In my novels, starting with Now I’m Found, which was set in 1848-50, I show steamboats traveling the Willamette River. Steamboats began plying the waters of the lower Willamette in 1850. However, the boats had to stop at the Willamette Falls in Oregon City, which were too high for boats […]
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Researching an Early Oregon Murder (Again)
My current work-in-progress has a murder in it. I won’t say any more than that in this post. As I have been writing this murder into my draft, however, I have gone back to research my ancestor’s murder in 1852 Oregon again. I’ve learned some facts that cast doubt on […]
Continue readingSmallpox Epidemic in Oregon: A Scene from NOW I’M FOUND
Here is a scene from Chapter 44 of my novel Now I’m Found, describing a smallpox epidemic that hit the Oregon City area in October 1849. The following Sunday morning William complained, “Mama, I’m hot.”Jenny felt his forehead—burning. O’Neil brought her a bucket of water, and she removed William’s shirt […]
Continue readingFirst Methodist Church in Oregon City—A Setting in My Novels
In my about-to-be-published novel, My Hope Secured, several scenes take place in or around the Methodist Church in Oregon City. This church was also a setting in one of my earlier novels, Now I’m Found. I imagine my characters in worship services, hearing marriage banns read (though the reading of banns […]
Continue readingEarly Roads and Railroads in Oregon in the 1850s
As I write my fourth historical novel about the West, I’m finding more and more things I need to research. Researching travel along the Oregon Trail itself was easy by comparison—all I needed to do was to decide on a route, describe the landmarks and the difficulties of daily life, […]
Continue readingWhat Happened in Oregon City in 1850-52? Researching My Work-in-Progress
My current work-in-progress takes place mostly in the Oregon City area, beginning in October 1850. I think the novel’s timeline will take me into 1852, but I don’t know for sure yet. When I did the research for Now I’m Found, which was set in Oregon and California between 1848 […]
Continue readingSchools in Oregon in the 1840s
In my novel Now I’m Found, Jenny, one of the lead characters in the book, opens a school for some of the children on surrounding farms. She holds the school in her cabin. It’s a one-room cabin, and she has benches built for the children to sit on. Her only […]
Continue readingElizabeth Markham: One Woman’s Perspective on the Oregon Trail and on Matrimony
I am surprised that in five years of writing this blog I have never written a post focused on women’s perspectives on leaving their homes and journeying west on the Oregon Trail. I’ve written about specific women—Narcissa Whitman, Jessie Benton Fremont, Elizabeth Dixon Smith, Keturah Belknap, and others—and quoted some […]
Continue readingNews of California Gold Decimates the Population of Oregon
Word of the Sutter’s Fort gold discovery reached Oregon in the summer of 1848. Oregon learned of the gold finds indirectly, not from travelers arriving straight from California. Ships from California came to Oregon after stopping in Hawaii that summer. They brought the news about the gold. In July 1848, […]
Continue readingThe Times, They’re Not A-Changin’
For those of you who want an update on my writing about the Oregon Trail, I just started delving into the first draft of my second novel in that series. Writers recognize this as a very dangerous point—will I hate every page or will I think it is all wonderful? […]
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