Allen W. Eckert books ?

[nuttbush]

I am nearing my mid-50s now but ever since my late teens I have been facinated by the history of our Plains and Southwest Indian tribes. I especially read about The different Sioux and The Apache. One day at work a group of us were talking and I commented on how brutal some of the torturing acts were done by some tribes especially the Apache. One friend a little older than me looked up from his paper and ask me if I had read any of Eckerts books and I said no. He told me that the Western tribes could not hold a candle to what the Eastern Indians did to their victims. I have since read several of his books Tecumseh, Blue Jacket, The Dark and Bloody River, and am 4 books into the 6 book series on the Winning of America.
These take place from the F&I war through the Blackhawk war. I know they are Narratives, but are based on real persons, letters, dispatches and historical events. I have enjoyed them very much and learned more of what has happened on the Eastern frontier than I knew my previous 50 years.
Any of you other pards read his books or have an opinion of them.

 

[No Deer]

I have read the entire series, they are great books. Some people dispute the accuracy of his "facts", but to me they are still great reading.

 

[dlemaster]

I have them all and have read them. I liked the fact that Eckert corrected some of the mistakes he made in "The Winning of America" series when he wrote Tecumseh and The Dark and Bloody River.
The only thing I noticed that when he started the series back in the '60s it was titled "The Conquest of America". The title was probably changed to more politically correct.

Regards, Dave

 

The big prize in Eckart's books is his footnotes and the long list of primary source documents that he used to weave his story around. Good stories though and entertaining as well as educational.

 

[snagg]

Hi:

The first Allan W. Eckert book I read was "The Frontiersmen". I enjoyed it a great deal. I'm now trying to get thru " The Dark and Bloody River". I hope to find another of his titles that are as good as these.

snagg

 

[hawkeye1755]

Great Books and stories.I have all of his books except 'Blue Jacket'.When my wife read 'That Dark and Bloody River', she was shocked of the brutality from both sides. :shocked2:
I never told her the part of the story when a pregnantly woman was killed and......
Yes Claude, we are a family forum, so i stop here. :v
:hatsoff:

 

[Wehrmacht]

About five years ago I monitored a message board addressing Early American History (Early Colonial Period until 1865) and Eckerd's series of books were discussed in some detail once.The people on the Forum were all academic types,mostly college level...students,profs,et al...and it was generally agreed and accepted that Eckert was about 90% correct historically. The main objection as I remember was that Eckert was putting words into people's mouths and not purely reporting historical fact.

The Forum members could and would become rather vicious in attacking questionable history reporting,so being only a forester with no formal training in history I rarely made any comment on the message board :winking:

 

[BEMRON]

The big prize in Eckart's books is his footnotes and the long list of primary source documents that he used to weave his story around. Good stories though and entertaining as well as educational.

Well said Cooner54 I have read four of his books in the series and have learned a lot about a very interesting time in American history, particularly the people that lived through it. Ron

 

[pa woods roamer]

I`ve read " That Dark and Bloody River" I really liked it . I used to work at I.U.P. and some of the Profs. there had some misgivings on the accuracy of his writingds. What I really liked was also the footnotes stating where an incident took place and where the modern day site is located. I plan to visit Brady`s Bend onr of these days.

 

[fw707]

"Wilderness Empire" and "The Frontiersman" are the only 2 I've read. Both were great, especially "The Frontiersman".

 

[Trapper]

Go to[url] Half.com[/url] I found three of Allan Eckerts book in paperback form for $1.00 each. Happy reading!

 

[Desert Rat]

I've read them all...repeatedly. I find the re-prints of the letters to be the most fascinating. The book on Pontiac's rebellion might have carried it to the extreme but it was still good. I think they are a great place to start for someone getting into the Eastern side of buckskinning for general history. From there a person needs to verify their the facts through other sources and make there own judgements and interpertations.

 

[Homesteader]

Just like you I've read every one of Eckert's books I could find. Anyone here read the one about the flood in Dayton Ohio in 1913? (That's where Eckert, and I, lived. One of my Dad's best friends taught his kids in high school, in fact.) Fascinating, particularly the way a wealthy local named Patterson pitched in and did what he could to help the locals. No Gub'mint he'p he'p me! Folk did what they had to do, and they did it for themselves and their neighbors.

That's the way it was in all his books, I thought. Folks did what they had to do. You hate the Europeans for a while (Greathouse, the Moravian massacre), then hate the indigenous for a while (Crawford, and that poor pregnant woman). Brutal, both. Wow! Real life!

And as for the dialogue, he explained in the first of his books that it was a simple device to make them more readable and less dry than the academic texts that were the only alternative. And he always cited primary sources to justify it. Bright boy, I'd say. He got an 11 yr old (me) to devour The Frontiersmen with that technique.

I applaud his entire series, faults and all.

 

[jdixon]

I have several shelves filled with Eckert books that I have collected, all hard covers, many first editions, some signed copies. I live in an area where a lot of what he writes about happened, Fort Boonesboro, Bryan Station, Blue Licks, Washington, Ky (Simon Kenton's residence), the Warrior's Path, Stode Station (where Blue Jacket was held prisoner) and Eskippakithiki are all only a short distance from here. Eckert's books bring to life the brutality and struggles the early residents of this area withstood.
A few good books for kids from Eckert - Incident At Hawk's Hill, Return to Hawk's Hill and Johnny Logan - Shawnee Spy.
I also have some large coffee table books of his on North American Owls and Wading Birds of North America. Both are very well done. The book on the Dayton flood is called "A Time of Terror" (1965) - yes it is a very good read as well. If you could not tell, Mr. Eckert is probably one of my favorite authors. He is getting up there in years. I have not seen any new titles from him of late, hope he is doing well.

 

[dlemaster]

J.R.
Eckert's "The Frontiersmen" is what inspired me to look up the site of Kenton's Station and see it for myself. I remember standing on that hill were the old house had stood and talking with the fellow who lived there then. He told me that the house had gotten in such bad condition they had pushed the bricks over the side of the hill into the small creek there in the 1940s. He invited me to pick up some of the old handmade bricks from the house since I was so interested in Kenton. We were careful to pick up only the handmade bricks as there had been an addition added to the house using newer bricks. I use those bricks as book ends in my library now.

Regards, Dave

 

[J.D.]

All of Eckert's books relating to America's frontier period are good reads. They do give readers an idea of the culture of the various time periods, however, the details of his "history" are more than questionable.

The story of Blue Jacket, for example. Eckert uses more folklore than history in the story of Blue Jacket, claiming that he was a white captive who was facinated with the NDN lifestyle, prior to his captivity.

Eckert also writes of Blue Jackets killing of his white, biological brother at the Battle of Point Pleasant. This is all fiction as are most of the events in Eckert's novels.

Pontiac's love interest in the white girl, whose name escapes me at the moment, is all folklore as well. There is no documentation to support Eckerts's flights of fancy in relation to Blue Jacket, or Pontiac's infatuation with a white girl...or in his other uses of folklore to add color to the narative.

Another inaccuracy is the description of the rifle
given to Kenton by Mr. Butler. The description is of a rifle of the golden age period, as opposed to an accurate description of a mid 1760's rifle.

These are only three glaring bits of literary license, of many, used in Eckert's books.

Remember, Eckert's novels are HISTORICAL FICTION based on major historical events and locations.
Nothing more.

J.D.

 

[dlemaster]

J.D.
You are so right about Eckert's books. The one thing that really stood out to me when I read the "The Frontiersmen" for the first time was the supposed love interest between Tecumseh and Rebecca Galloway. That whole thing never made any sense at all. It turned out that the whole story came from William Albert Galloway back in the 1930s, when he wrote "Old Chillicothe". It was a family tradition supposedly passed down from Rebecca who was his G-Grandmother.
I have no doubt that Rebecca was infatuated with Tecumseh, but Tecumseh was about 40 years old when he first met her, and she was a girl of about twelve. After all Tecumseh was very well known at that time and a very important figure in the events of those days. Tecumseh had a relationship with the Galloway family through Rebecca's father James, but I very much doubt that Tecumseh felt any attraction to her except that she was the daughter of his friend.
When you read the story in "Old Chillicothe", or worse yet, see it portrayed in the outdoor drama "Tecumseh" (near modern Chillicothe) it's so sappy as to be almost sickening.
To Eckert's credit though he did note the implausability of love affair when he wrote "A Sorrow In Our Hearts".
Just my .02 cents worth.

Regards, Dave

 

[bnail]

Eckert's books are both great reads, and excellent sources because of the emense bibliographies. the content may have become suspect, but I think they still work for pointing one in the right direction.
I was, however, disapointed to learn of the Blue Jacket/VanSwearingen controversy. For years I've held up VanSwearingen's adoption as an excellent example of the totality (for lack of a better word)of native adoption. now I have to use other examples.
I found this article that kind of irked me, and makes me wonder if Eckert will be expected to revise his text regarding Blue Jacket. Blue Jacket

 

[hawkeye1755]

Eckert's books are both great reads, and excellent sources because of the emense bibliographies. the content may have become suspect, but I think they still work for pointing one in the right direction.
I was, however, disapointed to learn of the Blue Jacket/VanSwearingen controversy. For years I've held up VanSwearingen's adoption as an excellent example of the totality (for lack of a better word)of native adoption. now I have to use other examples.
I found this article that kind of irked me, and makes me wonder if Eckert will be expected to revise his text regarding Blue Jacket. Blue Jacket

Marmaduke van Sweringen was a real person. According to a family Bible, he was born in 1763(John Swearingen made his Last Will and Testament on August 3, 1784 bequeathing to his son Marmonduke use of a slave for one year. Hardly the bequeath of a person whose son is said to have been captured by Indians years before. John and Catherine (Stull) Swearingen brought their family west to this site in 1771 when Marmaduke was eight years old. Marmaduke was born near Hagerstown, Maryland January 2, 1763.Others say he was born on January 2, 1753, on a thousand-acre farm in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, according to a copy of his birth record at the Chillicothe Historical Society in Ross County), , which means that the Shawnees may have captured him during the American Revolution. There is no doubt, however, that Blue Jacket was born during the early 1740s, approximately two decades before van Sweringen. Blue Jacket emerged as a powerful leader of the Shawnees during Lord Dunmore's War in 1774. At this point, van Sweringen would have been only eleven years of age. Van Sweringen was supposedly captured when he was a grown man. At the age of seventeen years, he would have a firm grasp of the English language. It is well documented that Blue Jacket did not know English and had to rely on interpreters during his negotiations with whites.
Many people who believe that van Sweringen was Blue Jacket point to the Shawnee chief's children, who purportedly were of mixed heritage. There is no doubt that van Blue Jacket's children were partly white. Blue Jacket's wife, Margaret Moore, was a white woman and a Shawnee captive. Historical documents refer to the couple's children repeatedly as "half breeds" or "half bloods." If Blue Jacket was white and his wife was white, these terms, in all likelihood, would not have been used to describe the couple's children.
It is also important to note that the first claims that Blue Jacket was a white man did not emerge until the late 1870s, approximately seventy years after the chief's death. None of Blue Jacket's historical contemporaries ever claimed that the Shawnee chief was a white man.
:hatsoff:

 

[dlemaster]

Skagan
I would like to highly recommend to you the book "Scoouwa". It is the account of James Smith's captivity by the indians written by himself. They were Canawagas (sp?) if I remember correctly. Smith was captured when he was 18 years old in 1755 just before Braddock's Defeat.
The Ohio Historical Society reprinted it in 1976.
Used copies can be had from Abe or Amazon for about $15.00.
Smith's description of the adoption ceremony is a classic, and was in common use by a number of tribes. Once he was adopted he was treated the same as any other member of his family or tribe.
It is a great read.

Regards, Dave