Weaving Historical Fact into Historical Fiction

Susan F. Craft
Author of Laurel and The Chamomile

        I tell people all the time that I’d rather research than write. I love combing through libraries, old documents, and books. Researching for my novels brings me the same excitement Alan Quartermain must have felt hunting for King Solomon’s Mines. I’ve been known to spend an entire day in a library scribbling notes from someone’s diary, spending a wallet of quarters making copies of maps and old newspapers, and trekking from one book or document to the next with a perseverance Lewis and Clark would have applauded. I enjoy the chase when one clue leads me to the next, to the next…
        I call the bits of information, photographs, and drawings I discover “my treasures.”
        I thought it might be of interest to share three of my “treasures”; tell where I found them, and then show how I used them in my newly released novel, Laurel.

Beekeeping
        There’s a scene in Laurel where Lilyan Xanthakos helps her old friend Callum with his beekeeping. I found information on a site entitled Woods Runner’s Diary by Keith H. Burgess. He explains how to find a beehive by placing bits of vermilion flowers on a stone along with drops of honey. The bees, attracted to the honey, land on the rock, and the sticky pieces of vibrant red particles cling to their bodies. Since bees fly in straight lines back to their hives, their path can be determined with a compass. http://woodsrunnersdiary.blogspot.com/2010/03/bee-hunting.html

Here’s how I wove this information into my story:

        As a young girl, she had learned from Callum how to lure bees with honey, then observe as they left, taking note on a compass the direction in which they flew. Since bees always flew in a straight line back to their hives, they were easy to follow.
        Once he located a hive, he would cut down the branch in which it had been built and transport it to his hiving area. There he would suspend it from a pole at the same distance from the ground it had been originally.
        Because of his failing eyesight, he had come up with an ingenious idea of putting flower petals on the stump along with the honey, so that when the bees landed the vermillion pieces would stick to their legs.

chickadee

Birds and Their Sounds
        I found a wonderful site, Birds of the Blue Ridge Mountains that describes the calls of a long list of birds. The site has some of the most beautiful pictures I’ve seen of birds. http://www.theblueridgehighlander.com/Birds-of-the-Smoky-Blue-Ridge-Mountains/index.php

Here’s how I wove the information into my story:

        The farther they traveled, the more the sun burned away the haze, first revealing the edges of tree-topped ridges, then pulling back layer after layer of gossamer veils to expose the highest mountain peaks standing tall against a cerulean sky.
        From a distance echoed the caw-caw of a crow, the fee-bee-fee of chickadees, and the gloomy coo-ooh of a mourning dove.
        Laurel always delighted in those sounds. Lilyan visualized her sitting in their yard, cocking her head to listen, her eyes dancing.

Jenny Diver, a famous pickpocket.
        Fianna, a character in Laurel, is modeled after Jenny Diver, a notorious pickpocket.
        Jenny was born as Mary Young around 1700 in Ireland. She was the illegitimate daughter of a lady’s maid who, after being forced to leave her job, gave birth to Jenny in a brothel. At age 10, Jenny was taken in by a gentlewoman who sent her to school where she learned needlework and to read and write.
        Once she had mastered needlework, she moved to London to become a seamstress. There she met the leader of a gang of pickpockets and learned the skills of a street criminal so well she soon became their leader. Though she was caught several times, imprisoned in Newgate, and sent to the American colonies, she managed to return to London under assumed names.
        Eventually at the age of about 40, her luck ran out, and she was caught and hanged for street robbery.

Here’s part of a conversation Lilyan has with Fianna, who is very pregnant:

       Fianna winked. “Anyways. Just tell the judge you want to plead your belly. He’ll know your meaning. That’s what’s put off my hanging.”
        Lilyan gasped. “You are to hang?”
        “Aye. My fault. All of it. Couldn’t keep me fingers out of other people’s pockets. Got caught in London and sent to Newgate. It being my first offense, they shipped me off to the colonies.” She crossed her swollen ankles. “Thought me and my gang—other pickpockets like me—were coming to the same place, but my man was sent on to Georgia. Surprise that was. Anyways, water under the bridge, as they say.”
        Fianna stopped talking for a moment to watch her stomach pitch and roll. “Won’t be long now, though. This one’s wanting to make its presence known. Sad, don’t you think, that I won’t get to know the babe who gave me a few months’ reprieve?”


Susan F. Craft, who writes inspirational historical romantic suspense, recently retired after a 45-year career as a communications director, editor, and proofreader. To assist authors to “get it right about horses in their works,” Susan worked with the Long Riders’ Guild Academic Foundation to compile A Writer's Guide to Horses (also known as An Equestrian Writer’s Guide) that can be found at www.lrgaf.org. Forty-five years ago, she married her high school sweetheart, and they have two adult children, one granddaughter, and a granddog. An admitted history nerd, she enjoys researching for her novels, painting, singing, listening to music, and sitting on her porch watching the rabbits and geese eat her daylilies. She has two post-Revolutionary War novels being released in 2015 by Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas—Laurel, was released January 15, and its sequel Cassia will be in September. Her Revolutionary War novel, The Chamomile, won the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance Okra Pick.

About Laurel
Searching for their toddler and her Cherokee aunt kidnapped by slavers, Lilyan and Nicholas Xanthakos trek from their North Carolina vineyard, through South Carolina backcountry to Charleston, a tinderbox of post-Revolutionary War passions. There Lilyan, a former Patriot spy, faces a grand jury on charges of murdering a British officer. Once free, they follow Laurel’s trail by sea and are shipwrecked on Ocracoke Island. Will they be reunited with their dear child or is Laurel lost to them forever?

Why Are We Fighting? the Napoleonic Wars

by Naomi Rawlings

War. For as long as people have inhabited the earth, war has existed. While war is always tragic and costly in many ways, there has been so much war scattered throughout history that reading through a list of them is, sadly, exhausting.

England and France were two of the two most prominently warring countries during the 18th and 19th Centuries. Like with most wars throughout history, greed, land acquisition, and strengthening the monarchy were the usual catalysts and goals. But with the advent of the French Revolution (and the American Revolution preceding it), a new mentality regarding war arose among the common people.


Before the American and French Revolutions, commoners fought in wars that served to benefit the aristocracy or monarchy. With these new revolutions, regular citizens and common people had a better reason to fight: themselves. Each man standing in France’s army believed he would have a better life if he was allowed to choose who governed his country rather than be subject to a hereditary monarch.

One thing that the British initially failed to understand about the French and Americans was WHY they wanted to fight. If you study the French Revolution, American Revolution, Napoleonic War and then the War of 1812, you’ll find this misunderstanding for every single war. With the changes in the French and American governments came a type of energy and belief that the mass of the population could fight for freedom, or for a government they wanted rather than one handed to them by a monarch. And Britain failed to grasp these ideals.

If you were to ask a Frenchman in 1793 and 1803 why he fought, he would have given an answer that involved something about freedom and thwarting tyranny. Even if you were to ask this question a decade later in 1813, after twenty years of war, the answer may well have been the same. “We want freedom. We don’t want another Bourbon king.”

Interestingly enough, if you were to ask a British subject in 1793 why he fought, he likely would have answered “because the king wants us to fight.” If you were to ask the same British soldier that question in 1803, his answer might well be the same, or he might say something to the effect of “because I don’t trust that French Consulate and Napoleon.” If you were to ask the same question again in 1813, the answer would likely be, “Because that Corsican Monster Napoleon is trying to take over Europe, and he’ll take England if we don’t stop him.”

For the first decade of war between France and England, the average British sailor and soldier didn’t have a reason to fight beyond “the government wants us to.” The average Englishman had nothing to gain by fighting against France until the English populace began to believe Napoleon Bonaparte a threat to England (part of which was came about as a result of printing intentionally untrue propaganda against Napoleon).

When I wrote my most recent novel, Falling for the Enemy, I paired a French heroine with a British hero. It was essential that I understand the conflicting mentalities toward the Napoleonic Wars so that I could accurately write both characters. This also lead to a lot of fun scenes such as:

If England won this war, France would go back to how it had been before the Révolution. No more liberty or equality for the masses. Peasants heavily taxed while aristocrats lived in excess. 

Commoners starved for bread and clamoring after only a handful of jobs while the queen ate cakes at Versailles. Papa’s first wife had taken ill and died, half from starving and half from illness, during those days. Many others would die of disease or starvation once more if King George had his way. 

’Twas why England’s tyranny had to be stopped. 

’Twas why she never should have agreed to aid Gregory.

~.~.~.~.~

Falling for the Enemy

Betrayed and stranded in France at the height of war, Lord Gregory Halston has few options. After rescuing his ailing brother from jail, they struggle to survive in hostile territory without outing themselves as Englishmen. Gregory hopes the feisty French peasant woman he meets is willing to guide them to safety.

Danielle Belanger doesn't wish to protect any man from the same country responsible for her brother's demise. But there's something about the determined Englishman that makes her willing to try. Though a match between Danielle and Gregory is impossible, their attraction can't be denied. The only thing more dangerous than aiding the enemy…is falling in love with him.

For more information about Naomi Rawlings and her novels, visit www.naomirawlings.com.

George III Dies January 29, 1820 by Jillian Kent

King George III in his coronation robes

If you're a fan of the Regency then you know that when George III died on this date in 1820 his son, The Prince of Wales, who had served as Regent became King George IV. But before I get ahead of myself I want to share some history with you about this George III who may not have been popular but had the longest reign of all the monarchs who came prior to him.

The Prince Regent

George the III was born on June 4, 1738 and died on January 29, 1820. He had been unable to reign the last ten years of his life and that's where the term Regency comes in to play in this instance. His son ruled in his stead because the King was unable to carry out his duties, thus the Prince of Wales became the Regent and thus was born a span of time from 1811-1820 that has been written about by historians and novelists because the Regent and future King of England led a dissolute life and wasted the taxpayers money.

He's most well known for losing the American Colonies (that was our American Revolution) and losing his mind. But from the British standpoint the man should also be known for many other things including the kindness he showed to his fifteen children and the devotion to his wife, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. He was the third of the Hanovarian Monarchs and the first to use English as his first language. George's direct responsibility for the loss of the colonies is not great. He opposed their bid for independence to the end, but he did not develop the policies (such as the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend duties of 1767 on tea, paper and other products) which led to war in 1775-76 and which had the support of Parliament. 

 Of course The American Revolution took the wind out of George III's sails. I'd always thought that was why he'd probably gone insane but now we know that porphyria or possibly arsenic poisoning from wigs worn at the time could have caused George III's mental instability.

You can read more about his mental illness at my previous post on the subject here and also this month at HHH here. In the extensive biography by Christopher Hibbert, George III looks at the King's life from different dimensions including his love for his country and many interests that covered: architecture, music, literature, astronomy and more.

Did you know that John Adams met King George III? 

I thought these Revolutionary War Facts were interesting. Did you know that John Hancock and Benjamin Franklin were both in London in 1761 and witnessed the coronation of King George III, the same king they would later rebel against?



Jillian is employed as a counselor for nursing students in Cincinnati, Ohio and possesses a masters degree in social work. She is a member of the American Association of Christian Counselors and passionate about mental health, wellness, and stomping out the stigma of mental illness. She also coordinates and frequently contributes to The Well Writer within Christian Fiction Online Magazine. Learn more about Jillian and her novels at www.jilliankent.com

Tidbits About Parker House Rolls

Parker House Rolls have been in our vocabulary for quite a while. Below are a few recipes from the 10th Century for these rolls. Note there are some basic differences in the recipes. They were developed in 1870 in the Parker House Hotel in Boston, MA. The Parker House still stands today and serves these rolls.

Recipes:
PARKER HOUSE ROLLS.—Mrs. D. B. Hubbard Chicago. —Take one cake of yeast and dissolve it in one cup luke-warm water, add flour to make a thin batter, put this in a warm place to rise. Take 1 pint milk and add 1 tablespoon butter, 1 tablespoon lard, 2 tablespoons sugar, 1 small teaspoon salt and let this mixture reach the boiling point; then remove from the stove. When this is cool the batter is usually risen sufficiently. Stir the two together and add about 2 quarts flour, knead 15 minutes and let rise again, when very light roll out and cut into shapes and let rise in pans and bake in a good quick oven.
Source: Mrs. Owens' New Cook Book ©1897

Here's a picture of them:

PARKER HOUSE ROLLS.
Mrs. A. H. Dashiell, Bricksburg, N. J.

One quart sifted flour, one-half cup of yeast, two tablespoons of sugar, salt, two tablespoons butter and one of lard; pour one pint of boiling milk over the ingredients, except yeast, and add that when lukewarm; mix early in the morning, and knead at noon, adding sufficient flour to make as stiff as biscuit; when light knead into rolls; roll out rather thin, cut with a biscuit cutter and then roll oblong, spread a little butter on one end and fold over; let them rise on the pans before baking. They ought to bake in ten or fifteen minutes. In cold weather the sponge should be made at night.

PARKER HOUSE ROLLS.
Alice M. Adams, Mrs. J. P. Hoit and others.

Two quarts flour, make a hole in the top, put in a piece of butter the size of an egg, a little salt, and a tablespoon of white sugar; pour over this a pint of milk previously boiled and cooled, and one-half teacup of good yeast. When the sponge is light, mould for fifteen minutes, let it rise again and cut into round cakes, butter one side and turn over on itself, bake in a quick OVen.

PARKER HOUSE ROLLS.
Mrs. L. J. Tilton.

Boil one pint of sweet milk, and when partly cooled melt in it half a cup of white sugar and one tablespoon of lard or butter; when lukewarm, add half a cup of yeast; make a hole in two quarts of flour and pour this mixture in. If for tea, set to rise over night, in the morning mix well and knead for half hour, then set to rise again; about four o’clock knead again for ten or fifteen minutes; roll out thinner than for biscuit, rub melted butter upon half the surface and fold it upon the other; set to rise once more in pans, and when light, bake twenty minutes in a hot oven.

Tidbits from Wikipedia can be found here.

Lynn A. Coleman is an award winning & best-selling author who makes her home in Keystone Heights, Florida, with her husband of 40 years. Lynn's newest novel THE INNKEEPER'S WIFE released last month. It is the second in her Historical St. Augustine, FL. series.
Check out her 19th Century Historical Tidbits Blog if you like exploring different tidbits of history.

Who Wrote Your State Song?

by Linda Farmer Harris

While we enjoy researching, sifting through the dusty tomes, and finding that obscure piece of really fascinating information, we love hearing from HH&H readers and fellow bloggers the most.

Last month, in response to my blog post What's Your State Song?, Staphanie Grace Whitson mentioned that the Nebraska state song, Beautiful Nebraska, was co-written by Jim Fras, a Russian immigrant. He moved to Nebraska in 1952. He wrote the music and co-authored the lyrics with Guy G. Miller. Fras said he got the idea for the song's melody during a drive in the countryside. He wanted to pay tribute to his adopted state. Go to http://nebraska150.org/jim-fras/ to hear this delightful song played and sung.

courtesy of Nebraska Sesquicentennial

That reminded me that we are still the melting pot of the nations. That also made me wonder about the writers of other state songs. How many state songs are part of our culture, but we never made the association? How were they inspired?

Would you have identified You are My Sunshine (Louisiana-Jimmie Davie & Charles Mitchell) or Home on the Range (Kansas-Daniel E. Kelley & Brewster M. Higley) as state songs?

What about Hoagy Carmichael's music Georgia on My Mind (lyrics by Stuart Gorrell, sung by Ray Charles) or Rocky Top (Tennessee-Felice & Boudleaux Bryant)? The romantic in me was charmed with the Bryant's love story. Felice was an elevator operator at the Sherwood Hotel and when she saw Boudleaux she recognized him immediately - she had seen his face in a dream she had when she was eight years old, and had looked for him forever. She was nineteen when she saw him at a water fountain in the hotel, ran up and accidentally drenched him with water and offered to buy him a drink.

Julia Tutwiler's inspiration for writing Alabama came after she returned to her home state after a visit to Germany where she studied the new educational methods for girls and women. Her desire was to help restore the state's patriotic spirits—Alabama, Alabama, we will aye be true to thee! (state adopted in 1931).

Julia Tutwiler

Claudia Marie Drake's poem makes Alaska's song unique among state songs. It focuses on the official Alaskan flag designed in 1927 by Benny Benson, a thirteen-year-old seventh-grade of Russian-Aleut and Swedish descent.

The music was inspired by Elinor Dusenbury's "...pure unadulterated homesickness for Alaska. I shed more tears on the boat going out than I ever have before or since."

Marie Drake and Eleanor Dusenbury, writers of the words and music of Alaska's Flag song

Arizona's alternate state anthem is a Country and Western song, Arizona, written by Rex Allen, known as the Arizona Cowboy, and Rex Allen, Jr. in 1981.

Rex Allen - The Arizona Cowboy - 1952

In 1874, the last reigning king of the Kingdon of Hawai'i, King David Kalakaua, authored, Hawai'i Pono'i, the current state song. Like many state songs and anthems, this song is also sung at sporting events. Hawai'i Pono'i means "Hawai'i's Own." Read the English translation of the Hawaiian lyrics.

King David Kalakaua

Has your beau ever wooed you with Louisana's state song — You are My Sunshine? Dennis and Charles Mitchell wrote the original lyrics. Have you sung this jumpy little country music tune? I have.

If you love musicals, you've sung, or maybe even acted in the stage play, Oklahoma, by Rodgers and Hammerstein. It is the only official state song from a Broadway musical.

Did you know that the former District of Columbia had its own song? James Wesley Dodd wrote Washington in 1951. Dodd is best known as Jimmie the MC of the popular 1950's Walt Disney Television series, The Mickey Mouse Club. He also wrote the Mickey Mouse Club March. At one time or another we've all sang the Club song. There's more to the DC song story and it's fascinating.

James Wesley, Jimmie, Dodd

There is so much history around us. What do you want to know more about? Let the HH&H bloggers hear from you. Tell us what interests you that we've not written about yet.

God Bless America,

Linda Farmer Harris

Lin's current research centers around 1890 Christmas in New Mexico. She and her husband, Jerry, live in Chimney Rock, Colorado.

Saloon Girls of the Wild West

Saloon girls kept the men happy and at the bar.

By Amy Lillard 

It’s no secret that Queen Victoria’s habits and manners influenced a generation. So much so that we call it the Victorian Age. From clothing to wedding traditions, she touched more than England. The eastern states were equally affected. But the Wild West? That was another matter.

To the westward pioneer, a great deal of these Victorian practices were just not practical and were quickly dropped. Consequently, the west took on a shape of its own.

Rowdy frontier towns gave rise to rowdy frontier saloons which in turn gave us the saloon girl.

I’ll be honest and tell you that I stumbled across this topic a little on accident. I was working on a story idea to submit to my publisher and wanted to make sure the term I was using to describe my character was correct. I’d used the term “saloon girl,” but was thinking more of a Gunsmoke-Miss Kitty type. What I found was that there was a great deal of difference between the saloon girl and the prostitute of the Old West.

The saloon girl had many different names. The 49ers in California called them “ladies of the line” or “sporting women.” Cowboys called them “soiled doves.” Kansas trailers knew them by many names, "daughters of sin,” "fallen frails,” "doves of the roost,” and "nymphs du prairie.” Still others referred to the saloon girls as "scarlet ladies,” fallen angels,” "frail sisters,” "fair belles,” and "painted cats,” to name a few.

But they were all the same: saloon girls.

Now, east of the Mississippi River, women didn’t go in saloons, but the west was different. To the “proper” woman, there were two kinds of improper ones: saloon girls and prostitutes. And to this “proper” miss, these were lumped together and considered a necessary evil.

But to saloon girls, what they did was vastly different than the prostitutes. Only in the roughest of saloons were the ‘’girls” and prostitutes one and the same. Otherwise, saloon girls held themselves higher than the prostitutes and wouldn’t be caught dead associating with one.

So what exactly was a saloon girl? They were workers, hired by the saloon to entertain the lonely men. And men in the West tended to be lonely. They outnumbered the women three to one in most places. In California in the mid-1800s, the population was ninety percent male! The saloon girls’ job was to dance with the men. They sang to them, talked to them, and otherwise kept them in the saloon buying drinks and playing games.

Most of the girls had come west from farms and mills seeking a better life, the opportunities that the West had to offer. A great deal of them were widows who, without a husband to support them, had to work for a living. Unfortunately, the Victorian Age didn’t offer a great deal of employment opportunities for women. In fact, the men of culture acted like women were brainless. The only legitimate opportunities for a woman’s employment were cooking, cleaning, or washing clothes, all backbreaking work.

That’s not to say that being a saloon girl was easy. A high probability of a violent death was a certain job hazard. Most of the ladies carried small pistols or daggers to protect themselves from overzealous patrons.

The girls were encouraged to dance with the men, then get the men to buy them drinks. The men would pay regular price for the ladies’ drinks though the women would secretly be served cold tea or colored water. (A practice my deputy husband tells me is still in use today. Who knew?) The girls got a commission off the drinks and a set salary for the week. They were also discouraged from spending too much time with one patron as the saloon owners lost a lot of employees to marriage.

As I mentioned, the saloon girls were there to dance with the men. Dancing usually started at eight or so in the evening. Each "turn” lasted about fifteen minutes and a popular girl could average as many as fifty dances a night. Often times they could make more a night than a working man could make in a month. Because of this, it was rare for them to double as a prostitute. In fact, many ladies of ill repute found they could make more money as a dance hall girl.

Most saloon girls were considered "good" women by the men. And in most places the women were treated as "ladies.” True, Western men tended to hold all women in high regard, but the saloon girls and/or the saloon keeper demanded the respect. Any man who mistreated one of these women was quickly deemed an outcast. If he insulted one, he would most likely be shot and killed.

I think we’ve all seen the picture of a dance hall girl, with her brightly-colored, ruffled dress ending at her knees (scandalous!) and her painted face. Yet with as many westerns as I watched with my dad as I was growing up, I never picked up on the distinction between dance hall girls and ladies of the night.

So what say you? Miss Kitty…saloon girl or not?

Tragedy in Franklin County, Illinois

Hello, everyone. Welcome to 2015! Can you believe it? A new year, a clean slate. I’m excited for what the year will bring.

While visiting with family over the holidays, my father began reminiscing about a piece of history that I knew a bit about, but only in the most general of terms. It had, however, impacted my family greatly.

Both my parents and grandparents grew up in Franklin County, Illinois—smack in the heart of coal mine country. While my father left that area immediately after graduating from high school (and thus, never worked in the mines), both of my grandfathers were coal miners in the Orient 2 mine from the 1930’s on into the 1950’s. My dad’s father worked day shift, and my mom’s father worked nights. Many families in that area were employed by the coal mines.

December 21, 1951, was like any other day for the miners, except for being the last shift before a scheduled shut-down for the Christmas holidays. The day shift ended and came out of the mine, my dad’s father among them. Meanwhile, 252 night shift workers entered and took their places. My mom’s father had been working three jobs at the time and took an unheard-of-for-him day off. The “coincidental” choice saved his life.

At roughly 7:30 pm, just thirty minutes or so after the night shift began, an explosion ripped through the Orient 2. Miners in the far reaches told of a rush of wind whipping past them, almost as if a train had flown by. Immediately after, smoke and dust poured into their areas and power outages occurred mine-wide. They called to the surface and were told to get out by means of safe, unaffected tunnels. With the power out, they had to use the stairs, which took three or four hours. Just over 130 men escaped unharmed. The remaining 120 men were trapped below.

In the town of West Frankfort,  news of the explosion traveled quickly. At a local high school basketball game, the game’s announcer called for Dr. Barnett over the loud speaker and asked him to report to the mine for a catastrophe. Nearly 2,000 people were in attendance at the game, and nearly half left after the announcement. Everyone rushed to the mine to discover what had happened and whether their friends and family members were all right.

By midnight, brave miners from day shift donned gas masks and protective gear and descended into the mine to clear the methane gas that caused the explosion, then begin search and rescue operations. My dad’s father was among these men. Hope evaporated when they saw the carnage below ground. A locomotive weighing ten tons had been blown off its tracks. Railroad ties were torn from under the rails traversing the mine. One-foot-thick support timbers were broken clean through.

I’m sure you can imagine the rest. The recovery crews found body after burned body, many of them unrecognizable. For days, they searched and found no survivors, until…two and a half days after the explosion, they came upon a miner,  Cecil Sanders,  barely alive, lying atop a rock fall. The supposition is that he found a pocket of breathable air that lasted just long enough for the searchers to reach him. The rescuers rushed a stretcher and oxygen tank to Sanders, and the men carried him to safety. Of the 120 men hit by the explosion, he was the only survivor. Among his effects, they found a note scrawled on a box of cough drops—“May the good Lord bless and keep you, dear wife and kids. Meet me in Heaven.” Thankfully, his family wouldn’t have to face that, just then. 

But so many more did. The deceased miners left behind 109 widows and 175 fatherless children. So many lives were lost that, once the funerals began, services were performed from early in the morning until late at night with only momentary breaks between. This went on for weeks. One woman reported that the only time available to bury her husband was Christmas Eve at 8 PM. Ironically, she’d married her husband five years earlier—on Christmas Eve at 8 PM.

The explosion rocked the entire county. While the week of Christmas should have been a joyous time, the residents of West Frankfort and neighboring towns forgot the holidays. People took down their trees and decorations, feeling it not right to celebrate when so many were grieving. Yet the spirit of Christmas was never more present than in the way the community banded together. Neighbors reached out to neighbors, and strangers offered help to those affected by the blast. It truly was a testament to the close-knit communities of small-town America.

The tragedy changed people. Many could not bring themselves to return to their jobs in the mine. My mother’s father never went back, instead choosing to work as a mechanic for the rest of his days. My dad’s father—who’d fought and nearly died in Burma during WWII—would speak on occasion of his experiences during the war, but never of what he saw in the days following the Orient 2 explosion. He did return to his job at the mine for another 8 years, but he was forever changed, as so many others with him.



On a more positive note, due to this explosion, safety reforms did begin to come to the mining industry. The day after the explosion, UMWA union boss John L Lewis toured the mine, then testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee of Mining Safety. Due in large part to this testimony, Congress passed the Federal Coal Mine Safety Act, which standardized safety practices for coal mines everywhere. It was signed into law by President Truman in 1952.

Your turn: What great tragedy in your lifetime has most affected you? How did it change you? What, if any, positives, are you able to take away from the experience?

Jennifer Uhlarik discovered the western genre as a pre-teen, when she swiped the only “horse” book she found on her older brother’s bookshelf. A new love was born. Across the next ten years, she devoured Louis L’Amour westerns and fell in love with the genre. In college at the University of Tampa, she began penning her own story of the Old West. Armed with a B.A. in writing, she has won five writing competitions and finaled in two other competitions. In addition to writing, she has held jobs as a private business owner, a schoolteacher, a marketing director, and her favorite—a full-time homemaker. Jennifer is active in American Christian Fiction Writers and lifetime member of the Florida Writers Association. She lives near Tampa, Florida, with her husband, teenaged son, and four fur children.

Accidental Detective

A friend to honesty and 

a foe to crime

--Allan Pinkerton

Born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1819, Allan Pinkerton might never have followed in his policemen father’s footsteps had it not been for a chance encounter.

A cooper by trade, he ran afoul of the law because of his political affiliations and he and his wife fled Scotland and ended up in America. After settling in Illinois, he dreamed of monopolizing the cooper manufacturing company in the region and called his company Pinkerton’s One and Original Cooperage of Dundee.

FATE INTERVENES

While cutting down poles for his barrels, he came across a counterfeiting ring. He reported his discovery to the sheriff, who immediately deputized him to help find the leader.  Allan set up a sting and caught him.  The Cook County sheriff was so impressed he offered Allan a job. 

Allan eventually decided to start his own detective agency, the only one of its kind, and the Pinkerton National Detective Agency became reality. The agency’s “seeing-eye” logo  inspired the phrase private eye.

The Pinkerton name became a household word when he prevented an assassination plot on President-elect Lincoln.  Lincoln then hired Allan to organize the Secret Service to stop counterfeiting.

MANY THINGS TO MANY PEOPLE

Allan was accused of being both a traitor and a patriot. He was also innovative and many of his methods are still used to today. The first to use photography as a crime-fighting tool, he collected what he called mug shots and newspaper articles, and organized files on every known criminal in the country.

PETTICOAT DETECTIVES

He was also ahead of his time in other areas as well and hired his first female detective Kate Warne in 1852. He thought she was applying for a secretary job but she soon relieved him of that notion. Oh, to have been at that meeting!

Quick to see the advantage of female detectives, he put her in charge of the Pinkerton Female Detective Bureau formed in 1860 to ‘worm out secrets’ by means unavailable to male detectives. Unfortunately, most of the information pertaining to this bureau was destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire, so we'll never know exactly how those lady detectives wormed out secrets.

FROM FAME TO SHAME

What we do know is that at the height of its existence, the Pinkerton Detective Agency employed more agents than the United States army.
Can you imagine having to track down criminals without benefit of DNA, fingerprints, security cameras, Facebook, cell phones or computers? But that’s exactly what those early gumshoes had to do and yet, they almost always got their man and, in some case, their woman. 

Their heavy-handed and sometimes ruthless pursuit of criminals like Jesse James (which resulted in the death of a child) earned the agency a bad reputation and tarnished the Pinkerton name. Several states passed anti-Pinkerton laws, which prohibited the hiring of private detectives. Allan fought back by publishing more than a dozen books in an effort to set the record straight.

Who is your favorite literary, movie or TV detective?

"Many things are worth dying for but modesty's
not one of them -Petticoat Detective

 

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Hannah Emerson Duston & Book Giveaway!

By Susan Page Davis

Among my husband’s more colorful ancestors is Hannah Emerson Duston, also known as the Hatchet Lady and the Haverhill Hero.

Hannah was born in Haverhill, a town in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in 1657. She married Thomas Duston (also spelled Dustan or Dustin) in 1677. Over the next nineteen years, she gave birth to twelve children, the last being Martha Duston, born
March 9, 1696/7. A relative of Hannah’s named Mary Neff, probably her aunt, was acting as her nurse in the days following the birth.

The French encouraged the Indians to raid English settlements during King William’s War (1689–97), and on March 15, 1697, band of Abenaki made such a raid on Haverhill. Twenty-seven women and children were killed in the raid.

Less than a week after giving birth, Hannah Duston was captured along with her infant daughter and Mary Neff. Hannah’s husband reportedly tried to persuade her to let him carry her to a safe place. Apparently she felt his energy would be better spent saving the other children and told him to save them. He rode his horse after the fleeing children, determined to save at least one, and fired on the Indians who tried to follow. He managed to escape with all seven to the nearest garrison. The Abenaki gave up the pursuit and turned back to raid the house. Mary Neff had stayed with Hannah.

Artist's portrayal of Thomas Duston saving his children.

The interlopers burst into the cabin and captured the two women. The baby was brutally killed, being dashed against a tree by one of the Abenaki soon after their march began. Hannah and Mary were taken northward by their captors. The thirteen captives from Haverhill were divided into smaller parties of Indians, who probably planned to take them to Canada. With Hannah's party was a boy, Samuel Lennerson or Leonardson, about 12 or 13 years old, who had been captured more than a year earlier in another raid.

This painting portrays Hannah and Samuel in action.

About two weeks after their capture, they had traveled about 100 miles from Haverhill, north of what is now Concord, New Hampshire. The party paused at an island (afterward known as Penacook Island, or Dustin Island) in the confluence of the Merrimack and Contoocook rivers on the evening of March 29. The two women were told that after a short journey to a further village they would be stripped and beaten.

During the night, Hannah and the boy Samuel secured hatchets and attacked their captors. Ten were killed, nine of them, most accounts say, by Hannah. The three captives then used a canoe to escape, but Hannah turned back and scalped the 10 corpses to have proof of the exploit. Scalps could be handed in for a bounty during the war.

Painting by artist Junius Brutus Stearns, depicting Hannah's escape,
 with an assist from Mary.

After facing many hardships, they reached Haverhill safely. They presented their story to the General Court in Boston on April 21, which awarded the sum of 25 English pounds to Hannah Duston and half that to each of her companions. Hannah Duston lived out the rest of her life quietly, moving to Ipswich after the death of her husband in 1732.

Mary, Samuel, and Hannah flee the island.

In his book The Haverhill Emersons, author Charles Henry Pope, a respected New England historian, said, Hannah’s deed “was one of the chief means of checking the cruelties of the Indians, showing them that ‘weak women’ would meet their atrocities in kind.” He also stated that Hannah “was at no other time in her life found lacking of the gentleness and peaceful character of woman; this deed was the product of maddening experience.” (Pope’s Emerson genealogy was published in Boston in 1913.)

Hannah has been memorialized in two statues of her wielding a hatchet, one in the town of Haverhill, Mass., and the other near the site of her escape in Boscawen, N.H.

The monument at Boscawen, N.H.

The monument in Haverhill, Mass.

    


Our family happened upon the monument on the island in Boscawen by chance while traveling in New Hampshire. I saw the sign and told my husband to stop. We were near a monument to his ancestor. We took the kids and walked down a shady path and along an old railroad track until we came upon the statue. It seemed an odd, isolated place for such a memorial, but this was the place where Hannah defended herself and made her escape.

The historical marker in Boscawen, N.H. Photo by Craig Michaud at en.wikipedia

You can read an article about Hannah published in Yankee Magazine in 1995 here:
http://www.yankeemagazine.com/article/history/hannah-duston-scalped-Indians

In recent years, a few people have protested the honor shown to Hannah and tried to cast her as a murderer and have the statues taken down. I have to agree with the people of Haverhill who refused to remove the monuments. Hannah is a heroine.

*** In Hannah's honor, I am giving away two copies of books from my White Mountain Brides series, either paperback or digital. Leave a comment below and enter the drawing for one of these New Hampshire colonial books centered on the Dover Massacre of 1689: Return to Love, A New Joy, or Abiding Peace. ***

Susan Page Davis is the author of more than fifty published novels. A history major, she’s always interested in the unusual happenings of the past. She’s a two-time winner of the Inspirational Readers’ Choice Award, and also a winner of the Carol Award and the Will Rogers Medallion, and a finalist in the WILLA Awards and the More Than Magic Contest. Visit her website at: www.susanpagedavis.com .