Welcome to the list of BONUS LINKS for Freighters and Pilgrims (from the free study guide). Here you will find additional information and activitites for studying the Oregon Trail with this amazing piece of history!
If you do not yet have the free study guide, download it HERE.
Study Guide Helps
Access to a United States map is helfpul.
The California/Oregon Trail website is helpful, too.
Optional Oregon Trail Unit Studies
- Oregon Trail Free Resources from Homeschool Givaways
- Oregon Trail Unit Study from HEAV
- 100 Oregon Trail Homeschool History Resources from Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus
- Oregon Trail Unit Study for Middle and High School Homeschoolers from Whole Child Homeschool
The book and study guide will make a great study for homeschooling, and will also work well alongside your favorite history curriculum. Or, you can work with one of these unit studies linked above. These studies have tons of free resources to choose from. I suggest taking a day or two to browse through them all and see what you’d like to add to your study.
No study of the Oregon Trail would be complete without playing the classic Oregon Trail computer game! You can still play it online at this link.
This is part 1 of a wagon train reenactment made in Denver in 1996, and worth watching with your family:
Introduction
Charles E. Young at Ancestry.com
CHAPTER I
There’s a Bushwhacker Museum in Nevada, MO https://bushwhacker.org/
Read more about express companies, like the one Charles joined, below:
- Pike’s Peak Express Companies
- The Transportation Frontier (online copy of an old book)
- Overland Trail Stage Stations
- Ben Holladay, the Stagecoach King
Both of the stories in Freighters and Pilgrims mention an Indian attack and massacre that had happened that summer. Here is the story:
CHAPTER II: ARRIVAL AT FORT CARNEY
See a map and timeline of the Platte River Trail here, and read a bit more about it at this Wiki page.
Who was “Colonol Rooservelt?” It was the future president, Theodore Rooservelt! He travled out west and wrote about it. See a sample of his book, Hunting Trips of a Ranchman here.
The Platte River Valley
Early History – O’fallons Bluffs from Nebraska Outback
Learn more about Frederick Remington and see his artwork here.
CHAPTER III: AN ATTACK BY THE INDIANS
Older students might enjoy digging into this old book (online) on the History of Denver.
Get a little history of LaPorte, Colorado here.
CHAPTER VI: ON TO LEAVENWORTH
Read more about the Smoky Hill Route here.
Learn more about mule teams:
Watch this short video of a mule team in operation:
See photos of 1800s steamboats at the Online Steamboat Museum, and watch this short video of how steamboats changed America:
Days on the Trail by Sarah Raymond Herndon
The Rocky Mountain Husbandman
See Sarah’s grave site here and read a bit more about here papers here
Missouri
Learn about the Icarian Community here.
Nebraska
Get your copy of True Stories of Nebraska Pioneers and Up the Western Trail right here at Knowledge Keepers Bookstore.
Field trip! Rock Creek Stage Station, Nebraska
Field trip! Visit Fort Kearny State Historic Site
The full story of the Plum Creek Massacre
Wyoming
See the place where pioneers carved their names
Check out this lesson plan on alkali water and other sickness on the Oregon Trail
Field trip! Visit the burned out Rock Creek Station site.
Crossing the North Platte at WyoHistory.org
Montana
Visit Raymond House and the Raymond Cabin
