The Covered Wagon

by Emerson Hough, Robert Dorman (Introduction), Robert L. Dorman (Introduction)

The Covered Wagon tells the epic story of a wagon train on the Oregon Trail. First published in 1922, this historical novel offers something for everyone—action, intrigue, humor, and a classic love triangle. It is based on actual firsthand accounts of the grueling four-month overland journey, featuring cameos by famous frontiersmen Kit Carson and Jim Bridger. Both the novel and its film adaptation helped to make the wagon train an unforgettable icon of the Old West.

Genres: Fiction, Westerns, Historical Fiction, Classics, Adventure

288 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1922

About the author

Emerson Hough was an American author best known for writing western stories and historical novels.

He married Charlotte Chesebro of Chicago in 1897 and made that city his home. During World War I, he served as a Captain with the Intelligence Service. He died in Evanston, Illinois, on April 30, 1923, a week after seeing the Chicago premiere of the movie The Covered Wagon, based on his 1922 book. Covered Wagon was his biggest best-selling novel since Mississippi Bubble in 1902. "North of 36", another Hough novel, later became a popular silent film as well, "making him one of the first Western authors to enter into the motion picture industry." He is buried in Galesburg, Illinois.

Asked in 1918 to provide some details of his own life, he replied in the context of World War I: "This is no time for autobiography of men of letters. This is the day of biography for men who have been privileged to act in the great scenes of today. It is the time for boys of 23. At least we can bless them and back them the best we know. I will not tell about myself. It is of no consequence."

Hough's hometown, Newton, Iowa, has honored him in several ways. A school named for him opened in 1926. Emerson Hough Elementary School was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002. His boyhood home bears a marker provided by the Daughters of the American Revolution. The school grounds include a playground with a western theme called Fort Emerson Hough. The local chapter of the Izaak Walton League also bears his name, as does a street, Emerson Hough Avenue in Lambs Grove, Iowa, a suburb of Newton.

In March 2010, the school board voted to close Emerson Hough School.Efforts to prevent its closure have included a fund raising and a Facebook page.

Reviews

[Debbie Zapata]

I wanted to like this book. I saw it mentioned in a book I read in 2016, and I had also read another title by the same author, the delightful The Lady And The Pirate: Being The Plain Tale Of A Diligent Pirate And A Fair Captive. So I had high hopes for this one, especially since the author was best known for his Westerns.

But I simply could not get interested in this story of a wagon train heading for Oregon in 1848. It read as though the author could not forget (and wanted his readers to be sure and remember too) that he was telling us about A Big Event In History.

I want to finish the year with a fun book, not a pompous and predictable one. But I want to give Mr. Hough another try before I erase him completely from my Someday List, so I will go browse his author page at Gutenberg and see if he has anything else that might be more appealing.

DNF after 4 chapters.

[J.R.]

I read and enjoyed this story as a boy. And I can say now it’s still enjoyable, despite a few quirks of dialogue and other uses we now consider old-fashioned.

Hough knew the people and land whereof he wrote, having living the pioneer life himself in New Mexico and as an avid outdoorsman throughout the west. Set in the late 1840s just before the California gold rush (which actually plays a vital role in the plot), the book tells of two wagon caravans bound for Oregon and the conflict which divides them because of a love triangle. Indian fights, buffalo hunts, dangerous river crossings and other dangers of the trail add to a gripping and entertaining read.

[Lizzie]

It was overall a very good book.
Some of it was slow going and too much descriptions(maybe I'm too impatient?...) but overall the story was a good one. I'd definitely recommend.

[Barb in Maryland]

4 stars for nostalgia's sake.
This was a favorite from my teen years. And I enjoyed just as much this time, even as I wondered how it would fare with someone coming to it cold. Read for the 2024 Retro Reads Book Pool.

Though first published in 1922, this book reads like an adventure novel from the late 19th century.
This is grand storytelling, old-fashioned 3rd person omniscient POV. The prose is exuberant, giving the reader a real sense of the enormous undertaking involved in getting the wagon trains across the western US during the 1840s. Our particular story takes place in 1848. The author's descriptions of the flora and fauna along the route are almost rapturous. The physical dangers aren't glossed over. The length of the journey, in miles (2100+) and time (5-6 months), is not downplayed.
But you can get a lot of that information from history books.
Hough gives us a good group of characters to personalize the historical facts. We have Jesse Wingate and his wife Molly, headed out from Illinois to Oregon. And their beautiful young daughter, also named Molly, and the two men who are courting young Molly--Sam Woodhull and Will Banion. (The author drops enough hints quite early on to let us know which man we should cheer for in this love triangle.) The author even mixes in a few historical people, Jim Bridger and Kit Carson, and gives them important parts in the story.
By modern standards there aren't too many cringe-worthy moments. The Native American tribesmen are treated in a fairly even-handed way, even though Hough is rather over-fond of the word 'savage' (which he also uses to describe some of the behavior of the wagon train's men). The word 'squaw' is almost always used re: the tribal women. I cringed the most over his portrayal of Jim Bridger, whose role in the story is often for supposed comic relief. Not funny to me.
The author manages to work the discovery of gold in California into the plot, as well as a buffalo hunt and an attack on the wagon train by at least one Indian tribe. The hunt and attack scenes are very exciting.
The book was an big hit when it was released and quickly turned into a movie, released in 1923. I've not ever seen the film. However, my hardback copy has photos from the movies interspersed throughout.
Note: Emerson Hough, born 1857, died 1923, wrote 20 or so novels. This was the last of his books to be published in his lifetime.

[CindySR]

DNF

The old western/mountain man-type patois made it unreadable.
Annoying female MC.

[Janel]

I like to think that these old book editions are happy to have each of their long neglected pages opened and read, cover to cover. This was yet another from the my bookshelf and who knows when it was last opened. But there’s just something about holding and reading a book printed in 1922.

Some of the dialogue was hard to follow, when written in a way to recreate mountain men’s accents.
This follows the story of a couple wagon trains making the trek out to Oregon in 1848. Late enough they weren’t creating the trial (the Mormons had just gone through ahead of them) but early enough that buffalo still roamed. Kit Carson brought news of gold in California and that changed the direction a lot of these pioneers headed.
Be prepared for wild river crossings, Indian attacks, quicksand, fist fights, wild mountain scouts and their liquor. And of course, a love story.

[Patricia J Lipinski]

Great read

It gave the true flavor of events in the winning of the west and even included the probable words of great mountain men. I loved it.

[Mbuye]

The 1922 novel by Emerson Hough, ‘The Covered Wagon’, is a seminal Western romance of the great trek of wagon trains across plains and prairie, mountain and whitewater rapids from civilisation to uncharted new land on the Oregon Trail.

The trek is a little less than 2,000 miles from the Missouri frontier to the western coast, where land is literally free and the soil good for farming. About 200 wagons set off on an epic journey, carrying with them their families and household goods, including luxuries unlikely to be found in trading posts along the way.

While the train is mustered, and the settlers make tentative attempts to get to know each other, things seem to get off to a good start. Jesse Wingate is elected leader, but although he has experience of shorter trips in different and easier country, he has not the least conception of the kind of hurdles before him. A leadership crisis ensues when a young military officer, Will Banion, with recent experience in the Mexican-American War, offers practical suggestions for their safety in hostile territory. Banion is also resented by Wingate’s lieutenant, Sam Woodhull, on account of Molly Wingate, to whom both men are attracted. It does not help that Banion is a capable leader, whereas neither Wingate nor Woodhull is. The bitterness between the two young men is exaggerated in the love triangle which drives the plot.

Character development is the weakest part of the novel, with all the players being strictly black or white, and nothing in between. Accusations of court-martial and cashiering for theft introduce deep moral ambiguity and distrust, which ultimately splits the train and weakens Wingate's authority further, besides adding to the dangers confronting a vast group without decisive leadership.

That said, ‘The Covered Wagon’ brings to life the terrifying ordeals of the first settlers who crossed a new and untamed continent in search of good pasture and a quiet life. Hough’s descriptions of river crossings, desert mirages, Indian attacks and death dogging every step from fever or injury are both accurate and colourful. The trains carried, in addition to all else, school equipment and teachers as well as pastors and preachers for a land as yet under joint occupation of the United States and Britain, and beyond the pale of law and church. Historical persons like Kit Carson and Jim Bridger play cameo roles, adding verisimilitude to the narrative. Carson, in fact, carries the news of gold found in California.

The California Gold Rush at this exact time further weakens the 200-odd train that started out at the beginning. Where the trail divides into the fork leading to Oregon and the one leading southwest to California, most of the settlers with families opt for Oregon and pasture land, while the adventurers and single men break off to follow the gold.

While the Indian attacks are a good plot device, Hough's point focuses more on the extinction of a race and a way of life, where the beaver, the buffalo, and the Indian lived together, each supporting and dependent upon the other.

The novel captures the tragic sunset of Indigenous hegemony, framing the westward migration not just as an advance, but as an inescapable displacement of native peoples.

The book's dramatic buffalo hunt sequences serve as a stark historical snapshot of the intentional, massive destruction of the American bison populations that once sustained the plains.

The deep anxieties over the systematic over-trapping and local extinction of key apex species, specifically the beaver and the grey wolf, vividly illustrate the heavy ecological price of early American commercial extraction.

Hough’s conservationist background creates a striking subtext: the very process of forging a new nation inherently requires the absolute breaking and taming of the ancient wilderness. Yet, in his own life, Hough fought aggressively to preserve what remained of that wilderness. Though he never worked for the National Park Service, which was established later in 1916, his 1894 journalism exposed rampant poaching in Yellowstone. This exposure directly forced Congress to pass the landmark law making park poaching a federal crime and saving the last wild bison.

[Katherine Jones]

OK, this was entertaining enough. Only just. It's probably historically accurate from the perspective of the white characters living in their time. Don't expect more. There's a fantasy love story involving the gold rush, horses, the Snake River, characters you've heard of if you've watched any western movies or TV. but it is completely fictional. In fact I think this was made into a movie long ago. I might watch it sometime, but I'm not sure why.

Well, some of my ancestors traveled West in wagon trains, that's why. I'm aware of the political implications that are rarely covered by such art, but it's still interesting to imagine how these travels were done.

[Janis]

Decent story. With the mountain man accents written into the story and most of the dialogue carried on between mountain men, I found this very hard to follow. Took me forever to read the thing, because I had to puzzle over each of those sentences trying to figure out what on earth they were saying. I only figured it out about half the time. I wish I’d been able to find an audio version. That would have been much better.

There’s a silent movie for this book, with the same title. My library had the movie. I give the movie 5 stars. Maybe watch it first. I think that’s the only reason I could follow the book, although the book is far more complex than the movie.

[Flowergarden24]

I have this book given to my Aunt from her Mother in 1926. It was old fashioned and dated of course but it was nice to read something straight forward and obvious. Yes it was predictable regarding the two men wanting the same girl but still nice to read during this time, April 2020. It was fun to read about historical figures included in the story and also find photos of the stops along the way of the wagon trains. Right now, old fashioned works for me.

[Pamela]

I found this book in my school library. Someone had written in it: “This is a boring book and I couldn’t even find the climax.” So I decided to read it. There were a lot of exciting events in the book but I only gave it 4 stars because there were also pages of just telling about the times or something. I would scan those parts and get back to the wagon train, the Wingates and other people.

[Rodney]

This writing style is just too antiquated for me. It is like the book Last of the Mohicans which I have never been able to read but love many of the movie and tv shows based upon it. The plot of a wagon train traveling across the Oregon Train in 1848 sounds interesting but this author managed to make it very boring.

[zuzu]

maybe gonna have to come back to this. much better than the (silent 🥸) movie

[Kim]

I finished this book a few days ago and already I'm forgetting it, so it only gets three stars even though I remember having fun reading it. The title says it all though. Only there isn't one covered wagon there are a whole bunch of them, and they all gather together, and they all head west together, and they all fight and argue and eventually split up or die or kill someone. That's most of the story. I read it because I came across the 1923 silent movie based on the book. The big mystery is how I came across a 1923 silent movie, I just can't remember. But realizing it was from a book I went on a search, found the book and read it before I watched the movie. I always read a book before I watch the movie if I can. It wasn't a bad movie and it wasn't a bad book, although if these people want my advise they would have a much better trip if they would stop fighting each other over every thing, big or little. How they managed to fight the Indians and win is beyond me. I also read this about the author:

His other notable works included Story of the Cowboy, "which received a high recommendation from President Theodore Roosevelt," Way of the West, Singing Mouse Stories, and The Passing of the Frontier. Among his historical novels, The Magnificent Adventure in 1916 was set at the time of the Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark Expedition and told, said one reviewer, "a good stirring tale."

I never heard of any of them. But I never heard of this either until the movie entered my life. Then there is this:

Reviewers noted the political nature of Hough's Western fiction. One reviewer wrote that Hough's work is "not a novel at all; it is an arraignment; it is propaganda" for progressive Republicans or the Democrats. Hough "makes his point, and hammers it hard. He leaves nothing for the reader to guess....He goes at it all with bludgeon and battle-ax....He has, as a fighter, a strong style. His book is well worth reading. But it is not art."

I hate to break it to the reviewers but I never noticed the political propaganda, considering what we've been going through these last few months I never would have read the book if I had read the reviewers comments first. But if it was political it went over my head and I'm glad it did. That's all I can think of to say about it. It was easy to read, it was fun to read, and I'm glad I read it. I won't read it again though, now that the political stuff is in my head I know I'd be looking for it, and I really don't want to. Happy reading. :-)

[Paul]

Can't believe I read the whole thing. But have to admit, it wasn't all bad, just a little bit old fashioned. This thing goes back to 1922 or so, and is done in what I would call an archaic writing style. Steeds for horses, anyone? The Indians are savages, the white race superior, the hero seems to be of southern origin, all the old attitudes. But like the covered wagon, it just keeps plugging along. We even get some real people like Kit Carson and Jim Bridge. Lots of "hold on thars." And of course a pretty white girl. You can learn a lot reading old books, and have some fun too. Plus, the description of the land are great.

pp

[Marlee Friesen]

Picked up this faded old book hoping for a historically accurate picture of the first wagon train of families headed west to Oregon. Giving it two stars because, although I loved sections of this book for the descriptions of life and hardship along the Oregon trail, the main story was carried along by the feuding love interest of two wagon masters and the violent scenes that ensued in the lawless West, along with even more violent scenes of Indian massacre along the trail. Not a fan, however historically accurate or inaccurate it may be. Not a book I'll be keeping around for my children to read.

[Shawn Jarrell]

An ok book

This was hard reading to follow but overall a good book. It seemed to be somewhat factual for historical purposes

[Samantha Glasser]

Read this book online for free through Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13384/...