Early traders made known the face of the land. Where they had been, settlers followed.

George Crogan, called King of the Back-horse Trail, went into Ohio-River country to barter calico and trinkets for furs that the Indians brought in from hunting trips. Not all Indians were friendly and his trips were filled with danger and adventure.

The Bent brothers, in the early 1800's, went overland from St. Louis to the Rockies on their first trading trips where it was snow, not Indians, that stopped them. Later, with wagons, they went southwest over the Santa Fe Trail. Bent's Fort with adobe walls fourteen-feet high became a landmark for weary travelers and a famous fur-trading post.

The Kinzie family outside Fort Dearborn, put up with wolves, mud, swamps, mosquitoes, and escaped massacre before the city of Chicago grew up around the site of their trading post.

Abe Lincoln made eight dollars taking a load of trading goods to New Orleans from Indiana. When the family moved to Illinois, he peddled pins, needles, thread and other notions to settlers. He had many experiences as a trader before he became President and saw the railroad reaching out across the continent.

From the dust jacket