Kate Mulhall : A romance of the Oregon Trail by Ezra Meeker
"Kate Mulhall" by Ezra Meeker is a historical romance novel written in the early 20th century. It follows a strong-willed Missouri frontier woman and her family on the Oregon Trail, blending courtship and moral conflict with vividly rendered pioneer hardships. Guided by the author’s own trail experience, the story honors the overland migration while centering on Kate’s feelings for two very different suitors amid the dangers and camaraderie of wagon-train life. The
opening of the novel sets Kate’s frontier skills, character, and anti-slavery convictions against the social divide of slaveholding Missouri, as she resists her attraction to the honorable but slave-owning Isaac Pelton while remaining close to loyal neighbor Ben Hardy. A community farewell party bridges class lines before the Mulhalls prepare to emigrate, aided by a seasoned missionary’s advice; Ben agrees to drive a team and parts tenderly from Linda Shaeffer with a promise to reunite. The departure brings river-bottom mud, vast encampments at the Missouri, glimpses of Methodist and Mormon camps, and a near-fatal ferry accident in which Kate and Ben are swept downstream and rescued by Native swimmers, leading to sympathetic help from Quakers and a replacement wagon. Once across, confusion, steamboat-ferried crossings, and an attempted Indian toll are met with organized caution until a determined push breaks a blockade. The trail narrative then tightens: choking dust, a dead carriage horse, scarce water, a buffalo migration and hunt that fells Ben with illness amid a cholera scare, plains “jury” justice after a family is abandoned, and hazardous river fords—all foreshadowing the grueling journey ahead. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
Read or download for free
For an overview of the different reading options, see our Reading Guide
| Reading Options | Url | Size | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Read now! | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78040.html.images | 512 kB | |||
| EPUB3 (E-readers incl. Send-to-Kindle) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78040.epub3.images | 3.5 MB | |||
| EPUB (older E-readers) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78040.epub.images | 3.5 MB | |||
| EPUB (no images, older E-readers) | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78040.epub.noimages | 262 kB | |||
| Kindle | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78040.kf8.images | 3.7 MB | |||
| older Kindles | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78040.kindle.images | 3.6 MB | |||
| Plain Text UTF-8 | https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78040.txt.utf-8 | 464 kB | |||
| Download HTML (zip) | https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/78040/pg78040-h.zip | 6.5 MB | |||
| There may be more files related to this item. | |||||
Similar Books
About this eBook
| Author | Meeker, Ezra, 1830-1928 |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Kausch, Rudolf A. |
| Illustrator | Lyons, Oscar W. |
| Illustrator | Sanford, Margaret Landers, -1938 |
| LoC No. | 26010568 |
| Title | Kate Mulhall : A romance of the Oregon Trail |
| Original Publication | New York: Ezra Meeker, 1926. |
| Credits | Al Haines |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature |
| Subject | Western stories |
| Subject | Women pioneers -- Fiction |
| Subject | Oregon National Historic Trail -- Fiction |
| Category | Text |
| EBook-No. | 78040 |
| Release Date | Feb 25, 2026 |
| Copyright Status | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 5099 downloads in the last 30 days. |
| Project Gutenberg eBooks are always free! | |