Manasseh Cutler, for example, isn’t a well-known historical figure, but his journals record him on very friendly terms with multiple signers of the Declaration of Independence, as well as people like Meriwether Lewis. In some ways, it reads almost like a television episode in which the main characters play a secondary role to figures who usually stay in the background. Like McCullough’s past work, “The Pioneers” sheds new light on history, and in this case into a corner often overlooked. Within those eight decades, McCullough details many of the same trials pioneers of other areas and eras faced - unpredictable weather, unreliable crops and game, conflicts with American Indians, a lack of infrastructure - but also the resilience and strength that ultimately overcame them. Rufus Putnam, a hero of the Revolutionary War who turned his sights west and Joseph Barker and Samuel Hildreth, a carpenter and doctor who were pillars of the fledgling settlement.Ĭollectively, the contributions of these men span almost 80 years.

In the spotlight are five historical figures often left out of textbooks but, as McCullough illustrates, not for any lack of contribution: Manasseh Cutler, who was the driving force behind “the Ohio cause” his son Ephraim, who was in one of the first groups of settlers to the lush, untamed land and was a pivotal leader in the Northwest Territory and, later, the state of Ohio for many years Gen. Opening his narrative very shortly after the close of the Revolutionary War, McCullough traces the fledgling country's effort to push westward from the original 13 colonies, from the first grassroots movement to settle the Northwest Territory to a settlement flourishing under the hard work of its intrepid residents, and all the success and hardship between.

Book the pioneers by david mccullough