The Great West : containing narratives of the most important and interesting events in western history--remarkable individual adventures--sketches of frontier life--descriptions of natural curiosities: to which is appended historical and descriptive sketches of Oregon, New Mexico, Texas, Minnesota, Utah, California, Washington, Nebraska, Kansas, etc., etc.

Front matter

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TO THE PUBLIC.

Being established permanently in the business of circu¬ lating Books by Traveling Agents solely, I have adopted these as luy rules:

Preface

Written History is generally too scholastic to interest the multitude. Dignified and formal, it deals mainly in great events, and of those imper fectly, because not pausing to present clear impressions by the associations of individual life. It is these that lend to written fiction its greatest charm, and attract the multitude by appearing more like truth. Although untrue in the particular combinations, scenes and plots delineated, yet well written iction is drawn from Nature, from experience ; and these facts in life, as with chessmen, are only arranged in new, but natural positions.

History includes everything in Nature, Character, Customs, and Incidents, both general and individual, that contributes to originate what is peculiar in a People, or what causes either their advancement or decline. So broad its scope that scarcely anything is too remote for its grasp ; so searching, scarcely anything too minute. Were written History a clear transcript of all that properly comes within the province of History, it would be more enticing than the most fascinating fiction. But it being otherwise, the multitude prefer well written fiction, which touches the heart and arouses all the sym¬ pathies of man by its vivid pictures of actual life.

Herein are given, in the language of a great variety of writers, not only the great events in the History and condition of the West, but in illustra¬ tion the minute matters of individual experience and observation, without «

which the other is, in a measure, untruthful, because it fails by its incom¬ pleteness to impart correct impressions. The materials are arranged in chro¬ nological order, and the sources from w’heuce' they are derived are presented on another leaf (vii)

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Preface To The Enlarged Edition

“The Great West” was first published in the year 1851, and at cnce gained a wide-spread and unexpected popularity. It appears to have met a great public want, as has been shown by the extraordinary sale of more than eighty thousand copies — a number which has been rarely reached by any American historical work. As in the interval many important changes have taken place in the West, the book has been remodeled and the current of events brought down to the present time, so that the reader now has it in an enlarged and improved form.

“The Great West” has become a standard work, and will probably in future editions instruct and interest multitudes long after the present gene¬ ration shall have passed away.

(viii;