Deep River: A Memoir of a Missouri Farm

by David Hamilton

Deep River uncovers the layers of history—both personal and regional—that have accumulated on a river-bottom farm in west-central Missouri. This land was part of a late frontier, passed over, then developed through the middle of the last century as the author's father and uncle cleared a portion of it and established their farm.

Hamilton traces the generations of Native Americans, frontiersmen, settlers, and farmers who lived on and alongside the bottomland over the past two centuries. It was a region fought over by Union militia and Confederate bushwhackers, as well as by their respective armies; an area that invited speculation and the establishment of several small towns, both before and after the Civil War; land on which the Missouri Indians made their long last stand, less as a military force than as a settlement and civilization; land that attracted French explorers, the first Europeans to encounter the Missouris and their relatives, the Ioways, Otoes, and Osage, a century before Lewis and Clark. It is land with a long history of occupation and use, extending millennia before the Missouris. Most recently it was briefly and intensively receptive to farming before being restored in large part as state-managed wetlands.

Deep River is composed of four sections, each exploring aspects of the farm and its neighborhood. While the family story remains central to each, slavery and the Civil War in the nineteenth century and Native American history in the centuries before that become major themes as well. The resulting portrait is both personal memoir and informal history, brought up from layers of time, the compound of which forms an emblematic American story.

184 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2001

Reviews

[Aaron T · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book for anyone interested in Missouri history. The author does a great job at weaving in stories from a place he knows - stories from the past and the present. A great book, hard to put down.

[Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is really annoying. He starts off talking about his father and uncle, plus some take of grandparents, and goes back and forth in his story. Sometimes I had no idea if he was talking about the present or past. Then, the middle of the book is just some random short stories that happen in the past and they also appear out of chronological order....Ah! This author is like that a friend that just can't tell stories, but he wrote the book that way!