True Crimes: The "Old West's Ted Bundy", Part 2

By Jennifer Uhlarik

 

Two months ago, I began sharing about the true crimes case of serial killer Stephen Dee Richards—a man who charmed those who knew him into believing he was an upstanding man of excellent character. Due to unforeseen circumstances, I was unable to continue the post last month, so here is the “end of the story.” In case you missed the first half or want to refresh your memory, you can find it here: https://www.hhhistory.com/2021/06/true-crimes-old-wests-ted-bundypart-1.html

Sketch of Stephen Dee Richards

 

Second Murder

 

After killing a man he’d camped with and hiding out in another county for a few days, Stephen Dee Richards returned to the area and quickly ran across a man on foot. When the man saw Stephen, he began asking if he’d seen Stephen’s first murder victim. The man on foot and the murdered man were business partners. When the new man began asking Stephen many questions—and saying he’d seen Stephen with his partner not long before he went missing—Stephen grew nervous. He offered to let the man ride his spare horse, which he gratefully accepted. When they came to a secluded place, Stephen let the fellow pull ahead of him and shot him in the back of the head. He hid the body, sold the spare horse, and carried on as if nothing had happened.

 

From the scene of his second murder, Stephen went to see outlaw Jasper Harlson, his wife Mary, and their three children Daisy, Mabel, and Jesse. While visiting with the family, Mary noticed blood on Stephen’s shirt in a couple of different places, so asked if he’d been fighting. Not realizing he’d left evidence of his crime so noticeably on his person, he responded to Mary’s question by “joking” that it must have been the blood of some of the men he’d killed. The topic was dropped quickly from there.

 

Third Murder

 

By October of 1876, Stephen was living large. He spent much of his time traveling around, passing counterfeit money which he’d received from a New York man, and hanging with his nefarious friends. He did take a job at a local farm for time, but after a 6-week illness, left there to head into Iowa. There, he used counterfeit money to purchase a buggy and horses from a young man. It didn’t take long for the buggy’s former owner to discover that the money he’d received was counterfeit, and he came looking for Stephen. Upon finding him, he demanded Stephen either pay him with good money or return the merchandise. 

 

I’m sure you can guess what happened next. Stephen led the man to a secluded place to “talk business”—and shot him. The young man’s body was concealed by throwing brush over him, and Stephen high-tailed it from the area.

 

Jail Break

 

In January of 1877, Stephen turned back toward Kearney, Nebraska, to visit his friend Jasper again. Only Jasper and a friend of his, Mr. Nixon (aka Mr. Underwood), were both being held in the Kearney jail on different charges. Jasper was accused and awaiting trial for having stolen lumber from a train trestle, and Underwood/Nixon for train robbery. Stephen and his friends were able to smuggle some kind of saw or cutting tool into the men so they could cut their way out of the jail.

 

Fourth Murder

 

Stephen hid out after the jail break by visiting a lady friend, “Dolly” (of whom he again hid all personal information) in Hastings, Nebraska, and riding around the countryside. A couple of months later in March 1877, he met up with a man by the last name of Gemge and began traveling with him. On the moonlit night of March 19, the pair went to sleep in their camp, but as the moon was so bright at about 3 AM, Stephen awakened Gemge and told him to get up and prepare to travel. This led to a quarrel between them, and when accusations of lying were hurled Stephen’s way, he grew angry and shot Gemge dead. He dropped Gemge’s horse with a local settler, telling the story that his “partner” would be coming for it in a few days, and carried on. Of course, surely no “partner” came in search of his horse.

 

Arrest—And Release

 

Not long after Gemge’s death, Stephen and several of his friends were arrested for murder, and Stephen figured the gig was up. Surely, his life of crime had come to an end. However, it turns out that it was not Gemge’s death for which they were arrested, but another man’s who he says he had no dealings with. After a brief investigation, he was released.

 

His Most Notorious Murders

 

After that release, Stephen’s confession (where much of this information comes from) skips a wide swath of time, from March of 1877 until Spring of 1878. At that time, he once again came across Mary Harlson—in jail. Stephen was being held for larceny, Mary for her part in the jail-break that saw her husband Jasper go free. While they both were incarcerated, they struck upon the plan for Stephen to purchase a quarter section of the homestead Mary and Jasper lived on.  But first, she had to “prove up” on the land, which would happen about six months later. (If you’re unfamiliar with the term, “proving up” means to satisfy the government’s requirements of living on/improving/farming the land so that you can receive it for free). Once Stephen was released from the jail, he traveled around until about October, when he once more went to the Harlson homestead to make the land deal. 

 

However, Mary proved to be a smart and inquisitive woman. She got into Stephen’s trunk and read the many letters he had from his various outlaw friends, realized the types of nefarious deeds he’d done, and told him she knew. Rather than allow her to live, he set out to murder her. So on November 3^rd, 1878, he woke early. He was sharing a bed with another man, Mr. Brown, who was also visiting Mary Harlson at the time. Stephen and Brown rose early, and they each headed outside to putter around the homestead. When Brown headed off to the stable, Stephen returned to the house with an ax and dispatched Mary and her three sleeping children in their beds. He then disposed of their bodies by burying them in a shallow grave and scattering hay from a haystack over the grave. He and Brown rode away from the homestead then, apparently Brown none the wiser, and parted company in a distant town. Stephen returned to the Harlson homestead a couple of days later to carry on as if nothing had happened. When he was asked where Mary and the children had gone, he lied and said she’d departed with Brown.

 

Final Murder

 

Stephen’s final murder came on December 9, 1878. Mary’s neighbor, Peter Anderson, had asked Stephen to help with a building project on his homestead a few miles away, but while working together, Anderson grew sick and ultimately accused Stephen of having poisoned him. Stephen denied the claim, and when he was called a liar by Anderson, the two fought. In his confession, Stephen swears he had no intention of killing Anderson (though do we trust his word? No…not particularly!), but he struck him with a hammer and caved his skull in during their altercation. He carried the man’s body into the cellar and concealed it under a pile of coal, but before he could leave the house, concerned neighbors arrived. Stephen was able to slip away while they checked the house, and ultimately, he made his way back to Mount Pleasant, Ohio.

 

Only known photograph of 
Stephen Dee Richards,
taken shortly after his hanging.

Capture, Trial, and Final (Surprising!) End

 

While in Mount Pleasant, Stephen made no attempt to conceal himself. In fact, he paraded himself openly. While on his way to a party in the company of two young ladies, he was captured in the middle of town by a prison guard and other officials from the area and ultimately returned to Nebraska for trial. On January 15, 1879, the trial began at 9 AM, and by 4 PM the same day, he was found guilty of the murder of Peter Anderson. His execution by hanging was scheduled for April 26, 1879. 

 

But this is where the story gets interesting. Between the time Stephen was convicted and his hanging several months later, he professed that he found true faith in Jesus Christ and looked forward to his ultimate home-going. At his execution, he asked for the words of a hymn, Precious Name, to be read aloud, and the 2000 people in attendance began to sing along with the preacher who read the lyrics. Once the crowd quieted from their impromptu sing-along, Stephen was hung.

 

It’s Your Turn: Do you believe Stephen Dee Richards’ profession of faith might have been true? Why or why not?

 

 

 

 

The Scarlet Pen by Jennifer Uhlarik (Now Available)

 

Step into True Colors — a series of Historical Stories of Romance and True American Crime

Enjoy a tale of true but forgotten history of a 19th century serial killer whose silver-tongued ways almost trap a young woman into a nightmarish marriage.

In 1876, Emma Draycott is charmed into a quick engagement with childhood friend Stephen Dee Richards after reconnecting with him at a church event in Mount Pleasant, Ohio. But within the week, Stephen leaves to “make his fame and fortune.” The heartbroken Emma gives him a special pen to write to her, and he does with tales of grand adventures. Secret Service agent Clay Timmons arrives in Mount Pleasant to track purchases made with fake currency. Every trail leads back to Stephen—and therefore, Emma. Can he convince the naive woman she is engaged to a charlatan who is being linked a string of deaths in Nebraska?

 

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 finaled and won in numerous writing competitions, and been on the ECPA best-seller list several times. 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, Women Writing the West, and is a lifetime member of the Florida Writers Association. She lives near Tampa, Florida, with her husband, adult son, and four fur children.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Barbour’s True Colors Crime series (http://www.truecolorscrime.com) 

 

True Crimes: The “Old West’s Ted Bundy”—Part 1 (with Giveaway!)

 

 

If you’ve ever watched shows or read books on any true crimes, you’re probably familiar with the fact that sometimes, truly terrible people live double lives. In one facet of their lives, they appear perfectly normal—loving husbands and fathers who hold decent jobs and serve in their churches or civic groups. They sit on the PTA at their child’s school and socialize with their neighbors. But in another facet of their lives, they are cold-blooded killers who commit absolutely heinous crimes that terrorize the community, state, or even the nation.

 

Stephen Dee Richards, who modern-day author and forensic psychologist Katherine Ramsland has dubbed “The Old West’s Ted Bundy,” was just such a man.

 

Early Life

 

Richards was born on March 18, 1856 in Wheeling, West Virginia, though his family
headed to Ohio when he was six. They moved several times within the state but eventually settled in the Quaker village of Mount Pleasant when Stephen was eleven. There, his devout Methodist mother made sure he (and several sisters) attended school during the week, as well as church on Sundays, and he also worked alongside his father on the family farm. By all appearances, it was a normal childhood.

 

However, there was a dark side brewing in the young man. By his own admission, he tells the story of a time when, as a boy, “I was sent out to kill a litter of kittens, and I did it by striking their heads against a tree—smashing out their brains, one by one. I didn’t feel bad about it at all—it was fun.” By today’s standards, many would recognize that as a chilling sign of a possible serial killer in the making, but the science of criminal profiling didn’t come about until Jack the Ripper came on the scene nine years later. I’m sure that admission would have turned the stomachs of any who heard it, but at that time, they couldn’t see the recipe for disaster it truly was.

 

The year Stephen turned fifteen, his mother passed away of an unknown cause. For the next five years, he worked for local farmers and others in the community. This was also when Stephen became pen pals with various men of the criminal persuasion. In his confession, he admits, “I opened correspondence with a number of bad men in the West, among whom were notorious desperadoes. I also began to pass counterfeit money, which I got off a New York man through one of my acquaintances.” His life of crime had begun.

 

Leaving Home

 

By the time Stephen turned 20, he’d fallen in love with a young woman in Mount Pleasant. All that is known about her is her name—Anna Millhorne—and that Stephen described her as “a virtuous young lady.” They were engaged shortly before he went West “to seek his fortune”, and during the years after his departure Stephen wrote to Anna often. He confesses that “I may say that I loved her; at any rate, I loved her as much as I can love any one.” Unfortunately, the love of that virtuous young lady would not be enough to keep Stephen on the straight and narrow.

 

In February of 1876, Stephen left home with no particular destination in mind. Rather, he said he “wanted to see the country and live easy and avoid work.” So he began making the rounds of some of the men he’d been corresponding with. For a short time, he visited friend after friend, traversing the countryside before he eventually landed in Mount Pleasant, Iowa (not to be confused with his childhood home of the same name in Ohio). There he took a job in the Iowa Lunatic Asylum as an “attendant.” In other words, it was his job to bury the dead. He said of the occupation, “here, I had my first experience handling ‘stiffs,’ and it didn’t strike me as being very disagreeable either.” He remained in this job for several months, until the fall of 1876, at which time, he returned to his gallivanting ways.

Historical Marker for Dobytown, NE

 

First Murder

 

Stephen left Mount Pleasant and went to Kansas City for a time, then back to Hastings, Nebraska, and eventually to Kearney Junction, Nebraska. About two weeks after reaching Kearney, he was drifting around the area on horseback and fell in with a well-dressed, mid-30’s-aged man, also on horse. The two rode together until dark fell, at which time, they lost the road and were forced to camp between the ghost town of “Dobytown” (thus named because the buildings were made of adobe) and an old wagon bridge. To pass the time, they built a campfire and began to play cards together.

 

During their game, Stephen—by hook or by crook—won nearly all of his companion’s money. As you might guess, the other man accused Stephen of cheating, and they argued. However, things eventually quieted down between the pair, and they went to sleep. Yet, the man hadn’t forgotten the matter, and the following morning, they broke camp and started on together when the man spoke up again. From Stephen’s confession, he writes:

 

We had not gone far when the stranger stopping his horse, said: “We may as well settle this little matter between us here and now.”

 

“In what way?” I asked.

 

“Either give me back my money or fight,” he replied.

 

Hopkins & Allen 
Blue Jacket .22

Of course, he refused to give the man any of the money he’d won so, by Stephen’s account, the man attacked him. Stephen produced the small Hopkins & Allen Blue Jacket .22-caliber pistol he’d brought from home and shot the man once above the left eye, killing him instantly. He dragged the man’s body to the nearby river and threw it in, collected the dead man’s horse, and rode on to Kearney. There, Stephen traded the extra horse for a different one, then high-tailed it into a neighboring county to hide out for a few days. 

 

TO BE CONTINUED… Watch for more next month when I continue the story of Stephen Dee Richards’s life of crime.

 

It’s Your Turn: More than ten years ago, I was coming home from my teaching job late in the evening and stopped by the gas station to fill my car’s tank. When I arrived at the station, there was a rusty, white van already at a pump. When I got out, the van’s driver—a thin, short-statured man called out to ask if I could help him, he needed money to fill his tank. When I said I couldn’t help, he changed tactics and said he was sure he’d have something in the back of his van that he could sell me so he could get the money he desperately needed. With all my red flags flying, I again told him no and got out of there as quickly as I could. I’ve often wondered if the man was being honest or if he had much more nefarious intentions toward me. Have you ever experienced a seemingly unassuming person approach you, only to get the feeling you were in danger? What specifically made you feel that way and how did you respond? Leave your answers with your email address to be entered in a random drawing for a copy of The Scarlet Pen.

 

 

IF YOU DON’T WANT TO WAIT FOR MORE OF STEPHEN DEE RICHARDS’S STORY, ORDER YOUR COPY OF MY NEWEST NOVEL, THE SCARLET PEN, TODAY!

 

The Scarlet Pen by Jennifer Uhlarik (Releasing July 1, 2021)

 

Step into True Colors — a series of Historical Stories of Romance and True American Crime

Enjoy a tale of true but forgotten history of a 19th century serial killer whose silver-tongued ways almost trap a young woman into a nightmarish marriage.

In 1876, Emma Draycott is charmed into a quick engagement with childhood friend Stephen Dee Richards after reconnecting with him at a church event in Mount Pleasant, Ohio. But within the week, Stephen leaves to “make his fame and fortune.” The heartbroken Emma gives him a special pen to write to her, and he does with tales of grand adventures. Secret Service agent Clay Timmons arrives in Mount Pleasant to track purchases made with fake currency. Every trail leads back to Stephen—and therefore, Emma. Can he convince the naive woman she is engaged to a charlatan who is being linked a string of deaths in Nebraska?

And if you want more True Colors Crime novels, check out the entire 12-book series at True Colors Crime

 

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 finaled and won in numerous writing competitions, and been on the ECPA best-seller list several times. 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, Women Writing the West, and is a lifetime member of the Florida Writers Association. She lives near Tampa, Florida, with her husband, college-aged son, and four fur children.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

19th Century Christian and Jewish Fellowships

by Kathleen L. Maher

So much of the Bible owes to Hebrew tradition and writings that it seems odd that Christians and Jews have not had the most celebrated history together of playing nice in the faith playground. Antisemitism and persecution have soured what should have been a brotherhood of many shared beliefs. One does not have to revisit the inquisition to recall man's inhumanity to man in the name of religion.

But there has also been some inspiring moments in history when Jews and Christians have found common ground united on shared faith, and this post will highlight a few of them specifically in the 19th Century.

The London Society for promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews was an effort of the Anglican Church in the early 19th Century to share Jesus as the Messiah to Jewish people groups through friendly outreach. One of the ways the society, founded in 1809, built inroads to bridge the faiths was through translating the New Testament into Hebrew. Reverend Fry, a Jewish man who converted, established a Jewish Chapel where he would preach to his brothers. Reverend Fry also started a school where young Jewish boys could attend for free prior to the age of apprenticeship. And for Jews who accepted Jesus as Messiah who were shunned and outcast from their people, Reverend Fry established a print shop where they would find employment and fellowship with one another. Adults were taught English. A cotton factory also offered employment to indigent, outcast converts. A library of Hebrew and Jewish works was assembled. Apologists for the Christian faith were encouraged to show how The Old Testament reveals Jesus as Messiah and teach Christians the Hebrew roots of Christianity.

This publication went out from the society to New England, and a short excerpt describes their mission statement in a nutshell.

CONCISE ACCOUNT

OF THE

LONDON SOCIETY

FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIANITY

AMONGST THE JEWS

“For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead.”—

ROMANS xi. 15.

BOSTON

PRINTED BY JOHN ELIOT.

1816

"...The London Society is founded on a principle, in which the Established Church and Christians of various denominations of Dissenters can cordially unite. It is their plan to limit themselves to the simple object of convincing their Jewish brethren, that Jesus is the Messiah, the Saviour of the world; leaving them, when thus instructed, to search the scriptures, and judge for themselves..."

William Wilberforce

In the Jews Chapel, Benei Abraham (The Children of Abraham) which was a group of 50 or so converted Hebrews, would meet. Gentile Christians would pray alongside them for the House of Israel, and to minister to those too long persecuted by misguided religious zeal.
In the words of Rev J. W. Cunningham, Vicar of Harrow, who gave notable sermons for the London society, “We have much lost time to redeem,—many past injuries to cancel,—many and countless obligations to this afflicted people to repay."

Other prominent members of the London Society included William Wilberforce, renowned for his work to end slavery and the slave trade in England, and Dr. Albert Gerstmann and Melville Bergheim who established a medical mission in Jerusalem in 1836. One of the many admirable goals of the society was to fulfill prophecy by helping the Jewish people to return to Eretz Israel, their promised land. Christ Church, Jerusalem completed in 1849, the oldest Protestant Church in the Holy Land, is partly due to the work of the society.

Later in the century, the first Hebrew Christian fellowship in America was heralded by The New York Times. October 12, 1885:

ONLY ONE IN AMERICA

A HEBREW-CHRISTIAN CHURCH DEDICATED YESTERDAY.

AN EPOCH IN THE HISTORY OF RELIGION IN THIS COUNTRY—HOW THE CHURCH CAME INTO EXISTENCE.

"On the northerly side of St. Mark's-place, a few doors from Third-avenue, is a three-story and basement brick structure. Across the front of the building, above the line of the first story windows, extends a black board sign, on which. beneath certain Hebraic characters, are the words: “Hebrew-Christian Church.” The surmounting inscription translated reads: “For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations....”

The congregation had its start even before the official church building dedication years earlier in Manhattan's lower East Side under Rev. Jacob Freshman, the son of a Hebrew rabbi converted to Christianity, Rev. Charles Freshman. Services at the St. Mark's-place church were offered in different languages at different times of the day or week, with ministers from various denominations.

Other societies and fellowships included:

• The American Society for Meliorating the Condition of the Jews (ASMCJ) 1820-1867
• The "Jewish Converts' Society" 1823-1826
• Brotherhood of Jewish Proselytes  had a short-lived existence in 1844
• The American Baptist Association for Evangelizing the Jews also 1844

In my novella "Something Old, Something New" set to release October 2019 in Barbour's upcoming Lessons on Love collection, My heroine Gilda Jacobs is a young Jewish schoolteacher who must partner with a Christian educator to meet the specifications of the school council for Biblical instruction. My hero Joshua Blake is a revivalist with a calling to reconcile a diverse population to Christ. He finds himself in a crossfire when Dutch Reform New York religion clashes with Hebrew tradition and modern evangelism.

With my family background of Irish settlers from the mid 19th Century who came to New York City and the downstate region, I have enjoyed exploring some of the early subcultures in one of the most historically diverse places on the planet. The first Jews to arrive in the United states came to what would become New York City in 1654. They were fleeing the Spanish Inquisition, and arrived in New Amsterdam to begin a new life. By 1840 when my story is set in Westchester County, NY, there were 15,000 Jewish people in the united States. 

Leopold Hoffman Cohn

Rabbi Leopold Cohn established a ministry in Brooklyn, in the Brownsville section, to Jews in the late 1800's. A convert to Christianity, his outreach focused on the influx of immigrants in the latter part of the century, with schooling and various services as they settled in the New World to escape the pogroms throughout Europe. His ministry was called The Brownsville Mission to the Jews, officially established in 1894, and later renamed American Board of Missions to the Jews, which was the largest outreach in the America to Jewish believers in the 1930's and 1940's. The name would change again in 1984 to Chosen People Ministries. 

_____________________________________________________

Kathleen L. Maher has had an infatuation with books and fictional heroes ever since her preschool crush, Peter Rabbit. Her published works include "Love Brick by Brick," a historical romance in BARBOUR's 2018 Victorian Christmas Brides novella collection, featuring her hometown of Elmira, New York. The Abolitionist's Daughter, Book 1 in Sons of the Shenandoah Series released August 2018, won the 2012 ACFW Genesis Award historical category. Book 2 in Sons of the Shenandoah Series releases March 2019, and "Something Old, Something New" releases in Barbour's Lessons on Love collection in Fall 2019. 

Kathleen shares an old farmhouse in upstate New York with her husband, children, and a small zoo of rescued animals.
Follow Kathleen
on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KLMaherAuthor/
on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Mahereenie
and on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/author/kathleenlmaher

Hell-On-Wheels Railroad Camps—and a Giveaway

I’m excited to announce that on July 1, my fifth novella releases in the Of Rags and Riches Romance Collection from Barbour Publishing. The collection’s theme is the Gilded Age—nine stories spanning from the late 1860’s through the turn of the century. Each story explores some different aspects of the era, whether that be wealth, leisure, opulence, social reform, immigration, industry, or other ideas.

My own story in this collection, Union Pacific Princess, focuses on the building of the Transcontinental Railroad and how Westward Expansion impacted the Native American culture of the time. The story is set in 1867, in a hell-on-wheels railroad camp near Cheyenne, Dakota Territory (modern day Wyoming). My heroine is Dara Forsythe, the socialite daughter of one of the Union Pacific bigwigs. After her mother’s untimely death, she leaves Boston to join her father, whom she hasn’t seen in seven years, with the hope of recapturing the closeness they once shared. Unfortunately for Dara, she has a bit of a culture shock when she steps off the train.

Used to the society life of the Boston elite, Dara steps out of her private railcar to find herself in a hell-on-wheels railroad camp. Dingy white tents of all different sizes housed anything from building supplies for the railroad to sleeping quarters for the workers, perhaps even the occasional church or office. But most often, they were the mobile homes for saloons, gambling halls, and brothels which followed the train’s progress, offering a place for the railroad workers to spend their hard-earned money. Can you imagine the astonishment a young, 18-year-old society girl might feel when she steps outside the plush Pullman train car she’s called “home” for the past several weeks, only to look around and find nothing but a sea of tents with nary a single permanent building, and nothing more than mud pathways connecting them all? No matter how much she might have mentally prepared herself for the change, I dare say it would be a “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Boston anymore!” moment.

Photograph of Benton, Wyoming, along the Union Pacific line 672 miles west of Omaha. Located 11 miles east of the present-day town of Rawlins, Benton only existed for three months from July to September, 1868. The tent city boasted a population of 3,000 people, and included 25 saloons, and five dance halls. Image courtesy of the Denver Public Library, Western History & Genealogy Digital Collections.

As noted above, the Hell-On-Wheels camps were moving towns that followed the railroad’s path. They would spring up, almost overnight as both Confederate and Federal soldiers sought new homes and lives after the ravages of the Civil War. Also plentiful were Irish immigrants who’d come to America seeking a better life during the Great Famine of the late 1840’s and early 1850’s. Many of them came to New York or other East Coast cities but gradually began making their way west. Then, of course, you had your card sharks, saloon owners, and soiled doves, as well as your more respectable sorts who set up reputable mercantiles, barber shops, and other enterprises.

A group of railroad workers make music in their off time-one of the more wholesome pursuits
 that occurred in a Hell On Wheels railroad camp during the building of the Transcontinental Railroad.

© Andrew J. Russell [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Most of the Hell-On-Wheels camps popped up for a short time—usually about two months—and once the train moved far enough west, the businessmen and women packed up their establishments and moved down the tracks, leaving little but their trash behind. However, some such camps developed into slightly longer-lasting towns that tried to make a go of life on the frontier. Many failed within a few years for various reasons, often having to do with where the train made regular stops. However, there were a few such camps-turned-towns that survived—and thrive even today. One such town is Cheyenne, Wyoming. One reason why Cheyenne may have succeeded is that it wasn’t solely a stop on the Union Pacific Railroad line, but it was also the junction point where the Southern railroad spur leading to Denver, Colorado, began. That secured it as an important hub of train activity, far longer than many of the ill-fated towns that failed to make a go of life along the Union Pacific tracks.

It’s your turn: If you had lived during this period of history, would you have wanted to visit a hell-on-wheels railroad camp or possibly consider working for the railroad? Why or why not? Leave me your email address when you answer these questions, and you will be included in the drawing for a print copy of the Of Rags and Riches Romance Collection.

Of Rags And Riches Romance Collection

Journey along in nine historical romances with those who lives are transformed by the opulence, growth, and great changes taking place in America’s Gilded Age. Nine couples meet during these exhilarating times and work to build a future together through fighting for social reform, celebrating new opportunities for leisure activities, taking advantage of economic growth and new inventions, and more. Watch as these romances develop and legacies of faith and love are formed.

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 finaled and won in numerous writing 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. She currently writes historical novellas of the American West for Barbour Publishing and works as a Content Editor for Firefly Southern Fiction. Jennifer is active in American Christian Fiction Writers and lifetime member of the Florida Writers Association. She lives near Tampa, Florida, with her husband, college-aged son, and four fur children.