Provides an introduction which talks about Margaret Van Horn Dwight's wagon journey in 1810 from New Haven, Connecticut, to Warren, Ohio, where she would find a husband, bear thirteen children, and die in middle-age.

"Here is a valuable and rare document providing a woman's perspective on a western passage that has received little attention from historians. Margaret Dwight's journal gives us a first-hand account that goes way beyond the usual reckoning of miles traveled and notes on the weather. She provides an intimate view of the people on the trail. From her observations we get a sense of the back-country settlements of Pennsylvania and Ohio in 1810, the language, the sounds, and even the smells of this early American West. Her journal is full of witty and occasionally sarcastic remarks. For all her prejudices and self-admitted pride, she emerges as a likeable person and valuable guide."-Jay Gitlin, in his introduction. In his introduction, Jay Gitlin, a professor of history at Yale University, says more about Margaret Van Horn Dwight's wagon journey in 1810 from New Haven, Connecticut, to Warren, Ohio, where she would find a husband, bear thirteen children, and die in middle-age.