Washington Irving 
Astoria [PDF ebook] 
Or, Anecdotes of an Enterprise Beyond the Rocky Mountains

In the early 1800s, John Astor made the fateful decision to make good on his long-held dream of establishing a fur-trading company in the Northwest United States. Astor later convinced Washington Irving, one of the most important figures in nineteenth-century American literature, to create a non-fiction account of the operation’s origins. The result, Astoria, is a fascinating work of history.