FREE THE FAR WEST PDF Patricia C Wrede | 378 pages | 01 Dec 2012 | Scholastic US | 9780545033442 | English | New York, United States Far west | Definition of Far west at Founding the Far West is an ambitious and vividly written narrative of the early years of statehood and statesmanship The Far West three pivotal western territories. Johnson offers a model example of a new approach to history that is transforming our ideas of how America moved west, one that breaks the mold of "regional" and "frontier" histories to show why Western history The Far West also American history. Johnson explores the conquest, immigration, and settlement of the first three states of the western region. He also investigates the building of local political customs, habits, and institutions, as well as the socioeconomic development of the region. While momentous changes marked the Far West in the later nineteenth century, distinctive local political cultures persisted. These were a legacy of the pre-Civil War conquest and settlement of the regions The Far West no less a reflection of the struggles for political definition that took place during constitutional conventions in each of the three states. At the center of the book are the men who wrote the original constitutions of these states and shaped distinctive political cultures out of the common materials The Far West antebellum American culture. Founding the Far West maintains a focus on the individual experience of the constitution writers—on their motives and ambitions as pioneers, their ideological intentions as authors of constitutions, and the successes and failures, after statehood, of their attempts to give meaning The Far West the constitutions they had produced. Books Journals. Disciplines History United States History. About the Book The Far West the Far West is an ambitious and vividly written narrative of the early years of statehood and statesmanship in three pivotal western territories. Related Books. The Far West Culture Far West was a shallow draft sternwheel steamboat or riverboat plying the upper Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers in the Dakota and The Far West Territories, in the years from to By being involved in historic events in the Indian Wars of the western frontier, the Far West became an iconic symbol of the shallow draft steamboat plying the upper Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers in the era before railroads dominated transport in these areas. The Far West was light, strong and speedy. The Far West was used in this capacity, along with its sister riverboat the Josephine. The Far West was often piloted by the famous river boat captain and pilot, Grant Marsh. The Far West was known as a fast boat because she had powerful engines, a hull with limited water resistance, and a low profile that reduced wind resistance. She set a number of speed records for both upstream and downstream travel on the Missouri and the Yellowstone. By virtue of her shallow draft and her ability to "grasshopper" over sand bars using spars and steam capstans on the front of the boat to lift the boat and swing it forward a few feet at a time she was famous for being able to get through shallow channels and low water conditions on the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers that turned back other steamboats. Far West gained a place in military and steamboat history during the Great Sioux War of Colonel George Armstrong Custer. The column was advancing up the Yellowstone, seeking a large Sioux and Cheyenne encampment which was moving along the river drainages to the south. The Far West brought supplies to the column, and it was used by Terry as a headquarters and also to ferry and move troops on the river. On June 21, the Far West was moored on the Yellowstone at the mouth of Rosebud Creek and was the site of the fateful meeting of officers after which Custer and the 7th Cavalry The Far West dispatched south up the Rosebud seeking the Indian encampment. Five of The Far West companies of the 7th were annihilated along with Custer, and the remaining companies suffering significant numbers of dead and wounded. Far West made her way from the Yellowstone up the Bighorn River to the mouth of the Little Bighorn where she was loaded with the wounded from the battle. She continued to work on the Yellowstone and the Missouri Rivers for other owners until when she struck a snag and sank, near St. Charles, Missouri. The engines were powered by steam from three boilers that consumed as many as 30 cords of wood a day. The Far West also had two steam capstans, one on each side of the bow, being the first boat built with more than one. The steamboat rested in the water on its hull. The hull of the boat was hollow and was used to store cargo. Cargo was often contained The Far West casks or barrels. This storage could only be reached through hatches on The Far West deck, and men working in the hull to store or move cargo could not stand up, but had to work while hunched over or crawling through The Far West hull space. The platform that closed the top of the hull was the main deck, and The Far West name The Far West not The Far West to the floor of this space, but also the space between the main deck and the cabin deck, just above the main deck. The main deck had the boilers and the two steam engines which powered The Far West paddle wheel at the rear of the boat. Wood for the boilers was stacked on the main deck. Freight was carried on the main deck. The cheapest passenger accommodations were on the main deck, but the passengers had to find their own space. Above the main deck on the Far West was the cabin deck. Each side of the boat had a row of small cabins with doors that opened to the outside where there was a covered walkway. Inside the two rows of cabins and between them there was a central cabin — like a long wide hallway running from the front of the boat to the back. Here there was a long table where the cabin passengers and the ships officers were fed, and where they could spend leisure time. Above the main deck was its roof, known as the hurricane deck, because it was unprotected from the elements. The Far West had no structures on this deck, other than the pilot house. On the Far West the hurricane deck had no cabins, and no " Texas deck " structures. The pilot house was a cupola like box, with glass-paned windows on all four sides, that perched on the hurricane deck. From this vantage point the river pilot who has often the captain, in a smaller steamship like the "Far West" guided the boat, while also regulating the power applied to the paddle wheel. The pilot guided the boat using a large spoked wheel, which was connected by a series of ropes or chains to the rudders at the rear of the boat. The pilot also regulated the power applied to the stern paddle wheel, using a voice tube to talk to the engineer, telling him when and in what amount to provide steam to power the stern wheel, and when to stop or reverse the paddle wheel. Two tall smoke stacks towered above the forward part of the hurricane deck and the 'scape pipes were in the rear, venting steam from the engines. The Far West was neither graceful nor grand in appearance, but she was strong, powerful, fast, durable and had an enormous capacity for hard work. She had limited accommodation for passengers on her second deck, and consequently The Far West did not have a large central cabin. The absence of these features meant that she had a lower profile, and no "Texas" deck, which resulted in her having less wind resistance and therefore being both faster and more manageable in the high winds that prevailed in Montana and North Dakota during the summer The Far West. She possessed ample freight carrying capacity, and she had a shallow draft. Her powerful engines and three boilers combined with her other features to make her not only a speedy boat, but also a boat that was able to traverse shallow channels, The Far West sand bars, breast strong currents and go up through The Far West. A unique feature of light river steamboats like the Far West was their ability to "grasshopper" to get across shallow sand bars to reach a deeper river channel beyond the sand bar. In this "grasshopper" maneuver, the boat used spars and steam capstans on the front of the boat to lift and swing the front of the boat onto the sand bar, moving forward a few feet at a time. Once the front of the boat was on the sandbar, when the boat was lifted the current would help dislodge loose sediment under the boat, and often the paddle wheel would be accelerated to generate a current in the water under the boat that would also pull the loose sandbar sediment from under the boat. This process was intended to create enough draft or flotation in the water, so the steamboat could then move forward into the deeper channel beyond the The Far West bar. The boat was later sold to Capt. Henry M. Dodds and Victor Bonnet. In the Far West made trips to and from Fort Benton, Montanawhich was the upper terminus of river travel on the Missouri. The Far West was used to ferry supplies from the rail head at Bismarck up the Missouri The Far West the Montana Territory, and then up the Yellowstone River where the military column was seeking the villages of the Sioux.