Writing historical fiction: Of sailing ships and contracts . . .

I'm reading Isaac Cowie's very useful memoir, The Company of Adventurers: A Narrative of Seven Years in the Service of the Hudson's Bay Company during 1867-1874.  Not historical fiction. Not set in 1842 as my story, Rivers of Stone is. But a fascinating read for background close to the time of my story.

So far I've learned:

--The Prince Rupert, a three-masted sailing ship called a barque, had an iron-plated bow and oak-sheath at the waterline so that she could sail the icy waters of the Arctic.
--The captains of Hudson Bay Company ships ignored the fur-trading missionaries who sailed in smaller ships, seeing them as competition and close to pirates.
--All the foods taken aboard, from prime beef, to live pigs and sheep and chickens, and drink (rum, beer, wines, to brandy), would be distributed by rank. Those who ate very well in the cabin with the captain were teased that this was the last "civilized food" they would get. Once ashore in the wilderness of York Factory and upper Canada, their fare would be "bear and blubber, fish without bread or salt or vegetables in times of plenty, and leather and lichen off the rocks in time of want" (Cowie 77). 
--Those who signed the five-year contract as laborers slept in steerage and could lose all their pay if they did not work as assigned, with no promise of room or board, which included working aboard the ship. These laborers were recruited from all over northern Scotland and received half a year's pay before boarding. 
--The laborers recruited for the York Factory included blacksmiths, a boatbuilder, and a cooper along with a group of 24 very hardy young men who had been vetted by their parish minister and a local doctor. Apprentice clerks most likely were related to someone already employed by the Company.

There is also the matter of ice. Just how much ice did the Prince Rupert encounter as it sailed from Stromness in the Orkney Islands, past Greenland to Davis Strait and Hudson Strait near Baffin Island on its way to Hudson's Bay in August of 1842? This photo was taken in Davis Strait on September 3, 2014.

Towering Remnants of an Arched Iceberg 6 Davis Strait Canada
Photo by Ngaire Hart Lawson (Flickr)

The challenge ahead will be to continue research and decide how these facts affect my characters in Rivers of Stone. 

Dougal McDonnell, an Orkneyman, joined the Hudson's Bay Company because he dreamed of owning his own land one day, far from the capricious landowner who evicted his family, along with traditional farmers and fishermen, to replace them with sheep. 

Catriona disguised herself as a boy to travel to the wilds of Upper Canada with Dougal, her husband.

Both will be tested in a world they could barely imagine, but one I hope to bring to life.

On the hunt for water . . .

In Years of Stone, two characters gather by a water pump.

But were there water pumps in common use in Hobart Town in the 1840s?

I've read newspaper reports that linked yellow fever to standing water in Hobart Town at this time. But I can't find anything about how the average person got water home. In a bucket from a town well? From a nearby stream? That necessarily would be polluted because of the numbers of people living in Hobart Town at that time.Where would 'honey buckets' be dumped? How did people do their laundry? Go to the bathroom? Find water for cooking? Wash their hands?

What I've found so far:

William Buelow Gould
(Source: Wikipedia)

• Lynn Coleman's "Historical Tidbits" focuses on the 19th Century and makes fascinating reading.
• A wonderful guest blog by award-winning Gary Schanbacher (author, Crossing Purgatory), on the difference between a historical novel and a novel set in a historical time on Reading the Past (more about this below).
• A commitment to reading other novels set in Van Diemen's Land. I now have Australian writer Richard Flanagan's Gould's Book of Fish on my to-read pile. Surely I shall find water somewhere in this book that has accolades and awards, including the book itself being recognized by UNESCO as a document of world significance. 

Finally, got the idea to search for water in the National Library of Australia's TROVE, a searchable database of digitized newspapers (and other reference materials).

First step: need to find the right key words, so 1840 + water brought ship movements, postings seeking persons who would carry people by boat, a continuing report on ships arriving at the Brisbane Water (I'm guessing from several entries, including birth announcements, that this is a neighborhood); the establishment of water police, and laments about the scarcity of water in Sydney.

Narrow search terms: trying again with 1840 + water + Van Diemen's Land: Found Legislative Council in June 1840 on the search for 'pure water' in Hobart Town and Port, common punishments of 'bread and water'. 

Nothing retrieved from 'clean water' or 'potable water' but 'drinking water' found this fascinating tidbit set near Melbourne, but still interesting for showing problems related to drinking water.

"In January, 1844, the baths on the Yarra, opposite the Customs House were opened. Quaint by-laws appear in the council's books - to prohibit bathing in the Yarra in the portion whence the town's drinking water was dawn; 'to rid the town of the nuisance of the mangy (sic) dogs which follow in the Train of the Aborigines'; and to 'prevent the carting of Rubbish, Filth, and Dead Animals from one part of the town to another.' " (Source: "Melbourne's First Mayor": The Argus, Melbourne, Vic. 1848 - 1957) 7 Jan 1933: 6. Web. 21 Jul 2013 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4518153>.

The articles found in this thread show a compelling concern over "clean and wholesome" drinking water.

At a certain point, perhaps I should just rewrite the scene in Years of Stone so that my two characters are doing something other than drawing water from a pump or a well or a nearby stream. But this gets me back to Schanbacher's essay: What is realistic for this time? Even in such a small detail, what are the authentic concerns of my characters, especially given the outbreak of yellow fever?

Aha! Back to TROVE with new research terms!

Oh, dear. I found a horrible little story, reported in the Victorian-based Portland Guardian, in January 1901, and based on a telegram from Paris. Apparently a Madam Bobin, traveling by steamer from Senegal to Panillac, died of yellow fever. But the nurse expressed doubts that this was the cause of her death, based on her observations of the body. The family had the body exhumed to discover an infant in the coffin, and that Madam Bobin died of asphyxiation.  A grim little tale I never would have found if not for this search for water.

So back to 'yellow fever' as the search term. . . . 

If you write historical fiction, how do you track down those elusive bits?

A gift . . .and a story of a young girl captured by the Sioux

Mary Schwandt, about 1862
Source: Find-A-Grave

I have been given a gift. Books. Doc Metcalf generously lent me eleven books dealing with the history of the Pacific Northwest around the period that I'm studying -- the 1840s.

What a treat. I'm reading the shortest first so I can return them reasonably efficiently. The slimmest book (about 30 pages) revealed the story of Mary Schwandt, who was captured by the Sioux in 1862 in Wisconsin.

OK, that's not the Pacific Northwest and the time period is a little past my period, but her memoir gives a fascinating glimpse of what happened between native communities and the settlers in the wilds of Wisconsin.

Mary Schwandt was a restless 14-year-old who persuaded her family to let her go out to work as a girl-of-all-work at a different settlement. Shortly after she left home, the Sioux went on a rampage. Her family (except for her younger brother) was killed, and she was taken captive.

After reading her story, I'm thinking about her reactions -- after she was rescued. First, would she have been hounded for information about all the details of her capture. She did testify before several commissions beginning in 1863 and was persuaded to write down her recollections in a very short memoir. But, her memoir glosses over exactly what happened before Snana's grandmother 'purchased' Mary with a pony. Her horror at seeing people she knew simply killed in front of her, the death of one of the other women she had worked with come through clearly. Whispers would have followed her everywhere that people knew of her history. Yet she married, had children and lived in Chicago for many years.

The death of Mary Anderson, a young Swedish girl who worked with Mary Schwandt, is told matter-of-factly. Mary Anderson had been shot in the back, the ball 'lodging itself near her groin'. Mary Schwandt says some shot passed through her own dress and reveals the homely details of what the captives did to ease the young woman's passing. As if Mary writes these smaller details, we do not have to read about the anguish of the girl's suffering or consider what she thought. That deeper horror of watching someone die, fearful every moment, unable to do more than the simplest of palliative care, is revealed most simply. The women feared their captors and couldn't understand those few who later seemed to accept and enjoy their new living conditions. Was that really how Mary felt? Yet she was rescued/returned to the soldiers in under a year.

Snana (Maggie), about 1860
Source: http://www.usdakotawar.org/

Snana's even briefer recollections were also included. She tells of being raised as a Christian and having nearly four years of education at a native school. Snana, whose name means 'ringing sound', also known as Maggie, could speak English, read in a book of prayer, and considered herself "a white Christian lady." At 23, she lost her seven-year-old daughter and asked her uncles to bring her a replacement if they could when they went on the war hunt. She reveals this casually, as if such adoptions were common. For some in the native community, Mary was never accepted.

Snana protected Mary, even though, as she says, Mary was much larger than expected. Snana treated Mary as if she were a daughter, dressing her in native attire, not allowing her to travel out by herself anywhere in camp, and hiding her when animosity arose against the whites.

Snana and Mary, about 1894
Source: http://www.usdakotawar.org/

She also mentions that when Mary was rescued, the two did not meet again for many years until she visited them in 1894 in St. Paul, where Snana felt as if she had been treated with respect. A very formal picture remains of this visit, both women posed stiffly, facing the camera, Snana standing, Mary sitting, perhaps because of the conventions of the photograph at that time. Their hands are nearly touching in this photo.

Snana says she felt as if she visited family. Mary wrote in her memoir: "“I want you to know that the little captive German girl you so often befriended and shielded from harm loves you still for your kindness and care.”

These memoirs, short as they are, suggest that the white community was pretty much unaware they had done anything wrong. They were taking the land of the natives. Once a white family settled and built a farm holding with the government's permission, they considered the land theirs. The nearby natives were considered petty nuisances -- until they 'broke out' and went on a rampage. I'm less sure what the natives thought.

Two additional people of interest are mentioned: Joseph Campbell, a half-breed prisoner (of the Sioux? Mary's account doesn't say), helped Mary with the burial of the Swedish Mary. Godfry, a black man, drove one of the wagons when Mary was taken to the native camps. It's not clear if Godfry was 'freed' by the natives or if he was part of the tribe, though when Mary asked him where they were going, Godfry replies he didn't know but they were looking out for "our women". Mary describes him as wearing a string of watches around his waist, and as a 'wretch' who later lived at the Santee Agency in Nebraska, but this is understandable IF he was one with the natives. Though I wonder how she knew this.

WHERE I AM NOW: Even if I'm currently working the revisions for Years of Stone, I at least can begin reading for the next book in the series, Rivers of Stone. At this point, I have more questions about the story set in the Pacific Northwest than answers, but that's the beauty of writing historical fiction.

Here's my working bibliography from Doc Metcalf's books:

Applegate, Jesse A. [1811-1888] A Day with the Cow Column in 1843. Ye Galleon Press, 1990.

Chief Joseph's Own Story. Ye Galleon Press, 1984.

Clayson, Edward. Historical Narratives of Puget Sound, Hood's Canal, 1865-1885. Ye Galleon Press, 1998. 

Dall, William H. A Critical Review of Bering's First Expedition, 1725-30. Ye Galleon Press, 2000.

Dowmen, Lula Laney. Covered Wagon Days in the Palouse Country. Ye Galleon Press, 1999.

Highberg, Kathryn Treffrey Highberg. Orchard Prairie: The First Hundred Years 1879-1979. Ye Galleon Press, 1998.

Lenox, Edward Henry. Overland to Oregon. Ye Galleon Press, 1993.

Sager, Catherine. The Whitman Massacre of 1847: Catherine, Elizabeth & Matilda Sager. Ye Galleon Press, 1981.

The Captivity of Mary Schwandt, Ye Galleon Press, 1999.

The Overland Journals of William and Charles Frush. Ye Galleon Press, 2000.

Ware, Joseph E. The Emigrants' Guide to California: 1849. Ye Galleon Press, 1999.

Ye Galleon Press, now discontinued, Fairfield, Washington. I know only a little about Glen Adams, a man who retired as postmaster of Fairfield in June 1972. By 1998, Ye Galleon Press had printed 697 different titles (from letter to Dr. Metcalf dated June 9, 1998). At least now I have the books sorted and can begin to read. What a lovely trove of goodies here!  

And here are the new books (actually second-hand), I found at the bookstore:

Johansen, Doirothy O. Empire of the Columbia: A History of the Pacific Northwest. 2^nd ed.  New York: Harper & Row, 1967.

Malin, Edward. Totem Poles of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Portland: Timber Press, 1994.

North, Dick. The Lost Patrol. Anchorage: Alaska Northwest Publishing, 1978. This book is set in 1911 and tells of the search by Royal North-West Mounted Police from Dawson City in the Yukon Territory to Fort McPherson.

Palmer, Joel. Journal of Travels: Over the Oregon Trail in 1845. Portland: Oregon Historical Society, 1993.