The year 1789 was an exciting one for the Burd family, for that was the year that Mr. Burd decided to move his family and home "out west." They all set forth in a large Conestoga covered wagon to Pittsburgh. Traveling was not always easy, but the three children were usually brave and tried to act like real pioneers.

Pittsburgh was then a frontier village, consisting of a few stores and some log cabins. There the Burd family and the Mathews, who had joined them at York, transferred their belongings to a flatboat. In Pittsburgh, too, they met Mary Moore, a little girl who had been captured by the Indians, and had been rescued again.

Down the Ohio they went on the flatboat. After adventures with Indians, and with other pioneers, they landed at Losantiville in Ohio, the town which eventually became Cincinnati. 

Mrs. Meadowcroft has told this story with her usual clarity and charm. The characters in the story are not merely incidental to the important historical background, but they seem to be real people whose interests and activities the reader will follow eagerly.

From the dust jacket