He was a delicate child, and at the age of eight was sent to live with his
grandfather, who owned at Medway, near Boston, a vast tract of woodland.
The boy roamed at will through these forests, and began to amass that wood
lore of which his histories hold such rich stores. At Harvard he overworked
in the gymnasium with the mistaken purpose of strengthening himself for a
life on the frontier.
In 1846, two years after graduation, he took his famous trip out west over
the Oregon Trail, where he hunted buffalo on the plains, dragged his horse
through the canyons to escape hostile Indians, lived in the camp of the
warlike Dacota tribe, and learned by bitter experience the privations of
primitive life.
His health was permanently impaired by the trip. He was threatened with
absolute blindness, and was compelled to have all his notes read to him and
to dictate his histories. For years he was forbidden literary work on
account of insomnia and intense cerebral pain which threatened insanity,
and on account of lameness he was long confined to a wheel chair. He rose
above every obstacle, however, and with silent fortitude bore his
sufferings, working whenever he could, if for only a bare half hour at a
time.
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