No comments about Families of the Wyoming Valley: Biographical, genealogical and historical. Sketches of the bench and bar of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.

2 comments about In Tar and Paint and Stone: The Inscriptions at Independence Rock and Devil's Gate.

1. Levida Hileman has done an exceptional job of painstakingly picking through the thousands of inscriptions left behind by the overland emigrants at the celebrated Oregon Trail landmarks of Independence Rock and Devil's Gate. Levida and her coworkers tallied over 2,000 names, and where historical documentation was available, brief notations of these individuals are included. As she points out, this book may also be used for some to trace genealogical ancestry.
   Reviewer Dr. Lund notes on the book's back cover, "If you are a serious student of the western emigration, you will want this book." No argument there. Even to the novice of westward migration this is a wonderful look into the history, mystery, legends and emigrant experiences of this seemingly mythical, but certainly real place, along the Oregon Trail.
   An insightful read.



2. This is a well-written and thorough resource for Independence Rock and the surrounding area. I found it facinating and helpful and would highly recommend it to anyone who has interest in the area. The authors have put an incredible amount of time and effort into listing all the known and readable writings in the area. You should get it before you go, rather than after you leave as I did. Your experience will be much greater if you look through the book first and take it with you.

1 comments about Genealogical & Local History Books in Print 5th Edition U.S. Sources & Resources (North Carolina - Wyoming).

1. Devoted specifically to U.S. sources and resources--books that contain reference literature and source material of a localized nature--this is the first of two volumes listing genealogical books in print that deal with U.S. regions, states, counties, towns, and smaller municipalities. Consistent with the format of the other volumes in the opus, this work starts with coverage of the five major regions of the U.S.--New England, Mid-Atlantic, the South, the Mid-West, and the West--and proceeds alphabetically through the States of Alabama through New York; therein books are arranged under a statewide and regional heading or by county, in alphabetical order. Besides the standard listings, many entries contain brief descriptions of the books; and in a number of cases, where books have been produced or reprinted by two or more vendors, the reader has a choice of formats and prices to choose from.

No comments about Wyoming County, West Virginia marriage records, 1854-1889.

No comments about Index to the 1850 Census of Pennsylvania : Berks County, Bucks County, Lancaster County, Luzerne & Wyoming Counties, Northampton County (5 Volumes in 1).

No comments about The White Root: A Story About German-Russian Immigrants Who Settled in the Clear Creek Valley in Wyoming.

No comments about Connecticut's Pennsylvania "Colony": Susquehanna Company Proprietors, Settlers and Claimants, Volume 2 The Settlers.

5 comments about History of Wyoming (Second Edition).

1. I bought this book to add more to my upcoming trip to Wyoming in October. I was hoping to read exciting stories from Wyoming's past like the adventures of the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang. However, this book is very encyclopedic and dry in its presentation of Wyoming's data. The information on the weather will be handy, but I could have done without the pages upon pages of data on soil composition and historical costs of cattle. This book is certainly full of information, just don't expect to be entertained by it.



2. I could not disagree more with the other reviewer who opined that it was encyclopedic but not exciting reading.

   Larson certainly has researched his subject very well and could easily be stated as the Dean Of Wyo History. As this is a comprehensive history up to the Post WWII era, the author by necessity touches on every area, yet leaves some at the macro stage where one wishes for more. This is well supplemented with a thorough annotated bibliographic section for further research.

   From its frontier routes with the Natives and mountain men to the explorers and natural resource, railroad and ranching industries which comprise this land, Larson weaves a tale which engages the interested reader and keeps your interest growing.

   The book is equally divided from its beginnings and overall description and then section two of the 19th C. on.

   A treasure of a state history. It must be added also that the line drawings by Brodie are very nice!




3. T.A. Larson -- known in fine Western fashion by his initials -- has written the official, scholarly history of Wyoming filling a huge gap in published literature about the state. Primary source material about Wyoming abounds, but few of us have the time or training to find it and then plow through it to make sense of it. Anecdotal information and imagined histories are also widely available, but few of those are reliable if you want accuracy or even the slightest bit of objectivity. Places built on myth -- and Wyoming was born of a number of them -- are wonderful, but they shouldn't be exempt from a more scholarly treatment like this. There are plenty of guidebooks, such as "The Wyoming Handbook" in the series published by Moon, that give you historical "color". But for a fuller, more realistic picture of this fascinating place, Larson is definitive.



4. This is a superb single volume on the history of the State of Wyoming. I have not had the time to finish it yet, it's a large book, but I can't put it down. This is a must for anyone researching American history and I can recommend it.



5. I have not read this book but as I was looking to purchase it I used Amazon's excellent preview features to search the contents. In a short time I discovered several serious errors. One of the most egregious was saying that Otto, Wyoming was settled by Mormons. It was not. Otto was the first town in the Big Horn Basin and was the home of the inestimable early Wyoming physician, Dr. Hale. After Otto lost the vote for county seat of the newly formed Big Horn County, the original settlers largely moved away. This was accelerated when the town was inundated by a spring flood of the Greybull River. The town was then moved to its current location where it has since been largely populated by Mormons. (The original Otto site is now a farmer's field which is infinitely more attractive than the "new" Otto.)
   
   Readers interested in a fascinating history of northwestern Wyoming might try to find a copy of Carla Loveland's Sagebrush and Roses which I believe is now out of print and was never available through Amazon.com. I found a copy at the surprisingly good library in Cody, Wyoming and was able to purchase a copy by contacting the city of Burlington, Wyoming who put me in touch with the author. Among other things, Loveland documents the charming pre-Mormon history of Otto which includes rangeland murders, frontier medicine, practical jokes, and music.
   
   Larson also errs on some of the canal-building history and so on. Though an avid student of Wyoming history, in the end, I chose not to buy.

5 comments about Letters of a Woman Homesteader (Women of the West).

1. Wonderfull stories actually written by Elinore Pruitt Stewart. The woman was a tireless worker with a special kindness to her fellow man. You can picture in your mind just what she lived. Her descriptions are as good as they can be. Her kindness will melt your heart. She makes me wish I had lived in the area at the same time. It's such a world of difference from todays progression. I'm not so sure we have progressed to a better life. Even though it was a hard life and a short one I think it may have been a slice of heaven back in old Wyoming. She will tug at your heart at times and make you smile at others.
   A great easy enjoyable read. I highly recommend it.
   Steve from Boulder Creek, Ca.



2. I love these Wyoming stories and the stamna and determination of the women.
   It came in good time so the service was good and the books in good condition.



3. 
   What is more intimate than a letter? In this hectic age we pepper our friends with emails and text messages, but letters require a different level of commitment. Sitting with pen in hand, really thinking about what you mean to convey, and getting it right the first time at penalty of a complete rewrite...this is a true test of communication. The letters of a writer can be a magic lantern into her world, and this collection from the pen of Elinore Pruitt Stewart is a fine example.
   
   Elinore was supporting herself and her small daughter as a laundress in Denver in the early 1900's. Longing for fresh air and open spaces, she took advantage of the Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909 to file a claim for land in Wyoming. She answered an ad from Clyde Stewart of Burntfork, Wyoming, who was looking for a cook and companion, and they were married soon after her arrival.
   
   From 1909 to 1913 Elinore wrote letters to her former Denver employer, Mrs. Coney. She wrote about the neighbors--a loose term describing anyone within a two-day ride of the ranch at Burntfork. She wrote about traveling by carriage, sled or pony up ravines and over buttes with camping gear and a mess box. She described the daily routines, the activities of her daughter Jerrine, the pleasures of her small house, the pain of an infant's death, the easy hospitality extended to travelers in the beautiful but unforgiving Wyoming wilderness. Always she wrote of "the sage, sand and sunshine" of her adopted state. In a letter about a hermit sheep rancher missing his family in the South, she described a treasured daguerrotype of his family peering out from "the mellow twilight of long ago."
   
   This long-ago time is brought to life through the humor and vividness of her writing. Though she often apologizes to her correspondent for the length and detail of her letters, Mrs. Coney must have found them worth keeping, because they were serialized for publication in the Atlantic Monthly Magazine in 1913 and first published as a book in 1914.
   
   Writing about her wedding to Clyde Stewart at their ranch, Elinore describes her urgent desire to make a good impression on the neighbors. She cooked and cleaned all morning; when she dressed for the wedding, she left her good shoes for the last moment. Standing up before the justice of the peace with her bridegroom she realized that she still had on her soft house shoes and her apron. Did this ruin her day? Not at all; she wrote, "At least the shoes were comfortable and the apron was white." This is the spirit that Elinore Pruitt Stewart brought to her life as a Wyoming homesteader, and you will be enchanted and inspired by her descriptive letters. She did her best to persuade her correspondent that homesteading was well within the capabilities of anyone, and recommended it for "the troops of tired, worried women" in the dingy cities.
   
   I listened to the unabridged audio of Letters of a Woman Homesteader (Primary Source History), narrated by Kate Fleming, and enjoyed it very much. As usual with an audio production I missed out on the biographical notes and photographs, but found them on a historical website. Five stars
   
   Linda Bulger, 2009



4. I agree completely with all of the glowing reviews of this book. In fact, this is the first review I have written on Amazon and am doing so just because it is that engaging and inspiring. This book was floating around my grandmother's house (published 1914, hand note to my grandmother dated 1917 in the front cover) and I was lucky enough to come across it.
   
   What I'd like to point out in this review is how remarkable and inspiring it was to read about this uneducated, poor woman with hardly any training of any kind who set about to succeed in life by the power of her mind...I found it to be a testimony to how the Law of Attraction and Mind Power work in action - unwittingly described by this strong and doggedly optimistic woman.
   
   Over and over again we are given Elinore's outlook on life and its subsequent consequences. Every single hardship that Elinore describes is then immediately mined for the positive. Over and over again we see our heroine end up in circumstances that would throw any one of us into rage or depression, but she just really and truthfully finds the "humor" or the "fun" in it and, you know what, Eventually things do turn out just fine with her. Wonderful, in fact.
   
   Here is a portrait of a very soulful, intelligent, humorous, insightful and even spiritual (not that she preaches in any religious way - a universal spirituality just comes through in certain passages) human being who is determined to wrest every last bit of fun and beauty out of life no matter what it throws her way. More than being an "accurate" depiction of life out on the west (after all, the accuracy of any autobiographical tale will be tainted by the viewpoint it is written from), I see it as more the depiction of one woman's bold venture out west and into life. Carpe Diem and then some. Adventuresome, entrepreneurial, entertaining and inspiring. So glad I came across it.
   
   PS: Lovers of Abraham-Hicks, I invite you to read this book and note the correlations!



5. I read this book hoping to get the feel for late 19th century living for a woman on the frontier in Wyoming. She gave me splendid details about the foods they ate, the scenery, the animals, the modes of transportation and stories about an interesting lot of characters that resided in the frontier and how they interacted. Although she married, she wanted to prove to herself that a woman could homestead alone and provide for herself, so on the land she filed for adjacent to her husband, she worked alone. Very neat way to view time from back then first hand.

1 comments about Wapiti Wilderness.

1. Delightful mix of authorship with suject matter alternating between chapters of ground-breaking elk research (by Olaus) and family life in a near wilderness (by Margaret). The Muries were just as dedicated game biologists studying elk in Wyoming as Olaus' brother Adolph was in Alaska as he dedicated his life to research on wolves for the National Geographic Society. (Adolph's work preceeded Farley Mowatt's writings and subsequent hit movie, "Never Cry Wolf" and provided invaluable background information.) Olaus pioneered the practice of feeding hay to the elk during difficult winters to keep the herds healthy. Margaret deserved some kind of medal for raising those kids under such trying, but ultimately rewarding, conditions.