BONUS LINKS: Freighters and Pilgrims

Oregon Trail

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

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

More about Bushwhackers

There’s a Bushwhacker Museum in Nevada, MO https://bushwhacker.org/

Bullwhacker terms

Read more about express companies, like the one Charles joined, below:

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

Fort Kearny

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

Visit Platte River for Kids

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

The history of Fort Kearny

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.

Read about Fort Halleck.

Crossing the North Platte at WyoHistory.org

Montana

Visit Raymond House and the Raymond Cabin

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