Professional critiques, awards, and reviews for Emigrant Tales of the Platte River Raids (M Press, 2023).
The BookFest Awards
(Fall, 2024)
Emigrant Tales picks up its 7th literary award for 2024 with a 3rd Place in the Nonfiction – History category for BookFest. From the awards committee: “The array of excellence in this season’s submissions are highly commendable.”
The BookFest honors authors who create outstanding works of fiction and nonfiction. The BookFest’s mission is rooted in the belief that literature has transformative power and, in a desire to support and celebrate those who create it. The BookFest is presented by Books That Make You and produced by Black Château Enterprises. The BookFest is a registered trademark of Desireé Duffy, founder of all three. Learn more about the BookFest Awards and lit. review program here.
Western Writers of America, Roundup
(October 2024)
“This book details the exploits of emigrants on the Oregon Trail in July 1864, mainly between Wyoming forts Laramie and Caspar, using dairies, letters and primary documents. Author Janelle Molony divides the book into two sections: the trails on the north side of the Platte and those on the south side. Molony has created a jewel of research and organization.
More than 70 eyewitness accounts track the travelers’ progress day by day as they become the targets of Northern Plains Indians, united to drive out the perceived interlopers. More than 35 encounters between Indians and emigrants are documented during one week, including the Kelly incident in which two women and two children were kidnapped and four men killed. Among those on the way to California was the family of abolitionist John Brown, which was trying to keep its identity undercover, and the Earp family whose sons later gained fame in Western law enforcement.
The mix of people, adventure and life-changing events told through first person quotations makes nearly every page compelling. The multitude of names and place names would have made creating an index nearly impossible, but readers may wish for one.”
–Nancy Curtis, for Roundup Magazine (a member publication of the Western Writers of America). *Learn more about the Western Writers of America here.
Women Writing the West
Emigrant Tales of the Platte River Raids has been selected as the 2024 recipient of the Women Writing the West’s WILLA Award for Scholarly Nonfiction. The WILLA Literary Awards, named in honor of Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Willa Cather, recognizes the best in literature, featuring women’s or girls’ stories set in the North American West that are published each year.
Judges’ Comments:
“Rich in detail!” & “A very detailed and comprehensive look at an event from westward migration trail history that has been forgotten by many.” & “This work is one of the few that acknowledges the fact that the Northern Plains Indians were settled in the areas the Europeans traveled through.”
Learn more about Women Writing the West and the WILLA Awards here.
Daughters of the American Revolution
Emigrant Tales of the Platte River Raids has been accepted into the Library for the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution – a mark of distinction showcasing the item as a valuable contribution to America’s genealogical research, state and local history, immigration, women’s history, Native American history and more! “We are grateful to all of our supporters, past and present, who have helped develop and expand the DAR Library’s Collection into one of the premiere genealogical libraries in the country.”
Iowa History Journal – Review
(Sept/Oct 2024)
“Author Janelle Molony’s latest book, Emigrant Tales of the Platte River Raids is the byproduct of years of researching her family’s ancestry and has netted first-hand accounts of their covered wagon journey from Iowa to California, including details about the Platte River Raids by Northern Plains Indians. Among those traveling with the Pella Company wagon train are members of the Earp family, whos Iowa roots are widespread. Tales of their journey from Pella to Council Bluffs might be of special interest to Iowans. Those who appreciate the book might also enjoy The 1864 Diary of Mrs. Sarah Jane Rousseau, regarding the wife of a well-known Iowa physician.”
– Michael Swanger, Iowa History Journal
New York Book Festival
Emigrant Tales of the Platte River Raids has come in as the First Runner-Up for Non-fiction (General). Learn more at NewYorkBookFestival.com.
Nonfiction Authors Association Awards
The expert author has chronicled a slice of history little known to most historians in such rich detail and to lovers of history of the American West: A sad and brutal account of Indigenous Peoples in encountering the wagon trains headed west through the Platte River valley. She is respectful to all of these early settlers and the Indigenous Peoples. The book is well documented, highly footnoted, and can serve as a reference for historians and descendants alike.
[Emigrant Tales is] An excellent historical account of the westward movement with personal accounts on the trek. The reader gets to travel in time with these brave souls. Through this wonderfully presented story, we feel we are beside these individuals, some of which are famous, as they make history that we will be reading about in this era. We learn that what they endured and overcame is the essence of what this country is about, and these brave souls were a major part of unifying this country after a war that tore this entire nation apart.
[This book was] A wonderful read, historically, and for the sheer enjoyment of enjoying a true story.
– Nonfiction Book Awards
National Indie Excellence Awards (18th Annual)
Emigrant Tales of the Platte River Raids “embodies the standards of excellence that this award was created to celebrate. We salute your talents and our jurors truly respect each of the final works that are honored this year.” The lists of Winners and Finalists are proudly showcased at www.indieexcellence.com (click on the 18th Annual Finalists tab). Categories: General History & Western Nonfiction.
From WyoHistory.org
A Project of the Wyoming Historical Society
MARCH 27, 2024 (View the complete review here.)
Awarded “Honorable Mention”
– 2024 WHS Contest for Self Published Books
ON THE TRAILS IN A DANGEROUS YEAR
The award-winning author/historian is a great-granddaughter of James and Sarah Rousseau, who traveled in 1864 with the Pella Company on the Oregon Trail on the south bank of the North Platte River through what’s now Wyoming. That was a particularly bloody year on the trails. The Civil War drew nearly all the Army’s attention and troops to the East, yet emigrants continued flooding west, many of them to escape the war. And the tribes resisted.
Emigrant Tales of the Platte River Raids gives background and context for the accounts of nearly 70 diarists who traveled the trails that year. These introductions, fully sourced, include a detailed roster of all the families plus a narrative of events occurring as they travel.
The accounts include maps, sketches, mileage and destination lists, quotations from various diaries and copious information about assorted stopping points. Not all the diary entries are directly about raids; some include information about military involvement and effort to safeguard the emigrants. An appendix of newspaper articles, letters and oral histories adds to the book’s already plentiful sources.
Kylie L. McCormick’s excellent Foreword provides extensive historical background to the events chronicled in the book.
The curious reader can open the volume to almost any page and find something interesting. Hence, this first-rate work of history need not be read front-to-back.
Marion County Genealogical Society
(April 2024)
From Arizona Author’s Association
(March 24, 2024)
Emigrant Tales of the Platte River Raids contains thorough and scrupulous research, and an abundance of proper citations and notes. It is a treasure for anyone interested in this subject, or even the wider subject of the general history of the West. …You get a feel for being “in the action.” … The actual quotes from historical records give a good feel to the overall book and allow the reader a glimpse into the personalities of the figures, such as the deep animosity of the Howard and Missouri train passengers toward the Browns and others. The dynamics feel right; I liked the details about Fort Laramie soldiers being more interested in general “bedlam” than they are in actually watching out for the emigrants.
While the author gives a sympathetic viewpoint to the Native Americans’ plight, the personalities of the two sides might be further explored. This is in no way a criticism. …I’m awed by the amount of research and the stories already contained within.
…To any historian, the book would satisfy their appetite for the Platte River Raids and provide a “go to” resource for anything related to those months in 1864 (and also much more than those months, as background).
~Kathleen Cook for Arizona Authors Association
From the Western Association of Women Historians
(March 18, 2024)
We enjoyed reading and discussing your book which made important breakthroughs in scholarship!
~Erika Edwards for WAWH
From IndieReader
(Feb. 23, 2024)
EMIGRANT TALES OF THE PLATTE RIVER RAIDS is a sprawling, unapologetically comprehensive book. In July 1864, as the steady stream of European settlers made their way west via the Oregon Trail and others, Northern Plains Indians began to systematically attack their wagon trains. Author Janelle Molony succeeds in creating a compendium of surviving accounts of this frequently overlooked event in American history.
The book began life as an offshoot of author Janelle Molony’s own family history research. Indeed, amateur genealogists and family historians are obviously the principal target audience. The blurb includes a list of last names featured in the book to appeal to precisely this constituency. Many of the stories and anecdotes included here aren’t especially noteworthy in and of themselves; they only really acquire resonance for those descended from the participants. Molony also acutely feels the inherent narrative imbalance of the work and is quick to acknowledge that her account has nothing to say about the experiences of those Northern Plains Indians who took part in the raids. This admission about the deficiencies of genealogical material and family narratives can be hard to find.
The book also benefits from a short but even-handed and informative foreword from Wyoming historian Kylie Louise McCormick, who correctly points out the one-sided and contemptuous treatment Indians received at the hands of settlers and soldiers alike. Molony is likewise aware of the fact that settlers were, after all, encroaching on territory that was already settled, and avoids using such loaded terms as “massacre” to describe the attacks that resulted.
Molony’s obvious intent to leave the entire fruits of research—the book is over 500 pages long—leads to a certain glut of information, and at times the main text has the feel of a prosopography.* Molony groups the settlers by the trains they traveled in, and is careful to note family relationships and occupations of those who traveled, but also such minutiae as the medical ailments they suffered from, the animals they brought with them, and so forth. In so doing, the lede gets buried at times; though one might well respond that to expect a cohesive, flowing narrative from a book that is first and foremost a historical resource is to miss the point.
*A prosopography is an investigation of the common characteristics of a group of people, whose individual biographies may be largely untraceable. Where biographies study the entire personality of individuals (external and inner features), prosopographies emphasize the external similarities and differences between individuals within a given population.
It is in the nature of the material that there are more than a few tidbits of information that are tantalizingly incomplete. It would, for example, have been fascinating to know more about Andy Lawrence: a former slave who had been emancipated by the Cherokee and, with his father, joined the Kelly-Larimer train as a hired help—only to see his father killed by Indians during a raid on July 12, 1864. After heading back east to join the Union Army, he became a mason, and apparently left no records. Many other individuals emerge briefly from the mass of mundane details at moments of high drama—only to disappear again once the danger has passed, either into the obscurity of the trail or a shallow grave. Molony is alert to familial sensibilities, and treats reports of deaths with appropriate solemnity.
Those interested in trail history will find much here of interest and usefulness.
EMIGRANT TALES OF THE PLATTE RIVER RAIDS sees author Janelle Molony compile a thorough, blow-by-blow account of a largely forgotten aspect of nineteenth-century trail history.
Book Summary
EMIGRANT TALES OF THE PLATTE RIVER RAIDS by Janelle Molony focuses on painting the harrowing personal experiences of emigrants traveling through the Northern plains in 1864 during the Civil War. The author has compiled this book with the help of various historical sources, such as eyewitness testimonies, diary entries, and handwritten letters, further explained through helpful annotations, explanations and pictures. The book immerses the readers within its world, through emotionally charged language showcasing the courage of those who faced the raids. Readers who enjoy authentic historical reporting will love this book.
~Craig Jones for IndieReader
From Readers’ Favorite
(Jan. 3, 2024)
Emigrant Tales of the Platte River Raids: An 1864 Trail Diary Companion is a work of non-fiction in the historical writing, military, and sociocultural subgenres. It is best suited to the general adult reading audience. Penned by author Janelle Molony, this atmospheric and creative non-fiction work vividly captures the untold stories of the Platte River Raids in 1864, a tumultuous chapter in the American West overshadowed by the Civil War. The author delves into the harrowing experiences of emigrants traveling through the Northern Plains, where unexpected attacks by Plains Indians disrupted their journeys on the Bozeman, Oregon, and Overland Trails.
Author Janelle Molony has crafted an in-depth yet highly readable work that adeptly compiles eyewitness accounts from nearly 70 survivors, offering a mosaic of perspectives from all sorts of people from different walks of life at the time. The well-arranged and well-curated testimonies – and the brilliant choice to have them vetted by living descendants – provide a rich and immersive exploration of a largely overlooked historical event whilst also connecting the past to the present in a relevant way that sparks emotion.
Reading this book is like stepping into a time machine, witnessing the fear, resilience, and unity of those who faced the Platte River Raids, with all the atmospheric charm of a novel, but the emotional impetus of true and living history that still impacts us today. Molony’s dedication to presenting these stories in a comprehensive and annotated manner elevates this work, contributing significantly to the literary history of the American West. Overall, I would not hesitate to recommend Emigrant Tales of the Platte River Raids for fans of historical non-fiction everywhere.
–– K.C. Finn for Readers’ Favorite
From the Oregon Trail Genealogy Blog
“This is not just another “tale of the Trail” but rather a study of several specific wagon trains, their routes, and importantly, rosters listing the surnames of the travelers.”
OregonTrailGenealogy.com was founded in 2023 with the goal of preserving the history of the Oregon Trail and the Pacific Northwest. Services offered include genealogical research, consulting and speaking engagements.
— Mark Goddard, Genealogist/Blogger (see more here)
Book launch ranking on Amazon!
(Dec. 27, 2023)
More to come soon!
What’s next?
- Leave your own review on Amazon (here) or GoodReads (here).
- Order The 1864 Diary of Mrs. Sarah Rousseau, one of the original trail diaries.
- Book Author and Historian, Janelle Molony, for a speaking engagement.
- Follow on Social Media. FB: @AuthorJanelleMolony IG: @AuthorJanelleMolony