Beyond Trail’s End
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The exact date that Delbert Baxter left home and headed for the west is unclear … He was young, very young and filled with stubborn pride … he left the only world he had ever known behind him …
The Baxters were a hearty sort with a natural instinct for fitness and survival, descendents of American colonists who endured many hardships while clearing and settling the land that they fought for in the Revolutionary War. Being one of the first founding families in St. Lawrence County, their lives were filled with hard work. They were farmers, carpenters, and loggers with a logging camp in the Adirondacks. The yearning to seek a new land to explore and settle was buried deep within Delbert’s roots. The ancient paths of his ancestors were calling him, urging him to go.
With his few possessions and a one-way ticket, he boarded a train and rode as far west as the train could take him. Getting off at the end of the line, he began a journey taking him beyond the end of the trail.
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About the Book
In the early twentieth century, a young man left his northeastern farm in search of a new beginning. With a few possessions and a one-way ticket, Delbert Baxter rode as far west as the train could take him. As he reached the end of the line, Baxter began an unforgettable adventure that would lead him through Montana, Canada, the Rocky Mountains, and eventually to Northern British Columbia. This is the heartwarming story of a true wilderness survivor, homesteader, and mountain man.
In BEYOND TRAIL’S END, Dorothy Baxter Arquette and Judy Arquette Brassard chronicle their ancestor’s fascinating journey as he set out on the adventure of a lifetime. After working for nine years on ranches in Montana and logging camps in the Rocky Mountains, and later settling a homestead on the prairie in Alberta, Baxter eventually lands in British Columbia, where he becomes a fur trapper and trader in Peace River County. As he hunts, fishes, and lives off the land, Baxter learns how to survive in the desolate wilderness.
BEYOND TRAIL’S END documents beloved family stories for generations to come and forever preserves a time in a young adventurer’s life when he took a chance and made wonderful memories in the process.
About the Author
DOROTHY BAXTER ARQUETTE was born on a farm in Knapps Station, NY, the daughter of Delbert and Leora Baxter. She married Gordon Arquette in 1942. She is the author of the memoir Thoughts of Long Ago.
JUDY ARQUETTE BRASSARD was born to Dorothy and Gordon Arquette, the third of four children. She has published several short stories and poems in The Storyteller, The Purple Pen, Flair, and The St. Lawrence County Historical Society Quarterly. She and her husband, Michael, live in Hannawa Falls, New York.