Osborne Russell's Journal of a trapper : edited from the original manuscript in the William Robertson Coe Collection of Western Americana in the Yale University Library : with a biography of Osborne Russell and maps of his travels while a trapper in the Rocky Mountains by Aubrey L. Haines
Bibliographic Information
Osborne Russell's Journal of a trapper : edited from the original manuscript in the William Robertson Coe Collection of Western Americana in the Yale University Library : with a biography of Osborne Russell and maps of his travels while a trapper in the Rocky Mountains by Aubrey L. Haines
（A bison book）
University of Nebraska Press, [1965], c1955
- Other Title
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Journal of a trapper, 1834-1843
Available at / 1 libraries
Note
"First Bison book printing: October 1965"--T.p. verso
"Bison book edition reprinted from the 1955 edition by arrangement with the Oregon Historical Society."--T.p. verso
Title on facsim. t.p.: Journal of a trapper, or, Nine years residence among the Rocky Mountains, between the years of 1834 and 1843, comprising a general description of the country, climate, rivers, lakes, mountains, etc., the nature and habits of animals, manners and customs of Indians and a complete view of the life led by a hunter in those regions
Includes bibliographical references (p. 175-179) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
"Reader, if you are in search of a Classical and Scientific tourist, please to lay this Volume down, and pass on, for this simply informs you what a Trapper has seen and experienced. But if you wish to peruse a Hunter's rambles among the wild regions of the Rocky Mountains, please to read this and forgive the authors foibles and imperfections, considering as you pass along that he has been chiefly educated in Nature's School under that rigid tutor experience. . . ."
Born in a little Maine village in 1814, Osborne Russell ran away to sea at the age of sixteen, but he soon gave up seafaring to serve with a trading and trapping company in Wisconsin and Minnesota. In 1834 he signed up for Nathaniel Wyeth's expedition to the Rocky Mountains and the mouth of the Columbia. Subsequently he joined Jim Bridger's brigade of old Rocky Mountain Fur Company men, continuing with them after a merger that left the American Fur Company in control of the trade. When the fur trade declined, he became a free trapper operating out of Fort Hall, staying in the mountains until the great Westward migration began.
Osborne Russell's journal covering the years 1834 to 1843 is, in the words of editor Aubrey L. Haines, "perhaps the best account of the fur trapper in the Rocky Mountains when the trade there was at its peak. It is a factual, unembellished narrative written by one who was not only a trapper but also a keen observer and an able writer." Edited from the original manuscript and originally printed in a limited edition of 750 copies, this classic piece of Western Americana is now available to the general public.
by "Nielsen BookData"
