Prairie and Rocky Mountain Life; Or, The California and Oregon Trail ..

Boston-born Francis Parkman (1823-1893), whose most famous books are "The Oregon Trail" and "France and England in North America," was a renowned American historian and leading horticulturalist. He was briefly a Professor of Horticulture at Harvard University's Bussey Institution (his successor at Harvard was Charles Sprague Sargent, creator and head of the Arnold Arboretum for more than 50 years) and the President of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. In the 1850s, he purchased land bordering Jamaica Pond for his summer home. Today, the Francis Parkman Memorial sits near the former site of the house, while Francis Parkman Drive runs through the former location of his rose garden. Frederic Sackrider Remington (October 4, 1861 - December 26, 1909) was an American painter, illustrator, sculptor, and writer who specialized in depictions of the Old American West, specifically concentrating on the last quarter of the 19th century American West and images of cowboys, American Indians, and the U. S. Cavalry. Remington attended the art school at Yale University. He left Yale in 1879 to take care of his ailing father who had tuberculosis. Remington did not return to Yale, instead when his father died he made a trip out to Montana. This trip colored the type of illustrations, sculpture, and novels he would create for the rest of his life. Remington died after an emergency appendectomy led to peritonitis on December 26, 1909. His extreme obesity (weighing in at nearly 300 pounds) had complicated the anesthesia and the surgery. He is buried in Evergreen Cemetery, Canton, New York.