Read The Indifferent Stars Above Online

Authors: Daniel James Brown

The Indifferent Stars Above (39 page)

 

Montgomery, Donna Wojcik.
The Brazen Overlanders of 1845.
Westminster, MD: Heritage Books, 1992.

 

Morgan, Dale.
Overland in 1846: Diaries and Letters of the California-Oregon Trail.
Lincoln: Bison Books/University of Nebraska Press, 1993.

 

“Mr. Graves and Family.”
Marshall County Republican,
December 5, 1867.

 

Mullen, Frank, Jr.
The Donner Party Chronicles: A Day-by-Day Account of a Doomed Wagon Train, 1846–47.
Reno: Nevada Humanities Committee, Halcyon Imprint, 1997.

 

Murphy, Virginia Reed.
Across the Plains in the Donner Party: A Personal Narrative of the Overland Trip to California.
Dillon, CO: Outbooks, 1995.

 

National Casket Retailers Association. Online at www.casketstores.com/News.htm.

 

Neelands, Barbara.
Reason P. Tucker: The Quiet Pioneer.
Napa, CA: Napa County Historical Society, 1989.

 

O'Brien, Mary Barmeyer.
Heart of the Trail: The Stories of Eight Wagon Train Women.
Guilford, CT: TwoDot, 1997.

 

———.
Toward the Setting Sun: Pioneer Girls Traveling the Overland Trails.
Helena, MT: TwoDot, 1999.

 

Parrado, Nando.
Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home.
New York: Three Rivers, 2006.

 

Peavy, Linda, and Ursula Smith.
Pioneer Women: The Lives of Women on the Frontier.
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998.

 

Philbrick, Nathaniel.
In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship
Essex. New York: Penguin, 2001.

 

Picture of New York in 1846: With a Short Account of Places in Its Vicinity; Designed as a Guide to Citizens and Strangers; with Numerous Engravings and a Map of the City.
New York: C. S. Francis, 1846.

 

Potter, David M., ed.
Trail to California: The Overland Journal of Vincent Geiger and Wakeman Bryarly.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962.

 

“Rank Order: Life Expectancy at Birth.”
The World Factbook.
Online at https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html.

 

Rarick, Ethan.
Desperate Passage: The Donner Party's Perilous Journey West.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

 

Rasmussen, Cecilia. “1952 Blizzard Snared a Train in Its Frigid Grip.”
Los Angeles Times,
April 23, 2006. Online at http://articles.latimes.com/2006/apr/23/local/me-then23.

 

Rosen, Daniel M. “The Donner Party.” Online at www.donnerpartydiary.com.

 

Rosenus, Alan
. General Vallejo and the Advent of the Americans.
Berkeley: Heyday Books/Urion Press, 1999.

 

Ruggle, Edward.
Picture of New York in 1846.
New York: Homan & Ellis, 1846.

 

“Rules for Husbands.”
Illinois Gazette,
July 25, 1846.

 

“Rules for Wives.”
Illinois Gazette,
July 25, 1846.

 

Russell, Sharman Apt.
Hunger: An Unnatural History.
New York: Basic, 2005.

 

Schiraldi, Glenn R.
The Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Sourcebook.
New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000.

 

“September 8, 1941: Siege of Leningrad Begins.” This Day in History Web site. Online at www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?id=7014&action=tdihArticleCategory.

 

Simon, Scott. “The Heroism of James Kim.” December 9, 2006. Online at www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6602542.

 

Sioli, Paolo.
Historical Souvenir of El Dorado County, California: With Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Its Prominent Men & Pioneers.
Oakland, CA: self-published, 1883.

 

“Sir Daniel Gooch.” Online at www.steamindex.com/people/gooch.htm.

 

Smith, Mary Ann Harlan. “History of George Harlan.” Online at www.harlanfamily.org/georgeh852.htm.

 

Smith, Ross A. “Oregon Overland: Three Roads of Adversity.” Online at http://oregonoverland.com/.

 

“Sonoma County Sheriff—History and Information.” Online at www.sonomasheriff.org/about_history.php.

 

“South African Development Community Draft Progress Report on Implementation of the SADC Declaration on Gender and Development.” May 2007. Online at www.pmg.org.za/docs/2007/071023gender.htm.

 

Steed, Jack, and Richard Steed.
The Donner Rescue Site: Johnson's Ranch on Bear River.
Sacramento: self-published, 1991.

 

Stephenson, Michael.
Patriot Battles: How the War of Independence Was Fought.
New York: HarperCollins, 2007.

 

Stewart, George Rippey.
Ordeal by Hunger: The Story of the Donner Party.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1992.

 

Tangney, June Price, and Ronda L. Dearing.
Shame and Guilt.
New York: Guilford Press, 2002.

 

“The Disputed Date—the Time and Place as Given by a Pioneer Resident.”
Sonoma Democrat,
December 12, 1891.

 

“The 1872 Old Setters' Reunion.”
Henry Republican,
June 13, 1872.

 

“The 1875 Old Setters' Meetings.”
Henry Republican,
July 17, 1875.

 

“The 1879 Old Settlers' Reunion.”
Henry Republican,
August 28, 1879.

 

Thomas, Peggy.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
New York: Lucent Books, 2008.

 

Thomes, William Henry.
Recollections of Old Times in California: Or, California Life in 1843.
Berkeley: Friends of the Bancroft Library, 1974.

 

Thornton, J. Quinn.
Camp of Death: The Donner Party Mountain Camp, 1846–47.
Edited by William R. Jones. Golden, CO: Outbooks, 1986.

 

Trattner, Walter L.
Crusade for the Children: A History of the National Child Labor Committee and Child Labor Reform in America.
Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1970.

 

Trevisan, M., E. Celentano, C. Meucci, E. Farinaro, F. Jossa, V. Krogh, D. Giumetti, S. Panico, A. Scottoni, and M. Mancini. “Short-term effect of natural disasters on coronary heart disease risk factors.”
Arteriosclerosis
6, no. 5 (September–October 1986): 491–94.

 

Tucker, Todd.
The Great Starvation Experiment: The Heroic Men Who Starved So That Millions Could Live.
New York: Free Press, 2006.

 

“University of Minnesota Media History Project Timeline.” Online at www.mediahistory.umn.edu/timeline/1840–1849.html.

 

Unruh, John D., Jr.
The Plains Across: The Overland Emigrants and the Trans-Mississippi West, 1840–60.
Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1993.

 

Van Bruggen, Theodore.
Wildflowers, Grasses and Other Plants of the Northern Plains and Black Hills.
Interior, SD: Badlands Natural History Association, 1992.

 

van der Kolk, Bessel A., Alexander C. McFarlane, and Lars Weisaeth, eds.
Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body, and Society.
New York: Guilford Press, 2007.

 

Walker, Dale L.
Bear Flag Rising: The Conquest of California, 1846.
New York: Forge, 1999.

 

Weber, Lin.
Old Napa Valley: The History to 1900.
St. Helena, CA: Wine Ventures Publishing, 1998.

 

Williams, Jacqueline.
Wagon Wheel Kitchens: Food on the Oregon Trail.
Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993.

 

Wright, Elizabeth Cyrus. “My People (Graves Family).” Typescript transcribed from manuscript by Juanita D. Larimore, 2004.

 

———. “The Early Upper Napa Valley.”
Pacific Historian,
Spring 1975, 32–49. Also published as a book by the Sharpsteen Museum, Calistoga, CA, 1991.

 

Yardley, William. “Man Lost Seeking Help for Family Is Found Dead.”
New York Times,
December 7, 2006. Online at www.nytimes.com/2006/12/07/us/07oregon.html?_r=1&oref=slogin.

 

“Ye Olden Tyme: The 1878 Old Settlers' Reunion.”
Henry Republican,
August 22, 1878.

About the Author

D
ANIEL
J
AMES
B
ROWN
is the author of the widely acclaimed
Under a Flaming Sky: The Great Hinckley Firestorm of 1894
. He lives in the country east of Redmond, Washington, with his wife and two daughters.

www.danieljamesbrown.com

Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

A
LSO BY
D
ANIEL
J
AMES
B
ROWN

Under a Flaming Sky

Jacket design by Mary Schuck

Jacket photograph © Jody Lang ford, www.sierramountainphotography.com

THE INDIFFERENT STARS ABOVE
. Copyright © 2009 by Daniel James Brown. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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*
One of the deadliest of the plagues that afflicted the California Indians was—ironically enough for the white emigrants who sought to flee “the ague” in the Midwest—a virulent strain of malaria brought from Hawaii by the Hudson's Bay Company in 1833.

*
Hastings's imagination and his rhetoric had vastly outstripped the reality of the 1846 emigration. However, it should be noted that his expectations were no doubt influenced by his dealings with Sam Brannan, who was that spring actively working to bring more than ten thousand Mormons west to California. On March 26, Hastings wrote to John Marsh, an American settler with a large rancho on the western side of the Sacramento Valley, “You can rely on…six or seven thousand human souls…[but] the emigration will be much more likely to amount to fifteen or twenty thousand.” There were, in fact, just a few more than two thousand California-bound emigrants on the trail that spring and summer.

*
None of the flour available to Sarah was what you and I know of as white flour. The process for chemically bleaching flour was not commercially available until after 1900.

*
In fact, though, only four emigrants would die at the hands of Indians in 1846, while twenty Indians would die at the hands of emigrants.

*
Roughly a hundred years after it afflicted the Meek Party, typhus would kill thousands in Nazi concentration camps.

*
The following winter, one of the 1846 emigrants, Edwin Bryant, calculated and noted with some astonishment that his companions in John Frémont's “California Battalion” could happily eat an average of ten pounds of beef per day. And then ask for more.

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