The Indian Territory in the Civil War Message Board

Wanderer's "North Fork Town" Letter

North Fork Town

On August 22, 1859 Wanderer writes his first letter published by The Press in Philadelphia. This letter was published on the front page on September 8, 1859. This first letter was written in North Fork Town, the well-known Indian trader village of 60 or so people at the junction of the Texas Road from Kansas with the Beale Wagon Road (which followed prior western emigrant trails to California) as both wagon roads crossed The Canadian(s) 40 miles before it joins the Arkansas River. North Fork Town was about 80 miles west of Fort Smith, Arkansas, the eastern terminus of several important wagon roads to the west and southwest, including the Butterfield Overland Mail route to Texas and beyond. The Wanderer had already passed five of the six iron bridge sites, camped at Brookings Spring, and had struggled up and over Winchester Mountain. However, most of this letter is about North Fork Town and its people. Wanderer stays there so long that he and his companion decided to leave the traveling party and go visit Indian Territory on their own—all the way to the Seminole Nation, and beyond. And they do.

To see the North Fork Town letter, some work is required. Start at the Home Page of Pennsylvania Civil War newspapers at:

http://digitalnewspapers.libraries.psu.edu/Olive/APA/CivilWar/#panel=home

Search: Winchester mountains (Push mag glass icon). This will bring up several articles.
To narrow down list, Click: Search Results Analytics, to narrow down date range to 1859. Sort by: oldest first. Then,
Click on The Press article shown for September 8, 1859. The Press page will display, and column(s) of The Wanderer’s letter written at North Fork Town will be highlighted (having Winchester mountains in it).

Bring up “The Reader” function by quickly double clicking on the desired highlighted column. Read Wanderer's article as desired.

To obtain a “rough scanned digital copy” of the letter, click Text View on the Reader, then Copy and Save to a Word file, or such; else Close. Edit your digital copy.

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