Books about exploring and settling from Appalachians to Mississippi River

[Greg]

Hi, I'm looking for book recommendations about settling the "Old" American West, from the Appalachians to the Mississippi. So the early frontiersman and pathfinders on the Ohio river and down / up the Mississippi. The Great Lakes area and "old" Northwest territory, and midwest states, KY and TN, and then Florida to Louisiana, etc.

Time period should be 1700-1860 or so.

Thanks in advance for any recommendations you'd have.

[Harold]

I just finished Conrad Richter's "The Trees," about a family consisting of a "woodsy" father with "itchy" feet, a stoic mother in poor health, four daughters (the oldest 17), and a boy of about 11. Coming from Pennsylvania, the family settles in the deep forest of southern Ohio not long after the Revolutionary War. It is an excellent book. It is the first of a trio of books about the family members. The last of the series is "The Town," a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. The Trees