How Silver Plume Became a Nineteenth-Century Gem In the Colorado Rockies

By Donna Wichelman

Readers of my blogs over the last year and a half know I've written on topics related to my Gilded Age historical romance series, the Singing Silver Mine series, which is based on characters who settled in Georgetown, Colorado, during its silver-mining heyday of the late nineteenth century. Known as the Silver Queen of the Rocky Mountains, Georgetown gained its fame from the abundant ores the surrounding mountains yielded to early miners who settled there. Yet, while Georgetown has received most of the glory over the years, its neighbor to the west, Silver Plume, has often been neglected, overshadowed by Georgetown's reputation.

Main Street, Silver Plume, Colorado: Donna's Gallery, June 2019

ID 394784059 | Colorado Silver Plume © Mkopka | Dreamstime.com

Though a meager amount of gold was discovered in the Territory of Colorado as early as 1850 by a group of Georgian prospectors heading west during the California Gold Rush, it wasn't until 1859, when George Jackson followed the Clear Creek gorge and found a significant amount of gold, that the rush was on in Colorado. Thousands from all over the world flocked to the Rocky Mountains to find their fortunes.

All seemed to point to a thriving region until the gold bubble burst in 1864, and the investment capital necessary to keep going never paid off in revenues. Many other investors pulled out.

Then, in the fall of 1864, three prospectors—Robert Steele, James Huff, and Robert Taylor—discovered an extremely rich silver lode called the Gus Belmont Lode eight miles south of Georgetown on Mount McClellan at 13,200 feet. They headed to Central City to have their samples assayed, discovering a preliminary value of $200 to $500 per ton. The silver boom was on.

ID 199624040 | Silver © Roberto Junior | Dreamstime.com

Once again, prospectors from every corner of the globe flocked to the region, and by September 1866, Clear Creek County was declared “indisputably” rich in ores by Central City’s Weekly Miners’ Register. Georgetown flourished, as clapboard buildings, housing, banks and business enterprises sprang up in a growing business district. Mining camps popped up everywhere--Bakerville, Brownville, Simplem, Silver Dale, and others. 

Historic Business District, Georgetown, Colorado: Donna's Gallery, December 2024

Finally, in 1869, two men, Charles A. Kimberlin and Col. Ambrose H. Bartlett from Doniphon County, Kansas, decided to establish a town in a small, wide spot in a valley half a mile east of the mines and buildings in Brownville and three miles west of Georgetown.

Things started slowly in Silver Plume, with Kimberlin constructing only one or two buildings in 1869, though one reporter was impressed by the completed work on a school building before finishing his own residence. (The original schoolhouse was a simple wood-frame structure that remained in use until the brick building we see today on Main Street was built in 1874.)

"View from Silver Plume, looking up." The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1850 - 1930.NY Digital Library

Only a handful of buildings were built in 1870, but by the fall of 1870, they started to talk of building a hotel, and the town became known as Silver Plume.

By 1872, the town was up and running with a tightly packed commercial district, fifty to sixty residences, four to five hundred residents, and plans for a town government. In that same year, Silver Plume was incorporated.* See note below.

By the 1880s, the town grew quickly as silver mines proliferated in the mountains surrounding Silver Plume. Georgetown may have been the commercial center of Clear Creek County, but Silver Plume was also a cosmopolitan, multicultural, multilingual town comprising working-class miners and their families, a few merchants, and other entrepreneurs. At its peak, the population grew to well over two thousand people.

Original Road to the 7:30 Mine Trail: "Laden with ore from "Seven-thirty" mine, Silver Plume, Colorado." The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 

Integral to the town's growth and importance to Clear Creek County's silver mining industry was the Silver Plume-Georgetown Loop Railroad. It enabled miners to efficiently move their silver nuggets to smelters and markets.

Completed in 1884 by the Colorado Central Railroad, the three-foot narrow-gauge railroad was one of the American West's greatest engineering feats, with a 640-foot elevation gain between Silver Plume and Georgetown. The railroad used loops, switchbacks, and a high bridge, called the Devil's Gate High Bridge, to gradually accomplish the elevation gain.

"Great loop of the Silver Plume, Colorado." The New York Public Library Digital Collections.

Unfortunately, the entire world fell into deep economic depression in 1893, and silver was devalued. Neither Silver Plume nor Georgetown recovered from the devaluation, and only a handful of mines survived.

Today, tourism keeps the Georgetown-Silver Plume National Historic District alive. Visitors can take a step back in history and ride the narrow-gauge train between Georgetown and Silver Plume, stopping to tour a mine on the Georgetown Loop, or walk the historic streets of Silver Plume and buy coffee in the old saloon. For the adventurous at heart, one can hike one of several trails up the surrounding mountains and view numerous ruined mines in the area. One of the most popular is the 7:30 Mine Trail, which is 3.5-mile round-trip trail to the restored 7:30 Mine. 

*Note: Silver Plume disincorporated in 1874, when they realized they weren't ready for self-rule, but incorporated again on August 19, 1880.

Georgetown Loop Railroad, Silver Plume: Donna's Gallery, Summer 1995

Donna Hiking the 7:30 Mine Trail and Stopping at an Old Abandoned Mine: Donna's Gallery, June 2019

Donna is an Angel-award-winning author of Historical fiction for A Song of Deliverance. Book Two in the Silver Singing Mine series, Rhythms of the Heart, was released in November 2025. Weaving history and faith into stories of intrigue and redemption grew out of Donna's love of travel, history, and literature as a young adult while attending an international college in Wales, U.K. She enjoys developing plots that show how God's love abounds even in the profoundly difficult circumstances of our lives. Her stories reflect the hunger in all of us for love, belonging, and forgiveness.

Donna was a communications professional before becoming a full-time writer. Her short stories and articles have appeared in inspirational publications. She has two indie-published romantic suspense novels, Light Out of Darkness and Undaunted Valor, in her Waldensian Series. 

Donna and her husband of forty-one years participate in ministry at their local church in Colorado. They love spending time with their grandchildren and bike, kayak, and travel whenever possible.

Why the Ashtabula, Ohio Train Disaster of 1876 is Ranked 5th In U.S. History

 
By Donna Wichelman

Among America’s most horrific train accidents in history, the Ashtabula, Ohio, train disaster of December 29, 1876 ranks fifth. It was the worst of the nineteenth century.

Present-day Ashtabula Lift Bridge Over the Ashtabula River: ID 390769547 | Ashtabula Ohio © Ralf Broskvar | Dreamstime.com

The Ashtabula train disaster caught my attention when I was conducting research for Book Two in my Silver Singing Mine Series, Rhythms of the Heart, which comes out later this year. I wanted an event in my protagonist’s life that would compel her to leave Hudson, Ohio to live in the mining town of Georgetown, Colorado. In Chapter One, we discover that her husband and two children perished in the train disaster, which propels her to join her parents in Colorado.

What events occurred on the night of December 29, 1876 that caused ninety-two people of one hundred sixty passengers and crew to perish and sixty-four others to sustain critical injuries?

Hindsight is often twenty-twenty, as they say. But in the case of the Pacific Express making its way west from Buffalo, New York to Cleveland, Ohio, the men who designed and built the bridge over the Ashtabula River should have foreseen their errors in judgment. Apparently, they ignored them.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ashtabula_bridge.jpg

The Pacific Express consisted of two engines to drive eleven cars and a full complement of people. So, when a frightful driving snowstorm ensued that night, some might have had the impression that the tremendous amount of snow on the tracks affected the train’s approach to the one-hundred-fifty-seven-foot-long bridge.

However, as the train began to cross the bridge, the man driving it heard a tremendous crack. Fearing the train wouldn’t make it across the bridge, he picked up speed. Unfortunately, only the first engine made it safely to the other side. The second engine and all eleven cars plunged into the ravine. 

Drawing of the Ashtabula Train: Disaster: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ashtabula_Bridge_disaster.jpg

Initially, most of the people onboard survived the crash. But they were trapped in the twisted wood and metal. The oil lamps that had provided them with light now became a raging inferno as the snowstorm’s winds swirled around them.

Two prominent people were among the passengers who perished. Mary Roxana Birchard, the first cousin of Rutherford B. Hayes—the next president of the United States—should have received a $5000 inheritance from her deceased uncle in Sandusky, Ohio. She was an autograph collector and compiled an album of signatures from famous people, including her cousin, Rutherford B. Hayes, Oliver Wendell Holmes Senior, Herbert Hoover, and Daniel Webster. The album was at auction for between $2,000 - $3,000 in 2013. 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:President_Rutherford_Hayes_1870_-_1880_Restored.jpg">Mathew Benjamin Brady</a>, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Serving as governor of Ohio at the time of the train disaster, Hayes instigated the investigation of the cause of the accident. He wrote in his diary: "Our cousin Mary Birchard, of Fayetteville, Vermont, was lost in the fearful railroad accident at Ashtabula, Friday evening. We have learned none of the particulars as to her fate beyond the general facts of the catastrophe. The accident was the most dreadful that has ever occurred on any railroad in Ohio and has rarely been equaled in the number of victims and other circumstances of horror anywhere. Poor dear Mary! She was a kind-hearted, lovable woman."

The other well-known person onboard was composer and evangelist Philip Bliss. Repudiated to be the second most famous hymn writer in history, perhaps to surpass Fanny Crosby if he had lived long enough, he wrote hymns like Hallelujah, What a Saviour!, Jesus Loves Even Me, Almost Persuaded, and It Is Well with My Soul just to name a few. He survived the crash. But when he couldn’t find his wife, he returned to the train car to find her, and neither was seen afterward.

Philip Bliss: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ppblisscdv.jpg

The investigation ordered by Hayes used a coroner’s jury, which discovered several factors that caused the disaster. While the industry used almost exclusively wood in its construction of bridges during the early days because it was cheap and easy, wood had its issues. Over time, the industry began to use more steel and concrete. The Lakeshore and Michigan Southern Railway, under the leadership of Director Amasa Stone, constructed an iron truss bridge designed by Charles Collins across the river. But the design was flawed, and maintenance on the bridge was nonexistent. In addition, a deadly snowstorm with accumulated depths of twenty inches and fifty-four-mile-an-hour winds complicated matters. Altogether, given these factors, the passengers of the Pacific Express had little hope on that fateful night.

On the day Charles Collins testified before the jury, he went home and took his life. Two years later, Amasa Stone took his life.

Mausoleum of Charles Collins' Family: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashtabula_River_railroad_disaster 

Amasa Stone: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Amasa_Stone.jpg

In the late nineteenth century, train accidents were common. Many reasons contributed to this. Chief among them was financial. Railroad foreman felt pressure from the companies to rush workers to complete their projects, resulting in shoddy workmanship.

The other train disasters falling in order from fourth to first include: the Wellington Avalanche Train Wreck of 1910, the Malbone Street Wreck, the Great Train Wreck of 1918, and the Eden Train Wreck of 1904 in Pueblo, Colorado.

Weaving history and faith into stories of intrigue and redemption grew out of Donna's love of travel, history, and literature as a young adult while attending the United World College of the Atlantic--an international college in Wales, U.K. She enjoys developing plots that show how God's love abounds even in the profoundly difficult circumstances of our lives. Her stories reflect the hunger in all of us for love, belonging, and forgiveness.

Donna was a communications professional before writing full-time. Her short stories and articles have appeared in inspirational publications. She has two indie-published romantic suspense novels, Light Out of Darkness and Undaunted Valor, in her Waldensian Series. Her Gilded Age historical romance, A Song of Deliverance, released in December 2024.

Donna and her husband of forty years participate in ministry at their local church in Colorado. They love spending time with their grandchildren and bike, kayak, and travel whenever possible.

How the 1872 National Mining Apex Law Divided Friend and Foe

By Donna Wichelman

In a recent interview for a guest blog, a friend asked which historical parameters were imposed on the writing of my historical romance, A Song of Deliverance, and where I had to fill in the gaps with my imagination. Sometimes, the truth is stranger than fiction, which, in the case of the Apex Law or what is also referred to as the "extralateral rights" law, one wonders how the national government could have passed such egregious legislation. To understand why the 1872 legislation was passed, we have to go back to the history of mining in nineteenth-century America.

The California Gold Rush did more to create western expansion across America than any other development. Once men heard about the discovery of gold, they literally "rushed" to the western territories, bringing on tens of thousands in mass migration and the demands for quicker and better transportation. People became crazed, lured by the possibility of making their fortunes. They came on steamships through Panama or around Cape Horn. Many joined wagon trains on the Overland Trail, while others built the Transcontinental Railway from New York to California.

Image by Denise Henze from Pixabay, AI Rendering of a Steam Engine on a Railroad

Image by Bishnu Sarangi from Pixabay

Some found their fortunes panning for gold along river banks. But soon, those resources dwindled, and hard rock mining, digging deep into the belly of the earth, began to take over the industry, giving rise to demands for technological advances such as the Burley Drill to better access the minerals underground, steam boilers to operate hoisting equipment down the shafts, and smelting furnaces to extract valuable metals from the ore and remove impurities. The Gilded Age was on in the West, as mine owners needed more laborers willing to work in difficult conditions.

Image by Erich Westendarp from Pixabay, AI Rendering of a Steam Boiler

Image by Vilius Kukanauskas from Pixabay Mine

As men migrated west, they soon discovered quantities of gold, silver, copper, and other metals could be found in Nevada, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and the Black Hills. The atmosphere was ripe for mining towns to spring up everywhere across the West as the demand for services increased--banks, food, clothes, and various other supplies necessary to survive. 

By 1872, the United States government recognized the need for regulation. Until that time, practices for open mining and prospecting on public land tended to be universal and supported by state and territorial regulation, but illegal under federal law. After the Civil War, eastern congressmen, looking for a way to pay the war debt, viewed western miners as squatters on public land and proposed the seizure of western mines to be put up for public auction. One congressman, Fernando Wood, advocated for the government to take ownership to benefit the treasury.

Image of Gold Nugget by Csaba Nagy from Pixabay

Western representatives argued that miners and prospectors promoted commerce and the settlement of new territories. A series of legislation was passed, including the "Chaffee laws" of July 26, 1866, named after Colorado Territorial representative Jerome B. Chaffee, that legalized hard rock mining on public land. Similar law was passed July 9,1870 for placer mining.

Then, on May 10, 1872, the General Mining Act of 1872 (much of which is still intact) codified the informal system of acquiring and protecting claims on federal public lands. All citizens eighteen and older have the right to locate a lode (hard rock) or placer (gravel) mining on federal lands where such land is open, which consists of 350 million acres of federal public land still today.

Mine Tailings  from the Terrible Mine Seen From I70 near Georgetown, Colorado: Donna's Gallery, June 2019

One piece of that legislation, however, became and still is a general headache for mine owners. In A Song of Deliverance, I based the feud between my hero, Stefan Maier, and the villain, Georg Töpfer, on a real feud in 1873 that took place between the Pelican Mine--owners Eli Streeter and Thomas and John McCunniff--and the Dives claim owned by John McMurdy, having purchased part interest from Thomas Burr and a deed from William Hamill. Unfortunately, the Pelican and Dives claims overlapped, and litigation ensued.

 353335889 | Silver Nugget © Niel Ibragimov | Dreamstime.com

At the forefront of the Pelican-Dives case was the apex law or “extralateral rights” one part of the 1872 National Mining Law. According to Christine Bradley in The Rise of the Silver Queen, “The right allowed the owners of a claim the exclusive right to mine a vein if the apex, or highest point, occurred within their property. The owner could follow the vein’s downward course beyond the property’s sidelines but not beyond the end lines unless [they] purchased the neighboring claims … In reality, such veins seldom existed in the mining world. Veins and ore pockets went everywhere and often surfaced in other claims.” 

Fierce feuding between the Pelican-Dives owners continued into the 1880s, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in litigation fees and one murder. Ultimately, Pelican and Dives merged into one company under William Hamill’s direction.

The extralateral rights law still exists today and continues to be a source of disputes among mine owners. Regulations under this law are complicated, and the courts have to sift through the various parts of the legislation to determine whose rights are being violated. Many miners contend the law is outdated and needs to be revisited. But will the federal government move on this question? Well, it is the federal government. So, anything can happen ... or not.

Weaving history and faith into stories of intrigue and redemption grew out of Donna's love of travel, history, and literature as a young adult while attending the United World College of the Atlantic--an international college in Wales, U.K. She enjoys developing plots that show how God's love abounds even in the profoundly difficult circumstances of our lives. Her stories reflect the hunger in all of us for love, belonging, and forgiveness.

Donna was a communications professional before writing full-time. Her short stories and articles have appeared in inspirational publications. She has two indie-published romantic suspense novels, Light Out of Darkness and Undaunted Valor, in her Waldensian Series. Her Gilded Age historical romance, A Song of Deliverance, released on December 3, 2024.

Donna and her husband of forty years participate in ministry at their local church in Colorado. They love spending time with their grandchildren and bike, kayak, and travel whenever possible.

When A Summer Vacation on a Steam Engine Turns Into a Historical Romance Series

By Donna Wichelman

Long before my Singing Silver Mine historical romance series came to pass, our family became fans of the Georgetown Loop Railroad living museum attraction in Georgetown, Colorado. The three-foot, narrow-gauge railroad through the Rocky Mountains provided a delightful summer excursion with our then four-year-old daughter only forty-five minutes west from Denver. Little did I know its importance in the history of Colorado would take a prominent place in a series I would write many years later.

Georgetown Loop Railroad Summer 1995: Donna's Gallery

Summer Fun on the Georgetown Railroad
Summer 1995: Donna's Gallery

The find of gold by Lewis Ralston at the confluence of the Clear Creek and South Platte River in Arvada and his return to the same site in present-day Arvada eight years later touched off the gold rush to the Rockies in 1858. The discovery set off a chain of events that eventually sent Kentuckians George F. Griffith and his brother David T. Griffith up the Clear Creek Canyon to the South Fork of the Clear Creek in June 1859.

The Griffith Brothers set up a camp on June 15th and found gold two days later. Not long afterward, they built a cabin at what is now Seventeenth and Main Streets in today’s Georgetown. By June 1860, they’d created their own mining district called the Griffith Mining District, and in the spring of 1861, David Griffith surveyed and platted the town of Georgetown with approximately forty residents and two mills.

Talk of a railroad in the Territory of Colorado was already underway by the mid-1860s with the influx of immigrants and a new ore on the scene—silver! The Colorado and Clear Creek RR incorporated in 1865 and reorganized as the Colorado Central and Pacific RR in 1866.

In 1867, John Evans and David Moffat incorporate Denver Pacific Railroad to build a railroad between Denver and Cheyenne to connect with the Transcontinental between New York and San Francisco. The railroad was completed in June 1869 and more people descended on the territory.

As the mining districts of Central City-Black Hawk and Griffith Mining continued to grow, so did the desire to establish railroads to transport ore down the mountain. The Colorado Central and Pacific became the Colorado Central RR and laid 11 miles up the Clear Creek from Golden. By 1870, the Colorado Central had connected with the Denver Pacific and Kansas Pacific at Jersey Junction two miles north of Denver.

However, with the dawn of a new decade came Eastern interests and political wrangling among corporate entities, and the Union Pacific, Colorado Central, and Denver Pacific/Kansas Pacific jockeyed for control. Still, miles of track continued to be laid along the Clear Creek and into Central City and Black Hawk, and locomotives were delivered to Golden until the end of 1872.

Then the financial crisis of 1873 struck. The nation had already been hard hit, but now Colorado and the railroads were feeling the crunch. Though grading continued and routes were still laid, the Colorado Central found itself unable to pay its bills. Between financial woes, weather-related blockages, and corporate squabbling, the people of Georgetown had to wait another four years for the Colorado Central Railroad to reach them.

Despite the delay of a railroad, Georgetown continued to prosper and burst at the seams with people from all parts of the globe who’d made their fortunes in silver. There was every reason for the town to be optimistic as the train finally rode into town in August 1877. Georgetown had become the Silver Queen of Colorado.

Georgetown Narrow Gauge Railroad
iStock-471011565

As it turned out, the title was short-lived when Leadville overtook Georgetown with its rich silver veins and people began to migrate once again at the end of the decade. But the Georgetown Loop was an engineering marvel for its day, having devised “a system of curves and bridges reducing the average grade to three percent … including three hairpin turns, four bridges, and a thirty-degree horseshoe curve from Georgetown to Silver Plume,” says the Georgetown Loop RR website. The $3 train ride became one of Colorado’s “must see” attractions.

Today, the Georgetown Loop RR still amazes and attracts people from all over the world who want an “old time” experience on a narrow-gauge train through the astounding terrain of the Colorado Rockies. Along the route, the visitor can also disembark for a tour of the Lebanon Silver Mine—a once prolific source of silver in the district. They also offer a gold-panning experience. An Autumn Fest runs through the month of October when actors make the experience fun and engaging by dressing up as characters from the 1870s.  Then, beginning in November/December, they run a Santa North Pole adventure and Santa’s Lighted Forest trains.

Actors Portraying 1870s Characters, Georgetown Loop Railroad
October 2018: Donna's Gallery

Lebanon Silver Mine Tunnel, Georgetown Loop Railway
October 2018: Donna's Gallery

For more information about the Georgetown Loop Railroad and its holiday events visit https://www.georgetownlooprr.com/

And if you are a train aficionado and interested in a historically immersive experience about train travel in Colorado, visit the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden, Colorado https://coloradorailroadmuseum.org/. 

Weaving history and faith into stories of intrigue and redemption grew out of Donna's love of travel, history, and literature as a young adult while attending the United World College of the Atlantic--an international college in Wales, U.K. She enjoys developing plots that show how God's love abounds even in the profoundly difficult circumstances of our lives. Her stories reflect the hunger in all of us for love, belonging, and forgiveness.

Donna was a communications professional before writing full-time. Her short stories and articles have appeared in inspirational publications. She has two indie-published romantic suspense novels, Light Out of Darkness and Undaunted Valor, in her Waldensian Series. Her Gilded Age historical romance, A Song of Deliverance, will be released by Scrivenings Press in December 2024.

Donna and her husband of forty years participate in ministry at their local church in Colorado. They love spending time with their grandchildren and bike, kayak, and travel whenever possible.

What Drove Many Irish Women to Immigrate to America in the Mid-Nineteenth Century?

 By Donna Wichelman

I saw the Dingle Peninsula for the first time in 2009. Its untamed beauty inspired me even then. Only in 2018, on my second trip to the Dingle Peninsula, did the extraordinary landscape, its place in the history of the Great Hunger, and the people who lived there spark a story about a poor Irish woman in the Gilded Age who left it all behind to live in the Colorado Rockies.

But what did women like Anna leave behind and why?

Dingle Peninsula Looking from Connor Pass--Donna's Gallery 2009

Dingle Peninsula at Connor Pass--Donna's Gallery 2009

The Dingle Peninsula is located in southwest County Kerry, its remote mountainous finger jutting into the Atlantic Ocean being the western-most point of mainland Ireland. Anna would have walked the undulating hills of her homeland carpeted in emerald grasses and watched the roaring ocean crash against her rugged Irish shoreline. Sheep would have also grazed in the fields, while rainbows often painted the skies.

Town of Dingle, Ireland Across the Harbor--Donna's Gallery 2018

Rugged Irish Shoreline, Dingle Peninsula--Donna's Gallery 2009

Typical Sheep Grazing in the Fields--Donna's Gallery 2018

Image by Kang-Rui LENG from Pixabay

Yet, Anna would have also experienced a land that twenty years before had been ravished by the Great Hunger of 1845 – 1851--a time when the potato blight tragically killed more than one million people in Ireland by disease and starvation. County Kerry was the hardest hit. (Click on Famine Cottages to find out more about the site at Slea Head and read a real-life story of a family who lived during that era.)

Slea Head Famine Cottage Slea Head, Ireland

ID 137293521 © Miroslav Liska | Dreamstime.com

The social crisis that ensued from the Great Hunger changed Irish history. From the twelfth century, the British had occupied Irish soil. For six centuries, the British population grew in Ireland, many buying land and making money off the produce. Some became wealthy landlords. In the meantime, Britain played fast and loose with the Irish, passing laws but giving the Irish Parliament a small role.

But when the Irish Rebellion of 1798 failed, Britain enacted the 1800 Act of Union, bringing Ireland under full rule by combining the United Kingdom of Great Britain with Ireland. This set the stage for what occurred during the Great Hunger and continued to affect the course of Irish history into the twentieth century.

When the Great Hunger struck between 1845 - 1852, one million Irish died, and another million emigrated, mostly to the United States or Australia. Though the potato blight, a fungus-like mold called Phytophthora infestans, affected much of Europe in the 1840s, the Irish situation was made so much more devastating, because the British Parliament put undo pressure on the Irish food supply. 

Initially, Sir Robert Peel, Prime Minister of Britain, attempted to alleviate the famine by buying £100,000 of sweet corn from the United States and having it shipped to Cork. He believed that by selling it cheaply, the cost would remain low. He also initiated a roads project to keep people employed and a relief commission to raise funds to keep the price of food low.

Though Sir Peel tried to repeal the Corn Laws that kept the price of grain artificially high, he was met with much controversy and resigned. The new Prime Minister, Lord John Russell, failed to help the situation. Worse yet, Sir Charles Trevelyan, who was in charge of the relief effort, limited government aid on the basis of laissez-faire principles and a belief that God's judgment was on the immoral Irish who needed to be taught a lesson.

Moreover, Britain refused to give aid to the Irish unless they worked in the deadly diseased workhouses or renounced their Catholic faith. In the meantime, Britain exported the bulk of Irish dairy products and wheat harvests to feed Britain and its territories and legislated a financial tax burden on Irish landowners, who evicted their tenants to save money.

Famine Memorial in Dublin
ID 255062074 | Ireland © Piotr Koscielniak | Dreamstime.com

Famine Memorial in County Mayo of a Coffin Ship Emigrant Ship
ID 126979057 | Ireland © Debra Reschoff Ahearn | Dreamstime.com

By the end of the famine, most of the small farmers had disappeared. Landlords also lost their properties having seen their incomes fall during the famine and going bankrupt from empty rentals. Most of the estates were sold and the strong framer became the beneficiary of the famine--those farmers who acquired large acreages of land and added it to their holdings. These farmers converted from an agrarian to a grazing culture, raising sheep and cattle, and growing in prosperity. 

But not everyone prospered. Only sons could inherit property, and only the eldest son was eligible. Their siblings had to find work as laborers or become tenants of other landowners. Thus, though the system of landholding favored the wealthy class, it also unfairly rewarded some and not others. 

Women, in particular, were vulnerable. It had long been a tradition in Ireland for parents to arrange a marriage based on their ability to provide a dowry. If a woman came from a wealthy family, she could add to the other family's holdings and gain security for life. Some of these women chose to emigrate, unwilling to partake in a loveless marriage.

In addition, not all women were so fortunate as to enjoy the rewards of a wealthy family, and many of them emigrated with the hope of finding employment in the United States to earn a living. Most worked as domestics for a wealthy family. Some came with skills like tailoring and could make a considerable wage sewing clothes for those who could afford it. It was a lucky woman indeed who could also find a husband to marry.

The famine would have enduring results. As the nineteenth century drew to a close and the twentieth century began, the collective memories of those who had survived the famine affected the economic and political culture of Ireland and Irish-Americans. It would also play a contributing role in the anti-British sentiment that would lead to the Irish War of Independence, which began in January 1919 and ended on July 11, 1921. 

The Irish Free State was established on December 6, 1922, but on December 29, 1937, the constitutional name declared the nation to be known as "Ireland." The Republic of Ireland Act of 1948 described the nature of the state.

Weaving history and faith into stories of intrigue and redemption grew out of Donna's love of travel, history, and literature as a young adult while attending the United World College of the Atlantic--an international college in Wales, U.K. She enjoys developing plots that show how God's love abounds even in the profoundly difficult circumstances of our lives. Her stories reflect the hunger in all of us for love, belonging, and forgiveness.

Donna was a communications professional before writing full-time. Her short stories and articles have appeared in inspirational publications. She has two indie-published romantic suspense novels, Light Out of Darkness and Undaunted Valor, in her Waldensian Series. Her Gilded Age historical romance, A Song of Deliverance, will be released by Scrivenings Press in December 2024.

Donna and her husband of forty years participate in ministry at their local church in Colorado. The love spending time with their grandchildren and bike, kayak, and travel whenever possible.