The Nacogdoches Trail: 1870's Texas Adventure

by Robert C. Carroll

What happens when a teen's actions result in the murder of his father? This is a story of revenge, tragedy, redemption and family values. It is also about an adventure the young Jay Morgan could never have dreamed.-----It is mid 1870s and near the East Texas town of Jefferson; a city second only to Galveston in trade and commerce. The Red River, with it's upstream log jam, has created a backwater bayou that has made Jefferson into an inland port and connected it to the Mississippi River and all points north and south. Commerce flourishes, and so does crime.----Seventeen year old Jay Morgan has left his home to seek fame and fortune. Unfortunately, he has fallen in with the wrong crowd of similar disillusioned youngsters. He gets unwittingly involved with two brothers and their illegal activities. They are a part of an outlaw gang who's outlaw father says he knows too much and must join them and participate in their planned bank robbery, "or else" -----The Nacogdoches Trail, while being mostly fiction, is based on a true story and charts the early development of the timber industry in Southeast Texas.

146 pages, Paperback

First published February 21, 2013

Reviews

[Lyn Relph · Rating 4 out of 5]

Get it at Audible.com.

This book delivers on its promise of 1870's Texas Adventure.

Once the U. S. Civil War was over, many opportunities opened out for adventurous young men who could keep their wits about them. Robert Carroll's young hero Jay Morgan has what it takes to thrive in those wild and wooly times. He works his way around, through and over scalawags and scoundrels until finally becoming a successful business man and family man.

Author Carroll takes us with the young hero through a number of well-chosen and well-conducted incidents, not a cliché among them, and along the way we build up a picture of what life was like in East Texas during the later years of the nineteenth century.

Carroll is an accomplished story-teller, and Robert Neil DeVoe makes the story come alive in his performance of it. Get the audible version of the book and you'll have four-plus hours of old-fashion yarn-spinning to enjoy. The text version of the book is dogged by a number of problems which magically disappear in the audible version.

[Byron Grush · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Nacogdoches Trail took me back to the days of Zane Grey’s Wild West but without Grey’s overlay of idealism and fantasy. Instead it is a story that rings with truth and fact without losing flavor, excitement or interest. Robert Carroll is first of all an accomplished and creative story teller who brings to life his characters and makes the reader really care about them. You are with young Jay Morgan as he struggles to learn to shoot as well as his outlaw teacher, as he deals with emotional and ethical dilemmas and as he overcomes obstacles in the rural settings of the Texas lumber country and the towns and villages of the frontier and the big cities of Natchez and New Orleans. This is an excellent work of historical fiction, based on a true story drawn from the author’s own ancestral heritage. And the style of telling of it evokes a camp fire and an old timer with a true Texas drawl. I can’t recommend this book enough.

[Robert D · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting and pretty well written story about a young man who has to grow up the hard way, and face his mistakes and make a new life for himself. The story contains a lot of interesting facts about east Texas and shows that the author took a look of effort in researching all the details.

Overall I would recommend this to anyone who is interested in modern history, the Western genre, or anyone who loves a good gun slinging, horse riding, bar brawling adventure with a heart.

[BC Carroll · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this adventure and recommend it highly. Seldom does a book live
up to it's promotion. This one does.