Francis Parkman, Jr. (September 16, 1823 – November 8, 1893) was an American historian, best known as author of The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life and his monumental seven-volume France and England in North America. These works are still valued as historical sources and as literature. He was also a leading horticulturist, briefly a Professor of Horticulture at Harvard University and author of several books on the topic. Parkman was a trustee of the Boston Athenæum from 1858 until his death in 1893. Many of the great 19th century American historians -- such as Francis Parkman, John Lothrop Motley, and William H. Prescott -- are good enough to be considered as literature. This, the last volume of Parkman''s six-volume history of the French in North America, is probably the best of all. It covers the French and Indian War from the point of view of the French, the American colonies, the British, the Indians, and the Acadians.
