Document Type
Book
Publication Date
1974
Abstract
Early in the fall of 1832, while steaming down the Ohio River toward its confluence with the Mississippi, the steamboat Illinois, en route to St. Louis, collided with the Yellowstone with such force that the Illinois was nearly sunk. The accident, though minor, has symbolic value in a study of Washington Irving as a Western writer, for Irving was aboard the Illinois, traveling toward Independence, Missouri, where the famous author would begin a month-long tour on the prairies of Oklahoma—the Southwest. Aboard the Yellowstone, a packet belonging to the American Fur Company, were fur traders and trappers in the employ of John Jacob Astor and his partners. The packet was completing a record-breaking trip to Fort Union at the mouth of the Yellowstone River.
Recommended Citation
Cracroft, Richard H. Washington Irving: The Western Works. Boise, ID: Boise State University, 1974. Digital. Western Writers Series, 14.