The Charles Preuss Maps of the Oregon Trail

In Lead Me Home, and again in my about-to-be-published novel Forever Mine, I make frequent mention of what my characters call “the Frémont maps.” In fact, these maps were created by Charles Preuss, a German cartographer who accompanied John Frémont on his explorations of the West in 1842 and 1843. The maps were first published in Frémont’s reports to Congress in 1845 and 1846, so my fictional characters could have obtained copies by early 1847.

Preuss’s seven maps are available online

On the 1842 expedition, Frémont, Preuss and their companions followed what would become the main route to Oregon—along the Platte River through what is now Nebraska and Wyoming, crossing to the Sweetwater River, then to South Pass where they crossed the Continental Divide, and then searching for the Snake River, which they followed as far as the Columbia River. Preuss’s maps stop at Fort Walla Walla, where the Snake joins the Columbia. That’s where the 1842 Frémont expedition turned around.

Preuss created seven maps depicting their travels on the 1842 trek. These were later published with Frémont’s report to Congress, and the maps became guideposts for many travelers to Oregon.

Here is the first of Preuss’s maps, showing the trail from Westport to the Little Blue River in Kansas, where the emigrants headed north toward the Platte.

I used the Preuss maps extensively in my research about the Oregon Trail. I often triangulated Preuss’s maps, pioneer journals, and Google Maps to decide where to have my fictional wagon train camp each night along the way. I had to be realistic in how far oxen-pulled wagons could travel (compared to the lighter Frémont convoy), and I had to make sure I thought about what changes to the terrain might have occurred between the 1840s and when Google’s satellite images were prepared. Many of the rivers have been dammed in the intervening 170+ years.

Here is an image from Google Maps reflecting my research into where my wagon train camped in Missouri and Kansas. This private Google Map shows all the waypoints I identified along the trail. I used this as a guide for where to place the emigrants each night of their journey.

Writers, what are some of the unusual research techniques you’ve used?

 

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9 Comments

    • Marina,
      Old journals and letters are invaluable resources. I never thought of YouTube for research (only for instructional videos on software). What have you used from YouTube?
      Thanks for the comment,
      Theresa

  1. For seeing places where I have never been, local festivals/ traditions, music, dances, sea battles from movies, duels, bullfights.

    I am from a small European country and I write historical fiction happening in several countries/ eras.

    • Marina, films are good sources. I’ve watched several Western films to get the flavor of the land the emigrants traveled through on the Oregon Trail. I’ve found I have to be careful though, because some of the Hollywood scenes are not very realistic.
      Thanks for the comment,
      Theresa

  2. Hello, Theresa. I don’t know if your map was media interactive or not, but there’s a guy in Kansas City, Kansas who led a location-based storytelling workshop for digiSTORY KC that taught us how to add media to each pin that we place on a map. Here’s an example from a media-interactive map created by Joseph Erb, an animation instructor at Mizzou who is Cherokee:
    Trail of Tears Cherokee Northern Route
    https://goo.gl/maps/UghKiTFiYPy

    If you’d like to meet Scott Lemmon to learn more about this, let me know. He is a Google Earth Outreach Trainier. Here’s a link to his site:
    http://www.scottlemmon.org/

    Ron

    • Ron, thanks for this information. I ooked at the Trail of Tears map — mine looks something like this, though not as pretty. I’ve kept my Google map private, but I’ve thought I might clean it up someday and make it public. A project for another year, sometime. I appreciate the links.
      Theresa

  3. I’ve used my great-grandfather’s one line a day diary for part of my research for “The Late Sooner.” He was a settler after the first land run in Oklahoma. I also went to the archives in Guthrie, OK to read hand-written first person accounts recorded by those who were the first white residents into the territory. Family stories came in handy for the sequel, “The Late Sooner’s Daughter.” For the third in the series, I used my dad’s letters written from France and Germany when he served on the front lines during WW II for “Hard Times in the Heartland,” the third in the series.

  4. Pingback: Updates to LEAD ME HOME: The Fremont Expeditions and Pheasants | Theresa Hupp, Author

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