Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail

In 1852, young Ezra Meeker set out from Iowa with his wife and infant son to cross plains, deserts, and mountains by ox team to the Oregon Country. This vivid firsthand account captures the dust, cholera, buffalo stampedes, river crossings, and pioneer courage of that epic migration—then follows Meeker's homesteading years in Washington and his remarkable return, at seventy-six, to reblaze and mark the fading Oregon Trail for future generations.

• A man who crossed the Oregon Trail as a young father in 1852 retraced the whole route by ox team at age 76 to save it from being forgotten.
• An authentic firsthand account—not a novel—of the hardships, deaths, and small joys of the great overland migration.
• Ends with a personal audience with President Theodore Roosevelt, who pledged to help mark the trail.
• A living link between the covered-wagon era and the age of automobiles and airplanes.

“Worn deep and wide by the migration of three hundred thousand people, lined by the graves of twenty thousand dead, witness of romance and tragedy, the Oregon Trail is unique in history and will always be sacred to the memories of the pioneers.”

Perfect for a reader who loves firsthand American frontier history and the romance of the Oregon Trail, or a teacher/homeschool parent seeking an authentic pioneer narrative.