.