John D. Hicks (1890-1972) was a member of the history department at the University of California at Berkeley for thirty years. This book was written for college level students. He wrote several other books. His scholarship centered on the transition of the United States from the agricultural and small-town society still dominant in the Middle West of his youth, to the industrial and urban society increasingly dominant after the First World War.
Contents
Chapters: The morning of america 1492-1763 --- Founding the Nation1763-1787 --- Evolution in Democracy 1787-1818 --- The jacksonian Era1818-1837 --- Expansion and its consequences 1837-1850 --- The sectional controversy 1850-1865
Appendix B, "Additional names of persons or families migrating from the colonies to Upper Canada", is a table that lists family names and the areas which they migrated from. Many in the list are from Pennsylvania. This table also includes a field, "Other information", that holds important information associated with each family name.
Summary
"The role of the United Empire Loyalists has always been a fascinating part of the history of Canadian development. But in 'The Trail of the Black Walnut' the reader will find for the first time a complete and absorbing account of what happened to one group of these Loyalists --the thousands of men and women knowns as the Pennsylvania Dutch who toiled through a trackless wilderness in search of rich limestone soil and the black walnut. These were the people who were to lay the foundations of a great Canadian province today known as Ontario." [from the book jacket]
Henry William Elson (1857-1935) was a professor of history at Ohio State University. He states in the preface that he has endeavored to write this history for the general reader . He says that he has tried to include information about the lives of the people and not just politics, government and industry.
