On to Oregon!

by Honoré Morrow Narrated by Norman Dietz

Overview

Traveling to Oregon by covered wagon in 1844 is an exciting adventure for 13-year-old John Sager and his family. The Oregon Trail leads over mountains of broken rock, across churning rivers, and through hostile Indian territory. Each day brings new scenery and challenges. But after months of grueling travel, his father dies-then 11 days later John buries his mother. Suddenly the six young Sagers are alone-and John is the head of the family! Should he let the other pioneer families take his brothers and sisters, or should he keep the family together and head in the direction his parents originally intended-to Oregon? Honor Morrow's thrilling tale and Norman Dietz' dramatic narration bring all of the hardships and thrills of the early western settlers vividly to life.

Editorial Reviews

Saturday Review

Will capture and hold the attention of every boy and girl.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170646418
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	06/20/2014
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	8 - 11 Years

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

The Beginning of the Trail

This is the story of a great boy pioneer. Perhaps there have been other boy pioneers, thirteen years of age, who were as great as John Sager, but, if so, I have not heard about them.

He was not a goody-goody sort of boy, you know. I suppose his manners, if he had any, were all bad. And, as you will see, his method of getting obedience from his brother and sisters was open to criticism. But he did a great job well; better, I think, than any boy of today could hope to do it. I think that was because John Sager lived under conditions that made boys plan and do as boys are not obliged to plan and do today.

He was born. in Ohio, in 1831. His father, Henry Sager, was a farmer and blacksmith. His mother, Naomi Sager, was a fine housewife. When John was seven, his brother Francis five, and his sister Catherine four, the family migrated from Ohio to a farm in Missouri.

John's earliest recollection of family talk was of hearing his father trying to persuade his mother to give up the Missouri farm and go with him to the Oregon Country. John couldn't make out for many years just what his parents meant by Oregon Country and he was inclined for a long time to agree with his mother that it would be better to remain in Missouri. Until a boy is about ten years old he is very dependent on his mother, and her feelings and opinions about family matters weigh more with him than those of anyone else. So when John heard conversations like this between his parents:

"But, Naomi, I talked today with a man who has been clear through to the Pacific Coast. He says that there's a valley thatlies out near the coast, on the other side of the Rockies, that's like heaven. Flowers all the year round; soil black muck hundreds of feet deep; thousands of acres of it, to be had for the taking. And, Naomi, if we Americans don't take it, the British will."

"But, Henry, the terrible journey between here and that valley! Women and children couldn't undertake it. You shouldn't ask it of me. After you leave Missouri, you're at the mercy of the Indians and the weather for two thousand miles. And that article in the St. Louis newspaper said you can't use a wagon after you reach the Rocky Mountains. How would we get our furniture through? No! No! Don't bother me with your restless talk."

When, I say, John first heard such exchange of ideas as this between his parents, he was worried. He shared all his mother's fears. Leave the Missouri farm, the chickens, the calves, the dog, the flowers, the bureau that held his clothes and toys, the trundle-bed in which he and his little brother Francis slept so safely in the room with Father's and Mother"s big four-poster? John could not bear the thought.

But his father had the born pioneer's firmness of will. Not a week went by for years that he did not talk to John's mother about Oregon, until the idea of going there became a part of John's growing mind.

Their farm was located near the rough road that led northwest toward the Platte River, and southeast to St. Louis. Over this road there traveled constantly groups of trappers with pack-horses loaded with furs which they had trapped in the distant Rockies and were bringing to St. Louis. And over the road, too, in the opposite direction, plodded freighters' outfits, made up of covered wagons and pack-mules carrying goods to Fort Laramie and Fort Bridger, trading-posts far, far to the west, that sought to exchange supplies with the trappers for the precious furs.

Indians went up and down this road constantly. All sorts and conditions of Indians. Sober chiefs with their wives and children, their dogs, their ponies following them in noisy confusion; young braves, drunk and dangerous; Indian hunters carrying buffalo beef to St. Louis.

It was a fascinating road for a boy to watch. At first John eyed it from the safe haven of his mother's kitchen window. But as the years marched on, John marched with them, away from his mother's skirts, toward the split-rail fence that shut the farmyard from the road, until, by the time he was twelve, he sometimes went a mile or so along the road with some outfit whose leader was willing to answer his eager questions about Oregon. And then, before she realized what was happening, John had crossed over to his father's side of the Oregon idea, and was teasing his mother to start for that fabled valley — the valley of the Willamette.

Now, in the five years that the Sagers had been living on this road, very, very few white women had traveled with the outfits that were heading for Oregon. A few missionaries' wives had gone through, but the average man hesitated to hamper himself with women and children on such a dangerous and difficult trip. And Naomi Sager clung to these facts when John and his father and even Francis nagged her to go West.

But even this argument was not to be left her. In 1843, Dr. Marcus Whitman, a missionary who with his wife carried on a thriving mission to the Indians near what is now Walla Walla, Washington, came through Missouri, urging families to follow him out to Oregon.

He told them about the wonderful climate, the vast rich lands, the mineral resources, and he told them over and over that unless hundreds of Americans got out there in the next year and took up land, the whole of Oregon Territory would go to the British. But, perhaps most important of all, Dr. Whitman said that wagons could go clear through to the Pacific Coast and that the trip was safe for women and children. In fact, he said he would lead a caravan through himself.

Videos