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Westering Man: The Life of Joseph Walker
Joseph Walker (1798-1876) had probably the longest and most distinguished career of any frontiersman in American history. This first biography of this great frontier hero is based on years of research and many previously unpublished and neglected sources. It gives a rousing and authoritative picture of Walker-his pioneering heritage, his many accomplishments, and his exceptional personality.
352 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1983
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 28, 2020
Of all the "western" non-fiction I've read, this one has stayed most remembered. Walker close to head of line of people from the past I'd like to meet.
***
New York Times article - "Prudent Hero"
https://www.nytimes.com/1983/08/14/bo...
"HE was ''a big handsome'' man, ''burly, poker- faced . . . with hair flowing to his shoulders and cavalier mustaches sweeping down into his beard,'' a ''six-four, 220-pound, frontier veteran'' going into the mountains with men ''closer than brothers'' to do a job as simple in its aim as it was essential and difficult - ''to explore unknown regions.'' He was Joseph Walker, and in this strong biography we meet, with bombast scrubbed away, a man who is good to know."
...
"Joseph Walker, born in eastern Tennessee in 1798, moved with his brothers to Missouri in 1819, but soon this ''westering man'' left the last line of American settlements to explore the Indian and Mexican lands beyond. In 1825 he led the Government survey party on the Santa Fe Trail; in 1827 he was sheriff of the wide- open town of Independence, Mo.; in 1833 he guided a band across the California Sierra to the Pacific and very likely was the first white man to look down into the Yosemite Valley; in 1843 he led the first wagon train to California; in the 1860's he took prospectors into the goldfields of Arizona."
...
''Westering Man'' is not a nice book. There are no Native Americans in it, only Indians, and ''wild'' Indians at that. They steal horses, torture captives and kill each other as well as the encroaching whites. But the battle that Mr. Gilbert portrays is not one of savagery against civilization but of two sets of savages, some red, some white. The white savages were the frontier children of lowland and Ulster Scots who came to America in the 18th century. Other Britons had been glad to be rid of them, and they were no more welcome in the civilized coastal settlements of America than they had been at home. So they went to the Appalachian frontier and began the amazingly swift conquest of a vast swath of continent."
***
KIRKUS REVIEW
Frontiersman Joseph Walker has eluded biographers, Gilbert suggests interestingly, because he lived exceptionally long (1798-1876), did several different things, and left little record--out of a ""unique and, it seems, principled reticence."" What Gilbert has done, ingeniously and fruitfully, is to expand Walker's life into a de facto chronicle, even a metaphor, of the westering movement--supplying in historical detail what he lacks in personal detail. Many of the pioneers, including the Walkers, were Scotch-Irish: Gilbert explores the Old-World roots of their readiness to challenge the wilderness--where traits ""which gentler Europeans regarded as weaknesses and vices turned out to be strengths and virtues"" (and others adjusted to their norms). The Walkers themselves emerge as ""professional pioneers"": at Fort Osage on the Missouri, in still-forbidden Indian territory, ""it is likely that they became in 1819 what their grandparents had been in the Creek Nation in 1733--that is, the most westerly permanent settlers of the United States."" Joe Walker headed southwest--probably becoming one of the ""shadowy"" Taos trappers. (In 1825 he led the government field survey that marked the
Santa Fe trail.) He was one of the founders and the first sheriff of Independence, Mo. (occasioning, characteristically, a discussion of early Western law enforcement). In 1832 (Gilbert speculates), when that job had become routine, and both the Santa Fe trade and trapping had turned into mercantile enterprises, he joined Army captain Bonneville's expedition to the Rockies as ""field commander""; and in 1833, led the first party through the Sierras to the Pacific. During the succeeding years, he lived among the Indians of the Great Basin, taking an Indian wife; and in 1843 he guided the first wagon train to reach California. In these and still later endeavors (involving Fremont and famous others), Gilbert sees not Scotch-Irish ""hubris"" (or, explicitly, a Reagan saber charge) but an ""extraordinary ability to get people to cooperate for the common good."" To propound this thesis, Gilbert may have assigned Walker a more sterling character than he can substantiate--but the text is a solidly and engrossingly detailed reconstruction based on assiduous research."
**
When the Walkers were moving to western Missouri, they found " ... dripping bee trees in all the groves. (The honeybee, imported from Europe, pioneered just ahead of the white settlements and proliferated in the new country, where it had no native competitors for its ecological niche. The extent of the bee range was usually about 100 miles westward of the line of settlement, and so regular was this pattern that the Indians, who much admired it, came to call the bee 'the white man's fly.'"
p.70 "Joe Walker was not a literary stylist, but he demonstrated a remarkable gift for brevity in the twenty-page autobiography he dictated. After recalling that the Walkers and McClellans put in a crop in the spring of 1820, he explained the next year or so of his life only as follows: 'Then I went to Texas, but did not like it and returned to Osage in 1821.'"
"Though it was not a vocation to which a precise name could be put, what Walker wanted was to be a free-lance explorer, a private Meriwether Lewis ... The agent of opportunity was ... Army Captain Bonneville
***
New York Times article - "Prudent Hero"
https://www.nytimes.com/1983/08/14/bo...
"HE was ''a big handsome'' man, ''burly, poker- faced . . . with hair flowing to his shoulders and cavalier mustaches sweeping down into his beard,'' a ''six-four, 220-pound, frontier veteran'' going into the mountains with men ''closer than brothers'' to do a job as simple in its aim as it was essential and difficult - ''to explore unknown regions.'' He was Joseph Walker, and in this strong biography we meet, with bombast scrubbed away, a man who is good to know."
...
"Joseph Walker, born in eastern Tennessee in 1798, moved with his brothers to Missouri in 1819, but soon this ''westering man'' left the last line of American settlements to explore the Indian and Mexican lands beyond. In 1825 he led the Government survey party on the Santa Fe Trail; in 1827 he was sheriff of the wide- open town of Independence, Mo.; in 1833 he guided a band across the California Sierra to the Pacific and very likely was the first white man to look down into the Yosemite Valley; in 1843 he led the first wagon train to California; in the 1860's he took prospectors into the goldfields of Arizona."
...
''Westering Man'' is not a nice book. There are no Native Americans in it, only Indians, and ''wild'' Indians at that. They steal horses, torture captives and kill each other as well as the encroaching whites. But the battle that Mr. Gilbert portrays is not one of savagery against civilization but of two sets of savages, some red, some white. The white savages were the frontier children of lowland and Ulster Scots who came to America in the 18th century. Other Britons had been glad to be rid of them, and they were no more welcome in the civilized coastal settlements of America than they had been at home. So they went to the Appalachian frontier and began the amazingly swift conquest of a vast swath of continent."
***
KIRKUS REVIEW
Frontiersman Joseph Walker has eluded biographers, Gilbert suggests interestingly, because he lived exceptionally long (1798-1876), did several different things, and left little record--out of a ""unique and, it seems, principled reticence."" What Gilbert has done, ingeniously and fruitfully, is to expand Walker's life into a de facto chronicle, even a metaphor, of the westering movement--supplying in historical detail what he lacks in personal detail. Many of the pioneers, including the Walkers, were Scotch-Irish: Gilbert explores the Old-World roots of their readiness to challenge the wilderness--where traits ""which gentler Europeans regarded as weaknesses and vices turned out to be strengths and virtues"" (and others adjusted to their norms). The Walkers themselves emerge as ""professional pioneers"": at Fort Osage on the Missouri, in still-forbidden Indian territory, ""it is likely that they became in 1819 what their grandparents had been in the Creek Nation in 1733--that is, the most westerly permanent settlers of the United States."" Joe Walker headed southwest--probably becoming one of the ""shadowy"" Taos trappers. (In 1825 he led the government field survey that marked the
Santa Fe trail.) He was one of the founders and the first sheriff of Independence, Mo. (occasioning, characteristically, a discussion of early Western law enforcement). In 1832 (Gilbert speculates), when that job had become routine, and both the Santa Fe trade and trapping had turned into mercantile enterprises, he joined Army captain Bonneville's expedition to the Rockies as ""field commander""; and in 1833, led the first party through the Sierras to the Pacific. During the succeeding years, he lived among the Indians of the Great Basin, taking an Indian wife; and in 1843 he guided the first wagon train to reach California. In these and still later endeavors (involving Fremont and famous others), Gilbert sees not Scotch-Irish ""hubris"" (or, explicitly, a Reagan saber charge) but an ""extraordinary ability to get people to cooperate for the common good."" To propound this thesis, Gilbert may have assigned Walker a more sterling character than he can substantiate--but the text is a solidly and engrossingly detailed reconstruction based on assiduous research."
**
When the Walkers were moving to western Missouri, they found " ... dripping bee trees in all the groves. (The honeybee, imported from Europe, pioneered just ahead of the white settlements and proliferated in the new country, where it had no native competitors for its ecological niche. The extent of the bee range was usually about 100 miles westward of the line of settlement, and so regular was this pattern that the Indians, who much admired it, came to call the bee 'the white man's fly.'"
p.70 "Joe Walker was not a literary stylist, but he demonstrated a remarkable gift for brevity in the twenty-page autobiography he dictated. After recalling that the Walkers and McClellans put in a crop in the spring of 1820, he explained the next year or so of his life only as follows: 'Then I went to Texas, but did not like it and returned to Osage in 1821.'"
"Though it was not a vocation to which a precise name could be put, what Walker wanted was to be a free-lance explorer, a private Meriwether Lewis ... The agent of opportunity was ... Army Captain Bonneville
August 26, 2019
Engaging biography about one of our least talked about, but most fascinating trail blazers. One of my favorite biographies ever.
May 11, 2022
If you are interested in the westward expansion of the 19th century, this is a fine read. The author is not just a little in love with Joseph Walker, and now I am too. This biography also puts in perspective the mythology and ideology of the western frontier.
November 30, 2019
I'm related to him!
July 18, 2022
I have nits to pick with the author about his treatment of Jedediah Smith and other trappers that he was quite hard on, but overall this book is great.
May 19, 2023
A fascinating and well-written biography of a true western pioneering adventurer. Walker should be far more famous than he is obscure, but such is the nature of the selective history books.
January 3, 2013
Excellent
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews