By Ox Team to California - A Narrative of Crossing the Plains in 1860: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

By Ox Team to California - A Narrative of Crossing the Plains in 1860, credited to Lavinia Honeyman Porter, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of By Ox Team to California - A Narrative of Crossing the Plains in 1860, by Lavinia Honeyman Porter. Read by Sue Anderson. Imagine a young, twenty-something woman in 1860, reared “in the indolent life of the ordinary Southern girl” (which means she has never learned to cook); married to a professional man who knows “nothing of manual labor;”who is mother to a young son; and who has just found out she is pregnant with their second child. Imagine that this couple has become “embarrassed financially” by “imprudent speculations,” and that they are discussing what to do. They decide to buy a wagon and three yoke of unbroke oxen and head overland to California. "We were two such precious dunces,” writes Lavinia Honeyman Porter in her autobiographical account of their journey across the plains. “In a short time the six oxen were bought, driven to our home and turned loose in our barnyard--wild brutes, as handy as with their heels as with their horns. Not one of us was brave enough to venture into the corral with them and we soon concluded we had six white elephants on our hands.” From there on in, Lavinia's adventures get worse—and then better. For those who enjoy true stories of pioneering days and happy endings, this is an enjoyable read. (Introduction by Sue Anderson)

Recording facts

• Recording title: By Ox Team to California - A Narrative of Crossing the Plains in 1860
• Author credits: Lavinia Honeyman Porter
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 10
• Listed recording duration: 4:52:01

Catalogue topics

• biography
• travel
• West

Track guide

1. 0 - Dedication & Introductory — 5:36
2. 1 - Preparations; Camping in Kansas — 35:09
3. 2 - Fire and Fuel; Buffalo Country — 27:35
4. 3 - Indians; Trials of the Spirit — 34:09
5. 4 - A Sale of Glassware; On to California — 30:29
6. 5 - The Rocky Mountains; Shoeing Lame Oxen — 28:55
7. 6 - The Overland Road; Money Giving Out — 25:16
8. 7 - Discarded Possessions; Salt Lake City — 34:48
9. 8 - Graves in the Desert; Climbing the Sierras — 39:20
10. 9 - Descending into California; The Journey's End — 30:45

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Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.