to 1795

Best-selling author David McCullough tells the story of the settlers who began America's migration west, overcoming almost-unimaginable hardships to build in the Ohio wilderness a town and a government that incorporated America's highest ideals. As part of the Treaty of Paris, in which Great Britain recognized the new United States of America, Britain ceded the land that comprised the immense Northwest Territory, a wilderness empire northwest of the Ohio River containing the future states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. A Massachusetts minister named Manasseh Cutler was instrumental in opening this vast territory to veterans of the Revolutionary War and their families for settlement. Included in the Northwest Ordinance were three remarkable conditions: freedom of religion, free universal education, and most importantly, the prohibition of slavery. In 1788 the first band of pioneers set out from New England for the Northwest Territory under the leadership of Revolutionary War veteran General Rufus Putnam. They settled in what is now Marietta on the banks of the Ohio River. McCullough tells the story through five major characters: Cutler and Putnam; Cutler's son Ephraim; and two other men, one a carpenter turned architect, and the other a physician who became a prominent figure in American science. They and their families created a town in a primeval wilderness, while coping with such frontier realities as trees of a size never imagined, floods, fires, wolves, bears, even an earthquake, all the while negotiating a contentious and sometimes hostile relationship with the native people. Like so many of McCullough's subjects, they let no obstacle deter or defeat them. Drawn in great part from a rare and all-but-unknown collection of diaries and letters by the key figures, The Pioneers is a uniquely American story of people whose ambition and courage led them to remarkable accomplishments. This is a revelatory and quintessentially American story, written with David McCullough's signature narrative energy.

". . . tells the story of the settlers who began America's migration west, overcoming almost-unimaginable hardships to build in the Ohio wilderness a town and a government that incorporated America's highest ideals"--Provided by publisher.

In 1755, after the death of his father, fifteen-year-old Patrick Egan and his uncle accompany the military force of aide-de-camp George Washington and British General Braddock as it journeys to fight the French and their Indian allies at Fort Duquesne in the Ohio River Valley.

Provides an overview of the French and Indian War, discussing why it was fought, what role George Washington played in it, and how it impacted world history.

Examines the events leading to the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794 which ended Indian and British control of the Ohio Valley.

Lost in the Ohio River Valley in May 1793, twelve-year-old Clare and her two brothers struggle to survive in the wilderness and to avoid capture by the Shawnee Indians.

Young George Washington, a major in the British military in the American colonies, embarks on a dangerous mission in the Ohio wilderness to take a message from the King of England to the French commander that could prevent war between England and France.