History

Mary House: Recognized as Female Patriot of the American Revolution

During this Women’s History Month, and ahead of the nation’s 250th celebrations, I have the great fortune of announcing a new Revolutionary female Patriot. I spearheaded an application with the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR) to prove a new female American Revolutionary-era Patriot.

Mary House owned and operated a boarding house in Philadelphia, the House Inn. Because she paid taxes on the inn, her support tax directly helped fund the Revolutionary war. Just two blocks from the famous State House, where Revolution was debated and the Declaration of Independence signed, the inn was a respected political hub, frequented by familiar founding fathers.

In this press release issued by NSDAR, Pamela Wright, NSDAR President General and the National Society’s volunteer elected CEO, says, “We are thrilled to add Mary House to our list of verified female Patriots. As we approach our nation’s 250th birthday, DAR members across the country are concentrating on sharing the stories of these amazing Americans, helping contemporary U.S. citizens understand the relevancy of Patriots to our lives today. As a female entrepreneur myself, I am inspired by the story of Mrs. House.”

The star on this map shows the location of the House Inn. To red outline to the left is the State House. The red outline down and to the right, is the Arch Street Quaker Burial ground where Mary House was buried.

The House Inn hosted Thomas Jefferson and Other Founders

Mary House was a wise entrepreneur. After her husband died, the widow established the boarding house, which quickly became known for what was then called “fine entertainments.” It offered quality lodgings, good food and refreshments, and above all an atmosphere that encouraged convivial engagement. It quickly attracted founding fathers familiar to us now. Silas Deane, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson. Mary recognized that congressmen visits to Philadelphia would increase as Revolution rumbled through the colonies. Consequently, she wisely moved her already established House Inn closer to the action, to Fifth and Market Streets. Like the famed City Tavern, the House Inn was a gathering place for end-of-day political discourse over dinner and drinks.

Finding Mary House and Proving Her as Patriot

Although I spearheaded the search and the NSDAR application, the journey to validate Mary House’s Patriot status was a collaborative effort. It took multiple years and involved more than 15 individuals across five NSDAR chapters and three states, along with additional historians and translators. To submit an application for patriot status for Mary House, we found and proved lineage to a living descendant. That descendant is also related to two other significant figures: Jefferson and the subject of what I call my Eliza Project.

Mary House’s Daughter, Eliza Trist, Went West & Kept a Journal

Mary House is significant in her own right as a supporter of the Cause and an entrepreneur. She is also the mother of Eliza House Trist—a woman who traveled west in 1783, two decades before Lewis and Clark. Eliza Trist kept this journal for Thomas Jefferson. Trist met Jefferson when he lodged at the House Inn. The two became significant in each others lives, and long after her westward journey, Eliza Trist’s grandson married Thomas Jefferson’s granddaughter. Consequently, this new NSDAR member on this application, is related to House, Trist, and Jefferson.

To be frank, I feel like we’ve hit the NSDAR’s version of a quadfecta or superfecta. Myself, and this incredible network of genealogists and historians, have correctly proven four positions significant to the NSDAR. New female Patriot. New Female Explorer. New member. And all connected to Thomas Jefferson.

The only known portrait of Eliza House Trist. From the Ledger book of William Bache, National Portrait Gallery.

What will the Patriot Status Achieve?

Mary House was buried in Philadelphia, in the Quaker Arch Street burial ground, which was built over in the late 1800s. Eliza Trist is buried at Monticello. Neither woman has a gravestone, and their contributions have never been granted state historical markers. As I mentioned in the press release, “The goal is to ensure each of these women has a grave marker and historical recognition… In honor of the 250th, we are striving to broaden the narrative we tell about the founding of this country. Eliza and Mary matter. Who we tell our origin stories about matters so more of us can envision ourselves contributing to our future.”

The Permission slip provided by the Quakers to bury Mary House in the Arch Street grounds.

To learn more about Eliza House Trist

I am producing a more comprehensive and widely-accessible narrative for Mary House and Eliza Trist. For now, you can learn more about Eliza House Trist’s journey when you pre-order a copy of The Travel Journal of Eliza House Trist, 1783-84. It’s a brand new transcription, with a brief introduction. For the first time, her journal is replicated as she originally wrote it. In this beautifully hardbound book, is an all new introduction and a map of her journey. The book publishes April 15th.

 

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Guest Post: Michael L. Ross – Washington’s Drummer Boy

The Revolutionary War didn’t start in Concord or even Boston—it had its beginnings earlier and more widespread than what appears in your seventh-grade history book. One of those beginnings was the Pine Tree Riot (or White Pine Rebellion) in New Hampshire. And one of its youngest participants would one day meet Washington.

What was the Pine Tree Riot?

The Crown claimed that white pine trees in colonial forests were the property of the Crown because of their use as masts on Royal Navy ships. The sawyers (those who made their living working timber) in New Hampshire disagreed, resulting in one of the first fights in the Colonies.

What started the Pine Tree Riot?

One of the leaders among the sawyers, Ebenezer Mudgett, had been arrested days before for possession of white pine logs without the Crown’s mark.

The sawmills banded together and arrested the local Crown sheriff, surprising him in bed early in the morning. The sheriff grabbed his pistols, but when momentarily distracted he was overcome by the mob, his horse’s tail clipped, and he was run out of the county.

Muggeridge was also a ringleader in the rebellion. He and his adopted son, Billy Simpson, fled the county for a time in fear of redcoat retribution.

The account of the event appeared in the New Hampshire Gazette, on April 24, 1772. The event and Billy will be featured in my upcoming book, A Drummer Boy for Washington.

White Pine Rebellion as reported by the New Hampshire Gazette

Billy Simpson Beyond the Riot

Early in the American Revolution, Billy Simpson became a member of George Washington’s Honor Guard, a group charged with defending Washington in battles. Billy met Washington as a protégé of Nathaniel Folsom, a friend of Mudgett. Simpson was among the youngest of the 180 members of the Guard, serving as a drummer boy. At the time Billy joined, he was only twelve.

Drummer boys did not have a glamorous life. They performed all the drudge work, had to attend school in off-hours, and were in the thick of battle with no weapons (and a rather loud instrument drawing attention to themselves). The Guard, and Billy, were in every battle with Washington until it was disbanded in 1783.

Washington's Drummer Boy
Illustration commissioned from Martins Isaiah Ajogi of Billy and George Washington

About Michael L. Ross

Michael L. Ross is a lover of history and great stories. A retired software engineer turned author. The Search was his second book in the Across the Great Divide series. Find him and his books online at HistoricalNovelsRUs.

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Historic Bartram’s Gardens in Winter

In late November, I had the good fortune of touring Bartram’s Gardens in Philadelphia, PA—a 50-acre garden in existence since 1728. The oldest surviving botanic garden in the US, the sloping and tiered lands on the western banks of the Schuylkill River were home to John Bartram—a botanist, collector, and explorer—and his son, William Bartram. Their garden was a source for seeds and plants for many of America’s founders including Washington, Jefferson, and Madison. My tour was for research for my next historical novel, and specifically to learn what those gardens looked like in 1787 when James Madison and others visited the gardens during the Constitutional Convention .

Why tour historic gardens in winter?

Now, before you go believing I’m nuts for touring a garden during winter (rather than July when Madison visited) such off-season tours mean fewer tourists and an occasional late bloom/fall burst of color. In our case, the oldest Ginkgo tree in America and the Tea-Oil Camillia, were giving a brilliant show.

Tea-Oil Camillia

The best reason has to do with wandering with a guide. Because there is less to do in winter, the curator—Joel T. Fry, who has been with the gardens since the late 90s—seemed to have all the time in the world to help me prune away the gardens as they are “now” in order to visualize them as William Bartram did “then.”

Bartram’s Gardens then and now

When the British moved through Philadelphia during the Revolution, troops built a floating bridge across the Schuylkill River east of town. What had been a ferry system from Grey’s Landing just few miles from Independence Hall, became a series of floating planks permitting visitors to land just a tad north of Bartram’s.

I wish I could say the view shown in this historic 1838 drawing (Charles P Dare, Fitzgibbon & Van Ness publishers) was equal to the view now. Today, one approaches Bartram’s via a graffiti-strewn bridge, and enters from the less-attractive back lane.

Back in 1787, however, a visitor would have first seen the tiered beds of plants—collected from various states as far south as Florida—rising up to the main house (like the photo above). Greens, tubers, and other edibles would have been planted closest to the house in the kitchen gardens. Built by John Bartram, the house was added onto many times, but the architecturally arresting structure remains.

The numerous trees scattering the property now would likely have been in a specific grove to one side of the house. That Ginkgo tree? In 1787, it was just two years old, so likely shorter than me, and in a different location. It now towers more than two stories tall. You can see an original William Bartram illustration of the garden map, on the Bartram Garden’s website here.

An incomplete archive of plantings

What was planted where and when by William, however, is difficult to ascertain. Although Bartram’s sold seeds and plants, “we don’t really have garden records from that time,” Joel shrugged as we chewed on some of the spinach miraculously still growing and plump despite a few frosts. “We don’t know if the records were thrown out when the family later lost the property, or if perhaps the Bartrams weren’t that good at keeping records in the first place.”

Personally, I find the latter easy to believe. John and William both seemed so enchanted by illustrating, collecting, exploring, and experimenting with plants and seeds, I can see them failing to write it all down at the end of a day’s digging. Their minds were likely their libraries and journals. Although Williams botanical illustrations are in some ways a series of singular plant records, like his study of Franklinia—a tree named for Franklin, and the garden’s signature tree.

A room inside the Bartram’s home. None of the furnishings are original either.

 

 

 

 

 

William Bartram’s illustration of the flower of the Franklinia Tree.

Visitors post-Revolution might also have seen a working cider mill along the banks. Again, the Bartrams papers have no record of it, although a reference to it appears in a letter from a visitor named Manasseh Cutler of Massachusetts. “[Bartram’s] cider-press is singular; the channel for the stone wheel to run in for grinding the apples is cut out of a solid rock; the bottom of the press is a solid rock, and has a square channel to carry off the juice, from which it is received into a stone reservoir or vat.”

Joel and my spouse, Ted, permitting me a photo for size perspective.

What Captivated Me Most in Bartram’s Garden

“What we’re doing is what William loved to do with visitors in the garden.” About half way through our tour—many stories in, the wind picking up, and much history shared—Joel smiled as he gazed across Bartram’s garden glittering with fall leaves. “We’re walking the paths and sharing ideas about the plants and other events of the time. It’s a chance to learn together.”

Nothing warmed my heart more on that cold November day. Thanks to Joel, in my next novel I expect you’ll find my protagonist Henry (along with other characters real and fictional) sharing ideas while wandering those same paths with William.

I urge you to visit Bartram’s Garden, and not just at the height of spring or summer, so hopefully you will be captured by this historic place, too. Just a 15-minute drive from Philadelphia, it’s a 50-acre respite for the city-weary soul Chasing Histories.

The view from the back of the house, with a new favorite vine—cup-and-saucer—gracing the left-hand edge of the walkway.

 

 

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The American Revolution and the Shawnee at Fort Pitt, This Week in 1776

The Shawnee, Colonel Morgan, and the Treaty of 1776

Take a read through pretty much any high school history textbook, and you’ll find what I initially did about the Shawnee in 1776. They, like all Native Americans, were supposedly choosing sides between the Colonists and the British. Take a visit to many museums, like the Fort Pitt museum, and you’ll see over-told tales of the Shawnee capturing white settlers. Clearly they do not know about Colonel Morgan, Gregory Schaaf, or the treaty of 1776.

ColonelGeorgeMorgan

Who was Colonel Morgan?

Colonel Morgan was the Indian Commissioner for the Colonies in 1776. He was also good friend to the Delaware, the Iroquois, and he spoke a multitude of languages—so endeared was he to the Indians, that they gave him  nicknames like “Council House” and “Brother Tamanend.” In the fall of 1776, he called a treaty of all Indian Nations to meet in Fort Pitt to discuss the issue at hand. Land.

Fort_Pitt,_1759_TreatyStanwix.jpg

The Native Americans Came to Fort Pitt in 1776 to Discuss Land Rights

The Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768 had drawn a dividing line down the middle of the land at Fort Pitt. The east belonged to the British and west of that line belonged to the Native Americans. When the colonists separated from Britain, that treaty went kaput, and the land was once again up for grabs. Additionally, the land hadn’t been yet surveyed that far west, so it wasn’t certain if Fort Pitt sat upon Pennsylvania or Virginia soil. And to make matters worse, George Washington himself was speculating on land—including about 1500 acres in and around Fort Pitt.

To the Shawnee, and many of the Indian nations, it was their sacred hunting ground. Just as it always had been. So over 650 Native Americans from more than six nations came to Fort Pitt to meet with Morgan, this last week of October, 1776. That included Netawatees, grandfather to the Delaware, who was nearing 100.

Netawatwees

How Do We Know The First American-Indian Treaty was in 1776?

We can thank both Colonel Morgan and Gregory Schaaf. Schaaf was working on a dissertation back in the 1980s. He was convinced that there was more to this October 1776 treaty than had previously been discovered. I had seen only one line about it, and I hunted, too. I found Gregory Schaaf, and Gregory Schaaf had been persistent. After knocking on the door of several of Morgan’s descendants, one of them called him to say… wait for it… “here’s a packet of letters and documents I came across in an old chest.”

It included a 73-page journal written by Colonel Morgan, the Indian Agent who had invited everyone to Fort Pitt. An article in People Magazine, described Schaaf’s find as “The Mother Load.”

It was to me, too. The treaty, and the results from it, were described by Morgan. Schaaf transcribed the journal, added his interpretations, and I used it and other sources to frame the facts of the treaty in my historical novel.

So, What Was the Result of the Treaty of 1776?

Keep in mind that treaties like this were often discussions, from which written appeals or pleas were developed. Not always were lines drawn, and land divided. In this case, the Shawnee, along with the Iroquois, the Munsee, the Delawares, the Mohicans, and other nations, drew up a request for Congress, submitting a plea they hoped would resonate with the men who had drafted the Declaration of Independence. The Indians asked for a right to political sovereignty, to religious freedom, and a fair piece or payment for their tribal hunting grounds.

And in exchange for agreeing to stay out of the “White Man’s War”—choosing the side of neither the colonists nor the British—the Native Americans asked for just three rights in exchange. Three little ideals they knew the colonists would find familiar:

“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

That puts our founding document in a new light now, doesn’t it? What a different world we would live in now if, back then, the ideals of one group had been expanded and designed to include the others.

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Reader Insights: To read more about the Treaty and what happened beyond 1776, stay tuned or pick up my novel, CARRYING INDEPENDENCE. I’m forever grateful to historians like Gregory Schaaf and Colin Calloway who helped me with my research, and who are striving to tell the Indian story faithfully in part by constantly seeking new information.

I think it’s also fair that Native Americans be given the opportunity and the means to tell their own stories. As such, a portion of the proceeds of my novel are being donated to the DAR American Indian Scholarship Fund. I hope you’ll donate, too.

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For more history nerd posts like these, subscribe to the blog. Guest posts are welcomed and encouraged. Contact me for details.

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Time Travelers Weekend

Free Admission to Richmond Area Historic Sites

For one weekend, September 21–22, folks in my town of Richmond, Virginia can travel back in time. In a biannual tradition, you can get a “passport” and wander through 19 of the area’s historic homes, museums, churches, and more for FREE.

Buckle up. It’s not too often you can travel with adventure through 400 years in one weekend, no time machine required. Talk about Chasing Histories! So which historic sites are included? The list is below.

St._John's_Church,_Richmond,_Va._(16216974043)

Participating sites

The list is long, and all are within an easy drive in the Richmond Region.

Agecroft Hall & Garden
The American Civil War Museum’s White House of the Confederacy
The Branch Museum of Architecture and Design
The Chesterfield Museum and Historic Jail
Chimborazo Medical Museum (Richmond National Battlefield Park)
Clark-Palmore House
Courtney Road Service Station
Dabbs House Museum
Deep Run Schoolhouse
Historic St. John’s Church
The John Marshall House
Magnolia Grange
The Edgar Allan Poe Museum
Maggie L. Walker National Historic Site
Maymont
Meadow Farm Museum at Crump Park
Virginia Randolph House
The Valentine and Wickham House
The Valentine First Freedom Center

Get your Passport

For more information, and to download your passport, visit the Valentine History’s Museum’s Website. Or call 804-649-0711 for more information.

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Revolutionary War Tunes

Songs from the 1776 Trenches

KarenAChase_Yankeedoodle_Sprit_of_'76.2
One of several versions of a scene by Archibald MacNeal Willard in the late nineteenth century, the painting came to be known as The Spirit of ’76.

 

Although many historians focus on the tune of Yankee Doodle, often referring to the image here as such, some Revolutionary War songs are far more free-spirited. Sung by soldiers, they were sometimes influenced by the men’s varied heritages. Case in point, the song, “Maggie Lauder.” It was known to be sung in the American trenches, but it originated in Scotland.

Francis Sempill of Beltrees, who lived from around 1616 to 1685, wrote the ditty, and then it had the added benefit of having an easy and completely memorable tune put with it. (Careful, as it will get stuck in your craw when you watch the below version by The Corries.)

The song also has the benefit of having one heck of a funny word in the first verse. Blatherskite. Though back when spelling wasn’t standardized, they spelled it bladderskate

Wha wadna be in love
Wi bonnie Maggie Lauder?
A piper met her gaun to Fife,
And spier’d what was’t they ca’d her:
Richt scornfully she answered him,
Begone, you hallanshakerl
Jog on your gate, you bladderskate!
My name is Maggie Lauder.

To call someone a blatherskite, is basically to say they are full of B.S. I truly love how Maggie shares her moniker with this bloke, the piper, while also putting him in his place by calling him names. Incidentally, if anyone has a definition—or a more modern spelling—of hallanshakerl, please let me know.

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Reader Insights: When you’re writing historical fiction, if you put too many period-appropriate words or phrases into dialogue, it can be clunky for readers. So, I use them sparingly. While I’m reserving blatherskite for my next novel, you’ll find I happily used the curse, blistering blackguards. You can read it within an excerpt with Captain Blythe on the Frontier from my novel, here.

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For more history nerd posts like these, subscribe to the blog. Guest posts are welcomed and encouraged. Contact me for details.

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A Million Daughters

The DAR Million Members Celebration

I am a DAR. As a Daughter of the American Revolution, I can prove my lineage back to a “patriot” who supported the Cause. This fall, I will become one DAR in a million.

Although the DAR currently has about 185,000 active members worldwide, at some point between now and November the DAR will welcome its one millionth member since the organization was founded in 1890. As this milestone comes, I know what such a celebration provides for the future.

What the DAR Millionth Member Means to Me

First, we’ll get to build on the DAR’s (and my) immense love of education and preservation. Scholarships, grants, and school support for boys and girls come from the DAR. Without the DAR, the Block House at Fort Pitt, PA and the Custom House at Yorktown, VA might not be standing. They are just two examples of historic places the women and chapters of our organization saved, own, and maintain.

Secondly, we are moving into the future as an inclusive organization. It is not religion, politics, or race that define who we are, and this openness fits with who I am. Gone is the privileged DAR featured in movies or shows like the Gilmore Girls. This new DAR is made up of welcoming career women, moms, students, and everyday women who are eager to contribute and get things done.

By comparison, the Sons of the American Revolution has about 35,000 active members. So make no mistake, it’s women getting it done. And soon, we’ll be a million strong.

If you think you might be a DAR, contact a local chapter (search here by zip code) and ask for the Registrar or Membership Chair. They’ll help you with an application. And check out our Facebook Page filled with Million Member Testimonials.

DAR_564

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Reader Insights: I became a DAR while researching my novel, CARRYING INDEPENDENCE. In my travels for research, I kept finding markers at historical sites and upon graves revitalized by DAR chapters. So in addition to researching the book, I researched my own lineage. Although I am Canadian, it was Jacob G. Klock of New York who I proved to be my ancestral patriot. Who is yours?

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For more history nerd posts like these, subscribe to the blog. Guest posts are welcomed and encouraged. Contact me for details.

For behind-the-scenes author-related news, giveaways, and to find out where I might be speaking near you, subscribe to my e-publication, CHASING HISTORIES.

 

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Revolutionary Food

City Tavern and Early American Food

From 1774 through 1776, a tavern in Philadelphia that had only been open a few years was the place where our founding fathers assembled after a day of debates. City Tavern, just a few blocks from the State House, was a spot where they could lift a pint, stay the night, and further discuss (or eavesdrop) on the issue of separation. It was also a place to taste dishes made from the game, fruits, and spices coming into the port city.

It still is.

CityTavernCookbook_KarenAChase

Recipes Recreated

Although City Tavern was destroyed by fire in the 1800s, the National Park Service rebuilt it completely because the original architectural plans existed as did the original footings. A dozen or so years ago, along came Walter Staib—a chef one could describe as obsessed with understanding the origins of 18th century food. In addition to a TV show called A Taste of History, Chef Staib developed a Colonial menu for the tavern.

Now, one can stroll into City Tavern just as folks did in 1776, and order numerous dishes off a lunch or dinner menu, including a chicken or turkey pot pie described as, “tender chunks of turkey, mushrooms, early peas, red potatoes, sherry cream sauce & flaky pastry crust,” and with a, “Pennsylvania Dutch egg noodle accompaniment.” I’ve eaten it. Oh my word. That gravy! This is my idea of Chasing History. (You can see the pot pie in the photo below.)

BenTJ_CityTavern_Food

One might also meet or dine with an actual founding father or two—it was a delightful conversation, Ben and T.J.—as I did while in Philly to see the live reading of the Declaration on July 8th. All of this is to say, that when it came to writing about the Revolution, having such a spot where I could experience the food was crucial to creating the era and setting. Food is universally how we humans experience a time and place.

Including Food in Fiction

I love it when books I read include food, so naturally, it’s in mine, too. I’m also in a book club that often chooses stories so we can try new recipes. This month, my own book club read Carrying Independence. (Yes, there was some trepidation—I’ve seen this group when they don’t like a book—but they were lovely.)

Thanks to Chef Staib’s recipe book and TV shows, and a few revolutionary food-inspired websites, we created a feast of salmon and corn cakes, an elegant salad platter of corn, tomatoes, and greens, asparagus, a succulent pot roast, apple galettes, and Shrewsbury cookies, among other things. Swoon is the word you’re looking for. (Thanks to Becky for the food shots.)

ShrewsburyCookies_KarenAChaseAppleGallettes_KarenAChase

Reader Insights: Chef Staib’s food and City Tavern are recreated within Carrying Independence. My characters meet, drink and dine in a back corner booth of City Tavern in Philadelphia (see photo), and the food and spices they experience are taken from my own in this same place. On my website I’ve included an excerpt—a full chapter—that takes place in City Tavern in that booth.

Now you can get a taste of the history behind Carrying Independence, too. Be sure to mop that gravy off your chin.

CityTavern_CornerBooth_KarenAChase

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For more history nerd posts like these, subscribe to the blog. Guest posts are welcomed and encouraged. Contact me for details.

For behind-the-scenes author-related news, giveaways, and to find out where I might be speaking near you, subscribe to my e-publication, CHASING HISTORIES.

 

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Why July 19th, 1776 Matters

An Engrossed Copy

As many readers now know, CARRYING INDEPENDENCE is about the importance of gathering signatures on a single copy of the Declaration of Independence. Today’s date was a significant moment in history that indicated to me that I could indeed write such a story.

July 19th, 1776, was the day the Continental Congress agreed to have one “engrossed” copy of the Declaration made. One readable, handwritten copy, signed by all. Why?

New York Finally Approved the Declaration

Ten days earlier, on July 9th, New York representatives finally agreed to the wording of the Declaration—the last of 13 states to do so. This mattered because their approval finally made the separation from Britain unanimous. But words are hollow without a contract everyone will sign.

Would you agree to move out of your home, while only verbally agreeing the guy moving in could take over? Nope. You’d ensure he came in and signed some papers assuming the mortgage, and absolving you of responsibility. You’d want all parties in agreement.

So did the Congress.

If you really want to see how we began, put down the Constitution and pick up the Declaration.

Signing_KarenAChase.jpg

So what? Why does this decision and day in history matter now?

In a country that too often operates divisively and viciously, we need to remember that this nation began by coming together. By compromising. By being optimistic in the face of grave danger and the real possibility that we might not stand a snowball’s chance of surviving the heat. We began by laying down our lives and our fortunes and our sacred honor for the sake of each other—no matter which colony or country we were born in.

If you really want to see how we began, put down the Constitution and pick up the Declaration. When you read it—actually study it— you’ll find that our country, with this document as evidence, was founded not upon seeking what was best for us individually.

Even with all its flaws, the Declaration was an agreement to collectively be better. And not just for Americans, but for and before “a candid world.”

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Reader Insider Note: I’ll admit it… not before this book had I really studied the Declaration. But with chapter 23 of CARRYING INDEPENDENCE, I wrote myself into a corner. George Wythe, the man who taught Jefferson, was to explain to Nathaniel, my protagonist, the reasoning behind the Declaration. Not the intent. The reasoning.

Of all my chapters and scenes, it took me the longest to write this one—days and days of researching the ideologies, reviewing academic interpretations, and studying the document itself. At times I wondered if I was smart enough to grasp and then convey the meaning of it all. And then I decided I would simply allow Wythe to explain it to me as if I were Nathaniel—a nonacademic, uncertain yet hopeful, resident now living in a foreign land.

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For more history nerd posts like these, subscribe to the blog. Guest posts are welcomed and encouraged. Contact me for details.

For behind-the-scenes author-related news, giveaways, and to find out where I might be speaking near you, subscribe to my e-publication, CHASING HISTORIES.

 

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Navigating Historic Maps

Geographic Time Travel

As a “popular historian” rather than a learned academic, I believe that part of my job is to explore some of the same sources that academics do, and then to bring them into today for the average person to explore with me. Case in point, historic maps.

David Rumsey Map Collection

Very early on an historian, Woody Holton, was gracious enough to have lunch with me to discuss my historical project. He shared numerous sources, including a gem of a website, the David Rumsey Map Historic Collection. It’s a digitized, catalogued historic collection, searchable by region, time period, mapmaker, and so much more. It was there I found late 18th century maps of Britain’s “Middle colonies”—what would become the middle United States. Some maps were so incredibly detailed and high-resolution that I could zoom into ferry landings where travelers would stop to cross on boats before bridges came into existence.

Making Historic Maps Relevant to Readers

While locating those ferry landings was like finding gold for a story in which a guy rides across the colonies in 1776, trying to write modern fiction around archaic maps—such that every day people now could recognize where my character might be—was like trying to dislodge that gold and contextually reposition it using a toothpick. It was tedious. I would pull up the historic map in one browser window, pull up Google maps in another, and flip between them. Or, that was what I had to do five years ago, before the collection added a new feature—the Georeferencer.

The Georeferencer Revolutionizes Map Exploration

The Georeferencer, now in version 4, according to the collection, “it allows you to overlay historic maps on modern maps or other historic maps. The overlaid maps reveal changes over time and enable map analysis and discovery.”  Now, my 1776 map is set precisely over the Google map, among others, and moving a simple toggle bar allows me to fade from the old map to a current day one.

I’ve taken these three screen captures of a 1776 cross section of the land in Pennsylvania featured in my novel. Nathaniel ventures into the Kittatiny Mountains to the west, his homeland is along the Saucony Creek in the middle upper Berks County, and he travels first to Philadelphia in the bottom right. The first image below is the original map, the second shows the overlay, and the bottom image is the modern Google map.

1776_1

1776_2

Screen Shot 2019-07-12 at 6.37.02 PM

You can pop open a new browser window and toggle the maps within the Georeferencer for the 1776 map shown above here.

Prepare to lose all track of time. Maps both of this whole wide world and those of the past are literally at your fingertips.

Reader Insider Note: I was so impressed by Rumsey’s map collection, and the changes that map-making has undergone since 1776, that it plays a small role in the novel for my protagonist. Nathaniel is often marking up old maps. It was during the early years of the Revolution that George Washington, among others, recognized the rebels were never going to win a war with antiquated maps made by the British. In 1777, Congress authorized a national geographic division to chart and draw the fledgling nation.

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