Claire Dayton has narrated 4 audiobooks on Listento.it by 5 authors. The most-rated is Nine Years Among the Indians (Expanded, Annotated).
Days on the Road
Summary
Can you visualize today what it meant to cross America's Great Plains in the mid-19th century? It was a wondrous, perilous, often fatal journey without assurance of a successful life at the other end. Yet tens of thousands made the journey and lucky for us, many set aside modesty, often at the request of children or grandchildren, to put the account of their travels into words. Young Sarah Raymond Herndon was one of these pioneer women. Her classic story of days on the road are part of American history. She describes the beauty of the country and the wrenching heartbreak of losing loved ones. What she found along the way and at the end will thrill and inspire you. Every memoir of the American West provides us with another view of the movement that changed the country forever. Listen to a sample.
Public Domain (P)2017 Big Byte Books
21 Months a Captive
Summary
On May 19, 1836, Fort Parker in Texas was overwhelmed by a band of Comanche Indians. Some residents were brutally murdered, others taken prisoner. Among those captured was 11-year-old Cynthia Parker, who would remain with the Comanche for 24 years and give birth to famed Chief Quanah. Another captive was 17-year-old Rachel Plummer, mother of one, pregnant with her second child. She would soon have her first-born ripped from her arms, never to be seen again, and later watched as her second-born was killed before her eyes. After 21 months of captivity that destroyed her health, she was purchased and returned to her family. In this extraordinary account, her father tells of that horrible day when the fort was attacked, and his desperate efforts to find and retrieve the captives. Rachel details her terrible enslavement and how she eventually fought back.
Public Domain (P)2017 Big Byte Books
The Spirit Lake Massacre and the Captivity of Abbie Gardner
Summary
Long considered one of the best of the captive narratives from the 19th century, Abbie Gardner's thrilling and graphic tale of her abduction by a band of Santee Sioux in 1857 will captivate you from beginning to end. Barely 14 years old, her family was butchered before her eyes and she witnessed the deaths of two other women captives before her release by Chief Inkpaduta. Gardner suffered years of illness after her return to white culture but eventually made a successful and prosperous life with a family. This book went through seven editions in her lifetime and she eventually purchased the cabin and property from which she was abducted and turned them into a tourist attraction. The cabin still stands today near Spirit Lake, Iowa. Told from the view of a woman looking back three decades to her traumatic experience, Gardner used notes she had written down in the intervening years as well as public documents to produce a compelling narrative.
Public Domain (P)2017 Big Byte Books
Nine Years Among the Indians (Expanded, Annotated)
Summary
In a real-life version of Little Big Man comes Indian captive narrative of Herman Lehmann. He was captured as a boy in 1870 and lived for nine years among the Apaches and Comanches. Long considered one of the best captivity stories from the period, Lehmann came to love the people and the life. Only through the gentle persuasion of famed Comanche chief, Quanah Parker, was Lehmann convinced to remain with his white family once he was returned to them. Lehmann saw some of the most dramatic changes in the western United States from a perspective few whites had. He didn't just play the part...he was living as an Indian. His struggle to readjust to white culture is detailed here as well. At the time of this writing, he was married with five children, although he maintained the ties to his Indian friends and family for the rest of his life. Every memoir of the American West provides us with another view of the movement that changed the country forever.
©2015 Big Byte Books (P)2017 Big Byte Books