The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

David McCullough is a master at researching a subject and telling a story. This is a great look at life in late 18th and early 19th century Ohio. Very readable and interesting with a real flavor for what pioneer life was like.

A well-researched and well-written work. Then again, it's a McCullough work so those two go without saying. I was a little reticent on this one after reading some reviews citing his focus on Marietta. After having completed it, however, the focus there is akin to focusing on the epicenter of an earthquake. It's the beginning point of something that reshapes an entire region. So it is with Marietta. For this reader, the focus on the Cutler, Putnam, Hildreth and Blennerhassett families was of great interest. Their involvement and investment in the forming the Ohio region was wide-spread and influential. While sometimes this influence was a net negative (Blennerhassetts!), their indelible stamp on the region is unmistakeable. My one complaint with the book was the inequity in the two halves of the book. Parts 1 and 2 are exquisite in their detail. The later parts seem to be more wide-sweeping and less detail oriented. It almost felt like McCullough felt obliged to "tie up loose ends" in the last chapter especially. While I was indeed grateful for that clarity, I had hoped for a bit more detail on some of the things he merely passed over. Overall, a worthy read, esp for a native Ohioan or one interested in the move west.

Enjoyable Historical Fiction book. Well written and descriptive landscapes.

Masterpiece is definitely the best way to describe David McCullough's The Pioneers. As with the rest of his work, McCullough has created a thoroughly researched and documented narrative history which is a delight to read, or rather to savor. It is published at a particularly opportune moment, when we in the United States badly need to be reminded of one of the finer chapters of our history. The Pioneers begins with the 1787 passage of the Northwest Ordinance, one of the most critically important pieces of legislation in our history. The Ordinance set up an organized plan for the settlement of the Northwest Territory, north of the Ohio River and south of the Great Lakes, laying out a path to eventual statehood for the vast region on an equal basis with the original thirteen states, providing for public education, and, most importantly, forbidding slavery. McCullough focuses on the very early settlement of what was to become the southeast corner of the state of Ohio, a region which drew large numbers of New Englanders willing to undergo the extreme difficulties of the passage through the Allegheny Mountains and down the Ohio and its tributaries. The center of the New England resettlement in Ohio was the town of Marietta, named for Queen Marie Antoinette and soon to become a flourishing center of trade and commerce. McCullough tells the story of the first eighty years or so of Marietta and the surrounding region's existence, tracing the rapid growth of the new state of Ohio (admitted to the Union in 1803). Primarily this is a story of families, especially the Putnams, descended from a Revolutionary general, and the Cutlers, upright New Englanders who through several generations were fervent supporters of education and just as fervent opponents of slavery. McCullough tells many fascinating anecdotes of these and other families and individuals who played key roles in the settlement of Ohio, not neglecting to note with regret the conflict with and eventual expulsion of the Native Americans who were the first human inhabitants of Ohio. The Pioneers is a major work of history well deserving of a place on your shelves.

David McCullough’s fine reputation is further supported by this effort, The Pioneers, late in his 86-year life. He has produced many noteworthy historical works and his performances as narrator in many situations cements his voice as one with the sound of credibility, validity and knowledge. The Pioneers is a good book and a must-read for any history buff interested in American history. Read it. Now, with that said, be aware that The Pioneers is not a detailed or exhaustive historical work about the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio. Rather, it is a collection of summary historical recounts of some of that area’s most noteworthy personalities. The Cutlers, Putnams, Barkers, Hildreths and others are names not widely recognized but names of people who were instrumental in the organization and population of this huge area beyond the Thirteen Original Colonies. Most of them were settlers of that vast area. David McCullough weaves, cameo style, through numerous anecdotal and documented events in the lives of these important people and their successors. For me, it’s always interesting to read about brave individuals who will load up on a log raft with axes, livestock and family to float down an unknown river until they see a place in the woods to start anew and make a life for themselves. Mr. McCullough outlines the tasks of clearing the new areas of imposing trees and other vegetation as well as the task of building the cabins and other accoutrements of a settlement. David McCullough’s writing style sometimes lapses into off-cadence syntax and extremely long compound sentences that are somewhat arcane in structure. Sometimes, I had to go back and read a passage more than once to soak in what the writer was trying to say. More than one example will be found of a rather long paragraph that will be comprised of but a single sentence and a bunch of commas. Maybe McCullough’s extensive reading of the 18th and early 19th century accounts offered by his subjects afflicted him with a propensity to try and sound a lot like them! The chapter about Aaron Burr and his relationship with Harman Blennerhassett was very interesting. In all fairness, the wealthy Blennerhassett and his wife, Margaret, would have to be included in the list of pioneers to this area. However, the actions and entanglements of Blennerhassett and the scheming Burr is a story of great intrigue and a history that sweeps throughout more than one area of the growing United States of that time. Again, David McCullough’s The Pioneers is a good book. It will familiarize the reader with the early events of U.S. history along the Ohio River and most likely lead to a desire by the reader to search out a more detailed account of what happened there.

My favorite history writer never disappoints in this story of the first American movement to the so called west. Great read with so many facts and interesting details.

Well written, researched, entertaining and engaging book. David McCullough delivers again.

Gives us a really good insight into what the lives of the early pioneers was like, with plenty of direct evidence obtained from letters and correspondence of the people who were actually there.

Whilst this is a story which focuses on five prime actors, the breath of what David McCullough describes is staggering. To put some perspective on the narrative, the American War of Independence, also known as the American Revolutionary War, which spanned the period from 19 April 1775, until the Treaty of Paris concluded the war on 3 September 1783, with the defeat of Britain and loss of its thirteen eastern seaboard colonies, together with what was known as the Northwest Territory, which is to say the area west of Pennsylvania, east of the Mississippi River, north of the Ohio River to the border with contemporary British Canada. It was a crushing blow for Britain, which some historians consider to be the end of the first British Empire. The Northwest Territory was a vast, lush wilderness, largely uninhabited land mass of some 260,000 square miles (670,000 square kilometres), home to approximately 45,000 indigenous Indian tribes and around 4,000 traders, the latter a mix of Canadian and British subjects. In the fullness of time this new land mass, almost one-third the total area of America would become the future states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin. However, before all of that could take place, it would be the actions of a Massachusetts minister, Reverend Manasseh Cutler, co-founder of the Ohio Company of Associates who would, with Rufus Putnam, Ephraim Cutler (Manasseh oldest son), Joseph Barker House and Samuel Prescott Hildreth encourage a small group of intrepid pioneers to fulfil the intentions of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 by making the long and perilous journey up the Ohio River to found the first settlement on the river, which they named Marietta. The story David McCullough so skilfully tells is one of adventure, daring, sadness and injustice, certainly from the standpoint of the indigenous Americans. Notwithstanding the moral issues - and they are significant - this is a narrative that adds new understanding of how Americans populated the Northwest Territory, how the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 banned slavery within the territory, advanced public school education and perhaps above all else was a difficult but nonetheless great endeavour. This is a book which can engender a feeling of being part of this movement west. This is a highly recommended read.

Le Far West pour les contemporains de Benjamin Franklin se situait de l'autre côté des Appalaches. D'où la création à la fin du XVIIIème siècle d'une Société de l'Ohio pour coloniser notamment les territoires situés au confluent de cette rivière et de son tributaire. La petite communauté, qui s'établit à Marietta en Géorgie, s'est dotée d'idéaux très élevés: pas d'esclavage, pas de traitement injuste des Indiens. La réalité, fortement adoucie par l'auteur, sera tout autre.

Interesting factual account of early settlers to North West America.