A Covered Wagon Girl (Diaries, Letters, and Memoirs)

Through diary entries, letters, and memoirs, fourteen-year-old Sallie Hester records her family's arduous trek across the Oregon-California Trail during the Gold Rush years of 1849-1850. Her firsthand accounts describe the daily hardships, frontier landscapes, and the camaraderie of fellow travelers, offering a vivid picture of life on the trail for a young pioneer. The selections are supplemented by a timeline and details of period activities, grounding the personal narrative in the historical context of westward expansion.