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The work is a historical study that treats the settlement of the American West as a series of four great epochs rather than a simple chronology of dates. Emerson Hough opens with a critique of conventional histories, arguing that a narrative focused on “why” rather than merely “when” will be more memorable. He then frames his investigation around three emblematic frontiersmen, Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, and Kit Carson, using their biographies as lenses through which to explore the broader movement of people from the Alleghenies, across the Mississippi, over the Rockies, and finally to the Pacific. The introductory chapters already shift from abstract argument to concrete description, first extolling the American ax as the quintessential tool of the pioneer, then the rifle as the equally simple yet decisive weapon that enabled the frontier to expand. Hough’s method blends philosophical reflection with detailed technical description, promising a blend of cultural analysis and vivid portraiture of early western life.
Written in the early‑1900s, the book bears the cadence of a turn‑of‑the‑century essayist: formal, earnest, and occasionally rhetorical, with a tone that celebrates the rugged individualism of the frontier. Its style is dense but accessible, employing long sentences and a didactic voice that seeks to persuade as much as to inform. Readers who enjoy a thoughtful, almost moral‑philosophical take on American expansion, particularly those interested in the lives of Boone, Crockett and Carson, or in the material culture of the frontier such as axes and rifles, will find Hough’s perspective rewarding. It appeals to students of early‑American history, lovers of biographical sketches, and anyone drawn to a reflective narrative that places the West’s development within a broader cultural and psychological framework.
The opening · free to read
The customary method in writing history is to rely on chronological sequence as the only connecting thread in the narrative. For this reason many books of history are but little more than loosely bound masses of dates and events that bear no philosophical connection with one another, and therefore are not easily retained in the grasp of the average mind. History, to be of service, must be remembered.
A merely circumstantial mind may grasp and retain for a time a series of disconnected dates and events, but such facts do not appeal to that more common yet not less able type of intellect that asks not only when, but why, such and such a thing happened; that instinctively relates a given event to some other event, and thus goes on to a certain solidity and permanency in conclusions. Perhaps to this latter type of mind there may be appeal in a series of loosely connected yet really interlocking monographs upon certain phases of the splendid and stirring history of the settlement of the American West.
Not concerned so much with a sequence of dates, or with a story of martial or political triumphs, so called, the writer has sought to show somewhat of the genesis of the Western man; that is to say, the American man; for the history of America is but a history of the West.
Whence came this Western man, why came he, in what fashion, under what limitations? What are the reasons for the American or Western type? Is that type permanent? Have we actual cause for self-congratulation at the present stage of our national development? These are some of the questions that present themselves in this series of studies of the manner in which the settlement of the West was brought about.
The history of the occupation of the West is the story of a great pilgrimage. It is the record of a people always outstripping its leaders in wisdom, in energy and in foresight. A slave of politics, the American citizen has none the less always proved himself greater than politics or politicians. The American, the Westerner, if you please, has been a splendid individual. We shall have no hope as a nation when the day of the individual shall be no more. Then ultimately we shall demand Magna Charta over again; shall repeat in parallel the history of France in ’93; shall perhaps see the streets run red in our America. There are those who believe that the day of the individual in America is passing all too swiftly, that we are making history over-fast. There is scant space for speculation when the facts come crowding down so rapidly on us as is the case to-day. Yet there may perhaps be some interest attached to conclusions herein, which appear logical as based upon a study of the manner in which the American country was settled.
As to dates, we shall need but few. Indeed, it will suffice if the reader shall remember but one date out of all given in this book—that when it became no longer profitable to trap the beaver in the West. This date, remembered and understood logically, may prove of considerable service in the study of the movements of the American people.
As to the apparently disconnected nature of the studies here presented, it is matter, as one may again indicate, not of accident. On the contrary, the arrangement of the material is thought to constitute the chief claim of the work for a tolerant consideration.
I shall ask my reader to consider the movements of the American population as grouped under four great epochs. There was a time when the west-bound men were crossing the Alleghanies; a time when they crossed the Mississippi; a time when they crossed the Rocky Mountains. Now they cross the Pacific Ocean. Roughly coincident with these great epochs we may consider, first, the period of down-stream transportation; second, of up-stream transportation; and lastly, of transportation not parallel to the great watercourses, but directly across them on the way to the West. These latter groupings were employed in a series of articles printed in the Century Magazine in the year 1901-1902, the use of this material herein being by courtesy of the Century Company.
I have not hesitated to employ the medium of biography where that seemed the best vehicle for conveying the idea of a great and daring people led by a few great and daring pilots, prophets of adventurings: hence the sketches of the lives of the great frontiersmen, Boone, Crockett, and Carson,—all great and significant lives, whose story is useful in illustrative quality.
I am indebted for many facts obtained from special study by Mr. Horace Kephart, an authority on early Western history, illustrating thoroughly the part that the state of Pennsylvania played in the movement of the early west-bound population. Mr. Warren S. Ely, a resident of historic Bucks County, Pennsylvania, supplements Mr. Kephart’s material with results of local investigations of his own. Mr. Alexander Hynds of Tennessee assists in telling the story of that Frontier Republic whose history blends itself so closely with Western affairs of a hundred years ago. I have quoted freely from Mr. N. P. Langford, a man of the early trans-Missouri, an Argonaut of the Rockies, who has placed at my disposal much valuable material. Mr. Hiram M. Chittenden’s splendid work on the history of the American fur trade has proved of great value.
I am indebted to many books and periodicals for data regarding the modern American industrial development. I am indebted also to many early authors who wrote of the old West, and am under obligations to very many unknown friends, the unnamed but able writers of the daily press.
In regard to the classification of this material, varied and apparently heterogeneous, yet really interdependent, under the four epochs or volume-heads mentioned, I refer to the table given on another page.
As justification of what might be called presumption on the part of the writer in undertaking a work of this nature, he has only to plead a sincere interest in the West, which was his own native land; a love for that free American life now all too rapidly fading away; and a deep admiration for the accomplishments of that American civilization which never was and never will be any better than the man that made it. It has not been the intention herein to write a history of the American people, but a history of the American man.
EMERSON HOUGH.
Chicago, Illinois, June, 1903.
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I ask you to look at this splendid tool, the American ax, not more an implement of labor than an instrument of civilization. If you can not use it, you are not American. If you do not understand it, you can not understand America.
This tool is so simple and so perfect that it has scarcely seen change in the course of a hundred years. It lacks decoration, as do the tools and the weapons of all strong peoples. It has no fantastic lines, no deviations from simplicity of outline, no ornamentations, no irregularities. It is simple, severe, perfect. Its beauty is the beauty of utility.
In the shaft of the ax there is a curve. This curve is there for a reason, a reason of usefulness. The simple swelling head is made thus not for motives of beauty, but for the purpose of effectiveness. The shaft, an even yard in length, polished, curved, of a formation that shall give the greatest strength to a downright blow in combination with the greatest security to the hand-grasp, has been made thus for a century of American life. This shaft is made of hickory, the sternest of American woods, the one most capable of withstanding the hardest use. It has always been made thus and of this material.
The metal head or blade of the American ax is to-day as it has always been. The makers of axes will tell you that they scarcely know of any other model. The face of the blade is of the most highly tempered steel for a third or half of its extent. The blade or bitt is about eight inches in length, the cutting edge four and seven-eighths to five inches in width. The curve of this edge could not, by the highest science, be made more perfect for the purpose of biting deepest at the least outlay of human strength. The poll or back of the ax is about four inches in width, square or roughly rounded into such form that it is capable of delivering a pounding, crushing or directing blow. The weight of the ax-head is about four pounds, that is to say from three and one-half to five pounds.
With the ax one can do many things. With it the early American blazed his way through the trackless forests. With it he felled the wood whereby was fed the home fire, or the blaze by which he kept his distant and solitary bivouac. With it he built his home, framing a fortress capable of withstanding all the weaponry of his time. With it he not only made the walls, but fabricated the floors and roof for his little castle. He built chairs, tables, beds, therewith. By its means he hewed out his homestead from the heart of the primeval forest, and fenced it round about. Without it he had been lost.
At times it served him not only as tool, but as weapon; nor did more terrible weapon ever fit the hand of man. Against its downright blow wielded by a sinewy arm the steel casques of the Crusaders had proved indeed poor fending. Even the early womankind of America had acquaintance with this weapon. There is record of a woman of early Kentucky who with an ax once despatched five Indians, who assailed the cabin where for the time she had been left alone.
It was a tremendous thing, this ax of the early American. It cleared away paths over hundreds of miles, or marked the portages between the heads of the Western waterways, which the early government declared should be held as public pathways forever. In time it became an agent of desolation and destruction, as well as an agent of upbuilding and construction. Misguided, it leveled all too soon and wastefully the magnificent forests of this country, whose superior was never seen on any portion of the earth. Stern, simple, severe, tremendous, wasteful—truly this was the typical American implement.
Witness this sweet ancient weapon of our fathers, the American rifle, maker of states, empire builder. Useful as its cousin, the ax, it is in design simple as the ax; in outline severe, practicable, purposeful in every regard. It is devoid of ornamentation. The brass that binds the foot of the stock is there to protect the wood. The metal guard below the lock is to preserve from injury the light set-triggers. The serrated edges of the lock plate may show rude file marks of a certain pattern, but they are done more in careless strength than in cunning or in delicacy. This is no belonging of a weak or savage man. It is the weapon of the Anglo-Saxon; that is to say, the Anglo-Saxon in America, who invented it because he had need for it.
This arm was born of the conditions that surrounded our forefathers in the densely covered slopes of the Appalachian Divide, in whose virgin forests there was for the most part small opportunity for extended vision, hence little necessity for a weapon of long range. The game or the enemy with which the early frontiersman was concerned was apt to be met at distances of not more than a hundred or two hundred yards, and the early rifle was perfect for such ranges.
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