Bass Reeves: A Western Marshal--by Martha Hutchens

Bass Reeves, circa 1902
image from Smithsonian
Public Domain

Many men and women have overcome humble beginnings to build a successful live, be it great or small. Perhaps those whose life began in slavery had the hardest path of all. Two of the most famous men who succeeded in this difficult path are George Washington Carver and Booker T. Washington. But today, I want to introduce you to a third man who managed this feat. His name was Bass Reeves.

Bass Reeves was born into slavery with the William Steele Reeves family. Later, this family and their slaves moved to Texas. Bass was assigned to the son of the family, William Reeves. In 1861, William Reeves joined the Confederate 11thCalvary regiment, and Bass accompanied him.

Image by Willard at Deposit Photos

In 1862 (probably), Bass and William had a fight over a card game. Bass knocked William out and escaped into Indian Territory (later to be Oklahoma.) Between 1863 and 1865, Reeves served with the Union army, serving mostly in Indian Territory.

After the Civil War (between 1866 and 1870), Reeves worked as a guide and interpreter for railroad surveyors in Indian Territory. If you are keeping track, this means that Bass spent 18 of his first 32 years in Indian Territory. He didn’t waste his time there, either. While there, he learned several Native American languages and became familiar with the customs of multiple tribes. This knowledge will soon stand him in good stead.

In 1870, Bass moved his family to Van Buren, Arkansas. Reeves once boasted that he knew Indian Territory “like a cook knows her kitchen.” This knowledge led to him finding work as a guide for Deputy U.S. Marshals working out of the federal court located at Fort Smith, Arkansas. In 1875, Judge Isaac C. Parker took over this court. He commissioned Bass Reeves as a Deputy US Marshal. Reeves is believed to be one of the first African-American Marshals to serve west of the Mississippi River—possibly the first.

Image by zim90 at Deposit Photos

It was here that Reeves found his true calling. David Kennedy, the historical curator of the US Marshals museum in Fort Smith, Arkansas, said that Reeves was the “most exemplary law enforcement officer the country has ever seen.”

You might wonder why. Let’s start with a few numbers. When Reeves started with the court, the jurisdiction he and other marshals patrolled was 75,000 square miles. US Marshals found this area the most dangerous in the country, with more than 130 men dying in the line of duty. Reeves patrolled the area for 30 years. He was never shot, though his hat was shot off and so was his belt. Well, that’s what the legend says, anyway. I’m not sure how that could happen, but I’ll leave it to your imagination.

Reeves arrested more than 3000 men and women who had broken federal laws. He arrested Jim Webb for the murder of a black preacher. When Webb did not show up for his day in court, Reeves went after him again. He found Webb in Indian Territory. Webb realized he had been found, and ran. From about 600 yards, he turned and fired several times at Reeves, several shots coming uncomfortably close. At this point, Reeves shot and killed Webb.

For one arrest, Reeves went undercover for three months, but came out with a signed confession from his target. He frequently masqueraded as many different people to find the information he needed to make an arrest. He was known for his observational skills.

Reeves had several tragedies in his life, but to me, two stand out. In 1884, he accidentally shot his camp cook while cleaning his gun. In 1886, he was arrested and was incarcerated for six months before he paid bail and was released. In 1887, he stood trial and was found not guilty.

Image by chinnapong at Deposit Photos

The second major tragedy in his life also attests to his integrity. In 1902, Bass Reeves’ son, Bennie, murdered his wife. An arrest warrant was issued, but Reeves’ boss faced a quandary. Reeves was held in high regard by all his co-workers, and none wanted to be the one to arrest his son. Reeves solved the dilemma by taking the warrant himself.

Accounts differ as to what Reeves was required to do for this arrest. One claims he tracked his son down in Indian Territory. Another claims that he arrested his son at his house. All agree, that Reeves alone arrested his son for murder. I can only imagine his turmoil.

His son stood trial and was sentenced to life imprisonment at Leavenworth Federal Prison. Reeves stood by his son through his trail and visited him in prison. Unfortunately, Bass did not live long enough to see his son’s sentence commuted after nearly 12 years. Bennie Reeves went on to live a honest life from the time of his release until his death.

Bass Reeves died in 1910.

It is claimed by some that he was the inspiration for The Lone Ranger, though I haven’t found strong evidence for this claim. He has been the focus of several recent movies, TV shows, and documentaries. His biography, Black Gun, Silver Star, by Art Burton is definitely on my to be read list.

Martha Hutchens is a transplanted southerner who lives in Los Alamos, NM where she is surrounded by history so unbelievable it can only be true. She won the 2019 Golden Heart for Romance with Religious and Spiritual Elements. A former analytical chemist and retired homeschool mom, Martha is frequently found working on her latest knitting project when she isn’t writing.

Martha’s current novella is set in southeast Missouri during World War II. It is free to her newsletter subscribers. You can subscribe to my newsletter at my website, www.marthahutchens.com

After saving for years, Dot Finley's brother finally paid a down payment for his own land—only to be drafted into World War II. Now it is up to her to ensure that he doesn't lose his dream while fighting for everyone else's. No one is likely to help a sharecropper's family.

Nate Armstrong has all the land he can manage, especially if he wants any time to spend with his four-year-old daughter. Still, he can't stand by and watch the Finley family lose their dream. Especially after he learns that the banker's nephew has arranged to have their loan called.

Necessity forces them to work together. Can love grow along with crops?

Riverboat Travel in the Old Wild West

This post is brought to you by Janalyn Voigt.

Riverboat Travel in the Old Wild West

This riverboat Mural in Independence, Oregon (Polk County) captures a romantic view of riverboat travel; Gary Halvorson, Oregon State Archives [Attribution], via Wikimedia Commons

Most of us think of western migration in America in the context of covered wagons. While it’s true that over 500,000 people traveled the Oregon Trail at its height (between 1843 and 1869), many others made their way west by a different route. Riverboats traveled farther inland than most people realize. Alexander Culbertson of the American Fur Company built Fort Benton at the end of the navigable waters of the upper Missouri in what is now central Montana.

Those willing to occupy the limited space remaining on the lower deck after the deckhands loaded the freight onboard a riverboat, could buy tickets fairly cheaply. 'Deck passengers' brought their own food and fended for themselves against the elements on the open deck. It couldn't have been fun to ride alongside the boilers, not to mention the livestock, cotton bales, and barrels, while crammed in with other passengers. It did, however, carry them to their desired destination.

Double the fee bought a private room on an upper deck and the chance to enjoy fine cuisine in the elegant dining room, gamble at a table in the bar, and lounge in comfort while watching the river slide by.

Whether sheltering with the cargo or living in luxury, both types of passenger might face danger. A riverboat might crash into a tree snag, run aground on a sandbar, catch fire, or suffer a boiler explosion. The wreck of the Sultana, a riverboat accident on the Mississippi in 1865 at the end of the Civil War, took more lives than the Titanic. The fire that burned down half of St. Louis in 1849 started on a steamboat. 

People took riverboats at their own risk. With liquor and gambling on board, passengers had to watch both their belongings and fellow passengers. The crew might not be honest either. The riverboat captain might have hired a professional gambler to fleece those reckless enough to approach the gaming tables. Sometimes a riverboat ran aground on a sandbar or gravel bar and passengers disembarked to lighten it, only to be abandoned once it was freed.

With all these troubles, why would anyone want to travel by riverboat? Speed. A steamboat could travel up to 5 miles per hour. Compare that to the 20 miles a day a wagon pulled by livestock averaged. Remember, too, that the Oregon Trail was not exactly safe either. During Montana’s goldrush, the backdrop for the Montana Gold series, miners were in a hurry to reach gold. The heroine of Cheyenne Sunrise, the second book in the series, travels to Independence by riverboat. Her brother Con, with whom she travels, distrusts riverboats so much that they join a wagon train for the rest of their journey. His attitude was not uncommon. Riverboats had a reputation. 

About Janalyn Voigt

Janalyn's father instilled a love of literature in her at an early age by reading chapters from classics as bedtime stories. When Janalyn grew older, and he stopped reading to her, she put herself to sleep with tales "written" in her head. 

Today Janalyn is a storyteller who writes in multiple genres. The same elements--romance, mystery, adventure, history, and whimsy--appear in all her novels in proportions dictated by their genre. 

Cheyenne Sunrise (Montana Gold, book 2)

Can a woman with no faith in men learn to trust the half-Cheyenne trail guide determined to protect her?

Young Irish widow Bry Brennan doesn’t want another husband to break her spirit. When she and her brother Con join a wagon train headed to Montana Territory, Bry ignores her fascination with Nick Laramie, the handsome trail guide.
Nick lives in an uneasy truce between the settlers and his mother’s tribe without fully fitting in among either. With no intention of dragging a woman into his troubles, he stifles his yearning for Bry.

The perilous journey throws the two together, leaving Bry no choice but to trust Nick with her life. Can she also trust him with her heart? Answering that riddle forces Bry to confront her unresolved questions about God’s love.

Based on actual historical events during a time of unrest in America, Cheyenne Sunrise explores faith, love, and courage in the wild west.

Purchase Cheyenne Sunrise 

Learn more about this series.

Cooking on the Oregon Trail (A Slice of Life)

This post is brought to you by Janalyn Voigt, author of the Montana Gold historical fiction series.

Cooking on the Oregon Trail 

A madonna of the prairies 
by Hiram Campbell Merill (b. 1866); Ivory, Percy Van E. (op. 20th c.)
Image courtesy of the New York Public Library

Imagine, for a moment, that you have just walked or ridden in a jostling wagon for twenty miles while watching over your children's safety and caring for a baby. The wagon train with which you are traveling rolls to a stop. Your muscles ache, the baby is fussing, and you're so exhausted you'd rather sleep than cook over a campfire. But you love your family. Your husband needs to tend the oxen and possibly fish or hunt to provide fresh meat. The chore of keeping all those bellies filled with nourishment belongs to you.

Oregon Trail Provisions

The Emigrants

Hatch, George W. (ca. 1805-1867); Fisher, Alvan (1792-1863) 

Image courtesy of the New York Public Library

Before you left St. Louis, the city known as the gateway to the Oregon Trail, you and your husband packed your prairie schooner full of provisions for the journey. Although food comprises half of the goods in your wagon, you found it hard to fit all your supplies in a bed measuring ten feet long by four feet wide and three feet deep, And your wagon weighed perilously close to its maximum load of 2,000 pounds. That left you no option to walk during the first part of your journey, a problem that proved painful as your feet became accustomed to walking so far. You had to cook, then, too.

The guidebook you consulted suggested you bring flour, bacon packed in bran, sugar, coffee, tea, lard, beans, rice, and dried apples and peaches. The chickens in a crate lashed to the back of the wagon give you eggs. If you hadn't brought them along, you'd be obliged to pack eggs in your cornmeal to save them from breaking. You also brought along a milk cow and have suspended buckets of cream from the bottom of the wagon to churn into butter from the jostling of the journey. Seasonings you brought along include salt, pepper, vinegar, and molasses. You also indulged in packets of commercially-prepared crackers and dried vegetable cakes.

Preparing Food on the Oregon Trail 

Cooking the Hump Roast
Alfred Jacob Miller [Public domain ]
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

You sigh and get to work, first making sure one of the children carries water from the river near the wagon encampment to top off the water barrel strapped to the wagon and for tonight's cooking. The others you send off to gather edible greens or berries, if they can be found, and whatever is available to start a cook fire. That might be firewood, buffalo dung, or (as a last resort) sagebrush. Meanwhile, you open the mess box on the back of your wagon and pull out the beans you set to soaking this morning, a slab of bacon packed in bran to keep the fat from melting in the heat, some biscuits you baked yesterday, and cornmeal for hoe cakes you'll cook in the bacon fat.

You have no table to use in preparing your food but must make do with an empty crate turned upside down, the top of a trunk, or whatever other surface you can find or make. While cooking at the fire, you take care to stay upwind to avoid the fate of those unfortunate women whose skirts blew into the flames. You add molasses, brown sugar, and bacon to the beans and suspend the pot over the fire from a tripod or place it directly on the flames. While the beans are cooking, your hands keep busy forming dough for the hoe cakes, rolling pastry for dried apple or berry pie, and making bread for tomorrow's journey. 

The camp will be awakened by a gun fired into the air early in the morning, and you'll be expected to roll out with the wagon train shortly thereafter. There will be no time to cook,. This is your chance to prepare enough to eat for tomorrow's travel and to guard against an unexpected disaster, illness, or rain storm preventing you from cooking for a day or more.

You cook as much as you can to stave off the possibility of your family's going hungry before you run out of daylight or energy (or both).

About Janalyn Voigt

Janalyn Voigt's unique blend of adventure, romance, suspense, and whimsy creates breathtaking fictional worlds for readers. This multi-faceted storyteller writes in the historical fiction, romantic mystery, and epic fantasy genres. Janalyn is a history enthusiast and romantic. These elements appear in everything she writes.

Beginning with DawnSinger, the epic fantasy series, Tales of Faeraven, carries readers into a land only imagined in dreams.

Hills of Nevermore, the first installment in Montana Gold, a historical romance series set during Montana's gold rush, releases in 2017.

Deceptive Tide (Islands of Intrigue: San Juans, book 3), the final installment in a romantic suspenseseries set in an island paradise off the coast of Washington state.

    Learn more about Janalyn Voigt and her books.   

Johnny Cakes Recipe

This post is brought to you by Janalyn Voigt.

One staple of the American frontier came to early settlers by way of Native Americans. Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth in 1620 lost most of the wheat they’ carried with them to spoilage. The Pawtuxet Indians prevented their starvation by teaching them how to grow and pound corn into meal from which they made cakes.

Pioneer Kitchen Image from an old catalog ca. 1873
by Internet Archive Book Images [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons

No one is exactly sure how johnny cakes came to be named. Several theories exist. Some believe that the name represents a slurring of “Shawnee cakes”  (another name for johnny cakes). Others say that the Indian term for “corn cake”, “janiken,” gave rise to the name. johnny cakes also were known as “journey cakes” for their portability. Other names for cornmeal flatbread include johnnycakes, ashcake, battercake, cornpone, corn cake, hoe cake, hoecake, mush bread, pone, jonakin, and jonikin.

Many variations exist, but the simplest johnny cakes recipe includes only cornmeal, boiling water, and salt. I use yellow cornmeal since I like the taste best, however a traditional johnny cakes recipe often call for white cornmeal. Keep the batter fairly thin. This ensures that your johnny cakes won’t be doughy in the middle. You only want them about 1/4-inch  thick. They can be baked in a greased pan or fried. Frying in bacon grease follows a long tradition, but butter works as well. Enjoy them drizzled with maple syrup.

Johnny Cake Recipe

Image by Douglas Perkins (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons

Ingredients

• 1 cup cornmeal
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup boiling water
• 1/2 cup milk
• Bacon grease or butter
• Maple Syrup

Instructions

1. Place cornmeal in a mixing bowl or liquid measuring cup with a spout for pouring.
2. Stir salt into cornmeal.
3. Add boiling water and mix.
4. Add 1/2 cup milk and mix just until blended.
5. Heat bacon grease or butter in a skillet or iron frying pan.
6. Pour batter into skillet to make a 4-inch cake.
7. Let cook until brown around the edges.
8. Loosen the cake with a spatula and flip.
9. Cake the other side until brown.
10. Serve warm with butter and maple syrup.

About Janalyn Voigt

Janalyn Voigt's unique blend of adventure, romance, suspense, and whimsy creates breathtaking fictional worlds for readers.

Look for her upcoming western historical fiction releases in the Montana Gold series.

This multi-faceted author also writes in the romantic mystery genre. Deceptive Tide (Islands of Intrigue: San Juans) releases this month.

Beginning with DawnSinger, Janalyn's epic fantasy series, Tales of Faeraven, carries readers into a land only imagined in dreams.

Learn more about Janalyn Voigt and her writing at http://janalynvoigt.com.

Janalyn is represented by Wordserve Literary Agency. Her memberships include ACFW and NCWA. When she's not writing, she loves to discover worlds of adventure in the great outdoors with her family.

I Sleep in Ghost Towns and Other True Confessions of a Historical Fiction Novelist

Writers are famous for a certain quirkiness, often while blithely unaware we are doing anything unusual. Doesn't everyone trail off in the middle of a sentence to stare into space then, when prompted to continue, startle and ask 'what?'? Others might talk to themselves but usually not to the characters in their heads. While on the top floor of a historic home, other visitors edge away when we exclaim how easy it would be to throw someone to a horrible death from the window.

Our antics while on a research trip belong in a class by themselves. Not unlike ace reporters ferreting a scoop, we do the unexpected. Seemingly strange behaviors such as crawling into hidden places, hanging out of windows, or taking extreme close-ups of hinges and nails in the wall don't phase us.

When it comes to ghost towns, exploring them in the daylight is not enough. To fully experience the atmosphere, I need to spend the night in a ghost town.There's just something about going to bed in a room where the footsteps of past occupants echo through your imagination, waking in the small hours with the wind whistling outside your door, and the first rays of morning bathing ancient buildings in new light.

Sleeping in a ghost town isn't always convenient or possible. Not to be deterred by such minor concerns, I have managed it twice.

The Shaniko Hotel, originally called the Columbia Southern Hotel (ca. 1900) is listed on the US National Register of Historic Places and is part of the Shaniko Historic District. (Image by Ian Poellet (User:Werewombat) (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons.)

The Shaniko Hotel in the partially-inhabited ghost town of Shaniko, Oregon made an impression on me when I first saw it during a ghost-town-hunting expedition with my family. We stopped for dinner in the hotel's restaurant, and I determined someday to return for an overnight stay.

Shaniko is located on a plateau in Oregon's high desert, and the heat was sweltering when we returned. We checked in through the restaurant and then went to our room. The pictures I took are now lost, but I recall that it was small but adequate and had a closet of a bathroom. Some attempt had been made to modernize it, which I always consider unfortunate in a historic building. The view of the sun setting across town from our second-floor window was worth sleeping in the heat afterwards. I believe our room was the seventh one from the corner, above the cafe sign.

Shaniko's historic Billiard Hall (blue on left, built before 1910) and its neighboring house (unpainted right of center, built ca. 1920, relocated to present site in 1965), are listed as contributing resources in the Shaniko Historic District, which is listed on the US National Register of Historic Places. Image by Ian Poellet (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons

I didn't sleep very well that night, but now I'm thankful we booked a room before the Shaniko Hotel closed its doors to guests.The town is still interesting to visit, and in the summer months offers tourist activities meant to help visitors understand the town's sheep-capital past. By 1903, Shaniko had become the world's largest inland shipping center for wool.

Virginia City, Montana, USA. The view from the road agent cemetery on the hill.Image by SchmuckyTheCat at the English language Wikipedia [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0h], from Wikimedia Commons

The temperature was dipping the other direction when we drove into Virginia City, Montana with autumn winds blowing. (This is the other Virginia City that served as the capital of Montana Territory at its formation, not the ghost town by the same name in Nevada.) In fact, the few bed and breakfasts in this partially-inhabited ghost town were closed for the season. My husband and I were on a research trip to one of the settings of Hills of Nevermore the first installment in the Montana Gold series, which releases next year. Being from California's Big Valley, originally, I had not taken into consideration that a mountain town would close for the winter.

Without a bed for the night, we would be forced to either move on or backtrack. After a long drive and with the sun about to set, neither seemed welcome. We traveled up and down the town's streets looking for a place to stay and finally pulled off the road to discuss our options. While we were talking, I commented on the beauty of the house we were parked in front of and the care that had gone into the yard.The pride in ownership contrasted interestingly with the abandoned structures all around.

I will sleep happily in a dilapidated old building and consider its run-down state a feature, but my husband (poor man) likes his amenities. For his sake, I knocked on the door.

The Gingerbread House in Virginia City, Montana was built in 1898 by one of Virginia City's most prominent citizens, C. W. Rank, pharmacist and owner of Rank's Merchantile.The original brick structure looked very different than it does today. Image courtesy of Karen Fisher.

A lovely woman named Karen Fisher, the owner of the Gingerbread House Bed and Breakfast, answered. Finding me huddled like a refugee from the storm on her doorstep, she didn't blink an eye but explained gently that she was closed for the season. I asked if she knew of another place to stay, but chances didn't look too good for us. I couldn't help but admire her home. My interest was genuine, springing from my love of history, not an attempt to flatter her into having us stay (really), but then she wanted to share her home with me. I received the grand tour, with my husband invited in to see it, too.

Karen had moved back in from the cabin where she stays when hosting guests and understandably didn't want to shift again for our one-night stay. However, if we would give her a little time, she'd let us spend the night in one of the cabins. We backtracked to a restaurant in another town and lingered over dinner to give her time to prepare.

The Bickford Cabin, where my husband and I spent the night, was the home of former slave, Sarah Bickman, who arrived in Virginia City in 1870 and owned the water utility and the building where five road agents were hanged. Image courtesy of Karen Fisher.

Sarah Gammon Bickford

Karen explained that the cabin was named in honor of a former slave who rose to local prominence above many hardships. Both Sarah's parents were sold during the Civil War, and she never saw them again. She suffered at the hands of her abusive husband, John Brown, whom she divorced following the deaths of their three children,William, Leonard, and Eva. She went on to marry Stephen Bickford, a farmer and miner, and the two had four children together, Elmer, Harriet, Helena, and Mabel.

Staying in that renovated cabin remains a cherished memory from the trip. Despite frosty temperatures, we spent a snug night and awoke ready to visit boot hill, sample the last of the season's ice cream in a vintage shop and, of course, photograph all the door knobs in town...

About Janalyn Voigt

Janalyn Voigt's unique blend of adventure, romance, suspense, and whimsy creates breathtaking fictional worlds for readers. Look for her upcoming western historical fiction. The Montana Gold series begins in 2017 with Hills of Nevermore. Janalyn also writes epic fantasy. Beginning with DawnSinger, the epic fantasy series, Tales of Faeraven, carries readers into a land only imagined in dreams.

Janalyn is represented by Wordserve Literary Agency. Her memberships include ACFW and NCWA. When she's not writing, she loves to discover worlds of adventure in the great outdoors with her family.

Visit Janalyn Voigt's website.

The Romantic Lumberjack? -- and a Book Giveaway!

By Tiffany Amber Stockton


Yesterday, we launched our brand new web site with a new design and a new name! Doesn't it look amazing? Again, thanks to Matt Jones with Jones House Creative for our fantastic banner.

To go along with this launch, we are having a series of giveaways hosted by various authors over the course of the next few weeks. All you need to do is follow the instructions in each post to be entered for your chance to win.

Since I just had my newest book release in August, I'm giving away a FREE autographed copy of A Grand Design to one lucky winner. Just answer one of the questions at the bottom of this post and place your answer in the comments, and you're entered to win. That's it!

** Oh, and my book isn't the only one being given away this week. So, leave comments every day on every post this week. The more posts on which you leave a comment, the more chances you'll have to win.

Here's a blurb about the book for those who don't like being surprised. :)

A fun getaway on a charming island may be just what Alyssa needs…if only she can let go of her past.

Fifteen years ago, Alyssa Denham stopped taking her annual summer trip to Mackinac Island, refusing to tell anyone the reason she avoided the island she loved as a child. Now here she is, unexpectedly on the island for two weeks with her best friend, Libby, trying to keep her secret buried. Alyssa’s grandmother, who lives on the island, has asked Alyssa and Libby to help piece together a friendship quilt she had started years earlier. Their quest takes them to the homes of some of her grandmother’s long-lost friends, giving Alyssa amazing insight into her grandmother’s life…and attracting the attention of the handsome Scott Whitman. Will memories of her past keep Alyssa from letting go? Or will she finally learn to trust and let God heal her fractured heart?

And now back to your regularly scheduled blog post:

* * * * * * * * * *

When we think of the old west, the cowboy immediately comes to mind, but he wasn’t the only type of man to swarm across the plains and into the mountains in search of steady work.

The hearty loggers came in droves and lived a lifestyle uniquely their own. I have pages and pages of details about these men from the research I’ve done for some ideas on books set in the 1880’s about lumberjacks. There is no way I could share all of this with you in one blog, so I’ll just hit the highlights.

Man is either dominated *by* the forest or he *dominates* the forest. The lumberjack knew this very well and quickly gained a respect for the woods or else he died. He faced danger from sunup to sundown six days a week, and his instinct for survival never slept. Even at rest, every muscle and nerve remained alert.

At the end of each day, two dozen “shanty boys” lived in a single log cabin, and fights broke out nightly over something as insignificant as someone else’s socks laying on the floor in front of a man’s bunk. The fights were squelched as quickly as they started by the other men because fighting was outlawed by the Timber Boss. A man might not only lose his pay, but his job as well, for fighting, drinking, or reveling with women of the sordid type. These weren’t allowed in camp—ever.

So, on Saturday night after supper, the lumber camp quickly emptied as the men made their way to the nearest town to let off the “charge of gunpowder” they’d held inside for six days.

Whenever a lumber camp was situated near a town, the houses of ill repute relocated to the end of the skid road, the trail built by the lumberjacks that contained logs at ten-foot intervals down the road for the ease of being able to skid their logs down to the mill yard.

It didn’t take long for these saloons and soiled doves, women of bad reputation, to become known as "skid row." The name has stuck to this day as a description of a bawdy place in any town, but it originated with the loggers.

The lumberjacks too lived by an unwritten “code” that said no man could offend, insult, or molest a woman or speak lightly of a woman of good reputation. By the code, women and children were helpless and always safe when woodsmen were around.

It didn’t take long for gamblers to infiltrate the camps, taking jobs for a time to size up the crew and find out how much money they had. Lumber camps were ripe with men unable to spend their money throughout the week and they easily fell victim to the gamblers’ games.

The camps were one of the least discriminating places in the west. Without blinking an eye, they hired men from all backgrounds and nationalities. These men worked hard from the moment the whistle belted out “Daylight in the Swamp” at dawn’s first light to “Gabriel Time” calling them in to supper. They gulped their meals in less than ten minutes, because there wasn’t much time left before their nine o’clock bedtime.

You may think the life of the early lumberjack to have been very harsh and restrictive, and they were, but the Timber Bosses paid them a dollar a day and higher, and competed with other logging camps by offering better and more food, better bunks, thicker blankets, and other perks in order to attract hard-working men to their camp.

The lumberjacks quickly found this out and soon got the reputation of being persnickety over something like rancid butter or over-cooked flapjacks. They nailed the offending victuals to the cookhouse door and walked off the job in search of a camp with better food, leaving the Timber Bosses scrambling to move men into different teams in order to keep up with their eight to ten-thousand board feet per day goals and deadlines.

Now it's YOUR turn:

• Have you read any books or seen any movies where the lumberjack is a prominent character? What is the title of the book or name of the movie?
• Would you read a series or even a single book if a lumberjack was the hero? Why or why not?
• Did any of the above change your view or knowledge of the lumberjack? What was it?

** I'll announce the winner from the drawing in the comments once the winner has been selected. And the name will also go in the right sidebar of our blog.

---

BIO
Tiffany Amber Stockton has been crafting and embellishing stories since childhood. Today, she is an award-winning author and speaker who has partnered with Nerium International in the anti-aging skin care industry, helping others look younger and live better. She lives with her husband and fellow author, Stuart Vaughn Stockton, in Colorado. They have one girl and one boy, an Aussie/retriever mix named Roxie and and Australian cattle dog/Corgi mix named Timber. She has sold fourteen books so far and is represented by agent Sandra Bishop. You can also find her on Facebook and Twitter. a Rafflecopter giveaway

Of Wind and Tumbleweeds

By Tiffany Amber Stockton


This post is going to be short, because I want to ask for YOUR input. Get ready to share!

If you have ever watched an old western movie or even a TV show set in the Old West, you are quite familiar with a nuisance known as the tumbleweed. Even I remarked about seeing them when I first moved to Colorado, saying, "I am in the West." :)

For the most part, tumbleweeds are shown in deserted or ghost towns, empty and dusty streets, or out on the prairie where no building impede their path. But, in reality, tumbleweeds are found everywhere people are, if the conditions are right.

Tumbleweed is a phrase used to describe various varieties of bushes that break off when very dry, and roll with the wind.

These thick matted bushes sometimes stick to each other to resemble a giant Tumbleweed, and single Tumbleweeds six or eight feet in diameter, are not uncommon in the Southwest at times. They have been seen in many Western movies, but far from being "quaint" they can be both a nuisance and a fire hazard.  Sage brush creates one of the more common kinds of tumbleweed.

Where I live in Colorado, when the wind blows across town, tumbleweeds inevitably follow. And it's amazing how those buggers can get stuck under your car, then dragged for miles. People avoid them like they do an animal or debris in the road. One of the most ironic facts is knowing the actual tumbleweed is a plant brought over from Russia.

Scientific descriptions with good photos!


History and Description: http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/tumbleweed.htm. Nice site and has bibliographical links.

Russian Thistle: Desert USA—the Ultimate Desert Resource has a very good history article, and the photo of blossoms to the right is theirs. It's beautiful. It's also larger than life. The blossoms are teensy, and when seen through a microscope, are nearly transparent at one point.

So...what trademarks or icons of the "west" come to mind when you think of a western setting? When you read a western story or novel, or when you watch a movie or TV show, what items are required in order for the western setting to be believable to you?

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BIO
Tiffany Amber Stockton has been crafting and embellishing stories since childhood. Today, she is an award-winning author and speaker who helps people live better by partnering with Nerium International. She lives with her husband and fellow author, Stuart Vaughn Stockton, in Colorado. They have one girl and one boy, and an Aussie/retriever mix named Roxie. She has sold fourteen books so far and is represented by Sandra Bishop of MacGregor Literary Agency. You can also find her on Facebook and Twitter.