George Frederick Ruxton

This Book "In the Old West" has been considered important throughout the human history, and so that this work is never forgotten we have made efforts in its preservation by republishing this book in a modern format for present and future generations. This whole book has been reformatted, retyped and designed. These books are not made of scanned copies of their original work and hence the text is clear and readable.

Reproduction of the original: In the Old West by George Frederick Ruxton

Reproduction of the original: In the Old West by George Frederick Ruxton

Reproduction of the original: Life in the Far West by George Frederick Ruxton

Reproduction of the original: Life in the Far West by George Frederick Ruxton

George Frederick Ruxton (24 July 1821 - 29 August 1848) was a British explorer and travel writer. He was a Lieutenant in the British Army, received a medal for gallantry from Queen Isabella II of Spain, was a hunter and explorer and published papers and books about his travels to Africa, Canada, Mexico and the United States. He observed the westward expansion of the United States in the 1840s during the period when the country's government was pursuing its policy of manifest destiny. He was the first author to write "extensively" of the mountain men of the Rocky Mountains. Early life George Frederick Augustus Ruxton, or George Augustus Frederick Ruxton, was born to Anna Maria Hay Ruxton and John Ruxton, Esquire near Oxfordshire, England. His maternal grandfather was Colonel Patrick Hay, a descendent of the house of Tweeddales. Ruxton attended Turnbridge School and began his education at Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, but left before receiving his commission. He had an adventuresome spirit: "I was a vagabond in all my propensities. Everything quiet or commonplace I detested and my spirit chafed within me to see the world and participate in scenes of novelty and danger." North America He then served in the 89th (The Princess Victoria's) Regiment of Foot in Canada. Intrigued by the lives of Native Americans and trappers on the open prairie, Ruxton sold his Lieutenant commission in the British Army and became a hunter in Upper Canada. Mexico and the American Far West In 1846 Ruxton set sail for Veracruz, Mexico to observe the Mexican-American War. From there, he traveled north to Santa Fe, presently in the state of New Mexico. 2] Ruxton visited Bent's Fort during as he traveled to the current state of Colorado. 4] From January through May, 1847 (Ruxton, 1848) hunted along the front range of Colorado, visited with mountain men and endured an extremely cold winter while mostly in the company of his horse Panchito and two mules that he had acquired earlier in Mexico. Sites he visited include Ute Pass, "Woodland Park, Florissant, and] Lake George". 2] He spent time observing the relationships between the U. S. Army and the Comanche Indians. After working as a mountain man in the Rocky Mountains, about which he wrote the book Ruxton of the Rockies, he then moved to St. Louis. He wrote articles named Life in the Far West for Blackwood's Magazine, using the pen name "La Bont ". In it, he wrote "extensively" of the healing benefits of the mineral waters found in the west, such as Manitou Springs mineral water. He wrote of his experiences in the Far West: I must confess that the very happiest moments of my life have been spent in the wilderness of the Far West; and I never recall, but with pleasure, the remembrance of my solitary camp in the Bayou Salade Salt valley of South Park, Colorado], with no friend near me more faithful than my rifle, and no companions more sociable than my good horse and mules, or the attendant cayute which nightly serenaded us. With a plentiful supply of dry pine-logs on the fire, and its cheerful blaze streaming far up into the sky, illuminating the valley far and near, and, pipe in mouth, watch the blue smoke as it curled upwards, building castles in the vapoury wreaths, and, in the fantastic shapes it assumed, peopling the solitude with figures of those far away... I believe not one instance could be adduced of even the most polished and civilised of men, who had once tasted the sweets of its attendant liberty, and freedom from every worldly care, not regretting the moment when he exchanged it for the monotonous life of the settlements, nor sighing and sighing again once more to partake of its pleasures and allurements.................

In this classic of western Americana, George Frederick Ruxton, who died in St. Louis in 1848 at the youthful age of twenty-seven, brilliantly brings to life the whole heroic age of the Mountain Men. The author, from his intimate acquaintance with the trappers and traders of the American Far West, vividly recounts the story of two of the most adventurous of these hardy pioneers - Killbuck and La Bonté, whose daring, bravery, and hair-breadth escapes from their numerous Indian and ""Spaniard"" enemies were legend among their fellow-frontiersmen. With Ruxton, we follow Killbuck and La Bonté and their mountain companions - Old Bill Williams, ""Black"" Harris, William Sublette, Joseph Walker, and others - across the prairies and forests, west from picturesque old Bent's Fort, into the dangerous Arapaho country near the headwaters of the Platte. We share with them the culinary delights of their campfires - buffalo ""boudins"" and beaver tails - and hear from their own lips, in the incomparable mountaineer dialect, hair-raising stories of frontier life and humorous tales of trading camp and frontier post. Life in the Far West, then, is adventure extraordinary - the true chronicle of the rugged Mountain Men whose unflinching courage and total disregard for personal safety or comfort opened the Far West to the flood of settlers who were to follow. The breath-taking water colors and sketches, which depict with great detail many of the familiar scenes of the early West, were done by one of Ruxton's contemporaries and fellow-explorers, Alfred Jacob Miller.

More than a travel book, more than an autobiography, Ruxon of the Rockies is a rare and vivid account of a man who lived during a heroic age: George Frederick Ruxton lived among and wrote about the traders and trappers of the American West. Ruxton crammed a dozen lifetimes of adventure into his brief twenty-seven years. Leaving his native England in 1838, at the age of seventeen, he set out on endless journeys--fighting in the Carlist Wars in Spain, stationed with the British army in Ireland, hunting with Indians in Upper Canada, attempting to penetrate to the interior of Africa, and carrying out a mission for his government in Mexico and the American West. In all his travels, nothing won his heart so completely as the Rocky Mountains. With the awareness of a poet and down-to-earth nature of an explorer, Ruxton wrote of their awesome grandeur, bountiful wildlife, hardy mountain men, and their inexorable annihilation of the weakling. While on his way for a second, more extended visit to his beloved Rockies, Ruxton died in St. Louis. A rewarding literary experience, this volume is essentially Ruxton's autobiography. Sections on Africa and the one on Mexico and the Rocky Mountains appeared during Ruxton's lifetime, but earlier portions have never been published before. Ruxton of the Rockies is illustrated with sketches from his notebooks and reproductions of the incomparable watercolors of Alfred Jacob Miller, a great Western artist of Ruxton's time.