Frances Hunter

blog of the author To the Ends of the Earth

 

Frances Hunter's Journal
November 2006

November 29, 2006: Favorite PASTimes

Welcome Favorite PASTimes readers! We're so pleased to have you with us.(And for those who haven't seen our interview, check it out at the always-interesting Favorite PASTimes, a great blog for discovering and discussing historical fiction).

Big Bone Lick

Though we've made several trips to Kentucky to research Lewis & Clark matters, we haven't yet had the chance to visit Big Bone Lick. I'm determined to remedy this on my next visit.

Big Bone Lick is the site of an ancient salt lick and sulphur spring that, back in Pleistocene times, attracted animals to come partake of the salt. Many of these Ice Age creatures, notably mammoths, masotodons, and sloths, became mired in the swamp and died. The unique conditions at the lick preserved the bones. It's unknown what the Indians thought about this site other than as a good place to find buffalo hanging around the salt licks. But we do know that the first white explorers of Kentucky, coming along in the 1730s and '40s, were enthralled. They recognized the value of the site for science and sent small collections of bones to leading American scientists, including Benjamin Franklin.

The remoteness of the site and bloody wars with England and the Indians prevented much early excavation at Big Bone Lick. Nonetheless, the lick became the subject of an in-depth correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and George Rogers Clark. Clark was more than the "Hannibal of the West" who saved Kentucky and the Northwest for the Americans. He was also a talented self-educated natural scientist--and William Clark's revered big brother.

The first systematic attempt to dig at Big Bone came in 1796, at the end of the Indian wars for the Ohio territory. A young Army captain named William Henry Harrison was sent to Big Bone Lick and gathered some 31 hogsheads of fossils for shipment back to the East. Unfortunately, the riverboat on which Harrison dispatched the bones to Pittsburgh sank.

By 1803, Jefferson was president, and he asked Meriwether Lewis to stop and explore Big Bone Lick on his way down the Ohio River to begin the westward Expedition. Though much of the documentation has been lost, it is known that Lewis undertook a dig and sent bones back East. Once again, though, they were lost when the boat sank near Natchez, Mississippi.

It fell to William Clark to conduct the first really successful dig at Big Bone Lick in 1807, shortly after the return of the Lewis & Clark Expedition. President Jefferson funded the dig out of his own pocket, allowing Clark and Cincinnati physician Willliam Goforth to hire at least eight men and spend some weeks at the site. We know from Clark's letters that George Rogers Clark came along ("Bro. George got drunk," Clark notes wearily at one point), and it seems certain that Clark's slave York was also on hand. Clark assembled a wonderful collection of over 300 bones and teeth. It's known that Jefferson spread them out on a floor in one room of the Executive Mansion to study.

From what I gather, Big Bone Lick remains understudied even today. Besides Clark's dig, the only other major digs came in the 1860s and a century later in the 1960s. I'd love to go see the birthplace of American paleontology, another milestone of learning and achievement in which Lewis and Clark had a hand.

The Lewis and Clark in Boone County website has good information about Big Bone and L&C's role there. And check out this amazing painting by Charles Willson Peale of another mastodon dig, which gives you an idea of what was involved.

More info about Lewis & Clark at Big Bone Lick

More about Lewis and Clark and early paleontology

 

November 22, 2006: Moses Austin

One thing that ended up on the cutting room floor of this novel were some cameos of famous people whom Lewis and Clark would have met or known in old St. Louis or the Natchez Trace. Among them was Moses Austin. In 1809, Lewis and Clark would have known him as the "lead mine king" of old St. Louis. A few years later, Moses became a major figure in Texas history when he obtained an empresario grant to settle three hundred families in the Spanish territory of Texas. He died before he could get started, leaving his work to his son, Stephen F. Austin, to complete. The redoubtable younger Austin became "the father of Texas."

Though the Austin scenes didn't make it into the final book, his story turns out to be amazing in its own right. And it involves many of the characters from To the Ends of the Earth, including James Wilkinson and Frederick Bates, and many of the same themes found in the book.

Lead was a valuable metal in the early 19th century, used not only for bullets but as an ingredient in paint and pottery and in the construction of pipes, cisterns, gutters, and roofing. Moses Austin, known as "the Bostonian" for his heavy New England accent, had already made and lost a fortune in the lead mines of Virginia before starting all over in French Louisiana in 1797. A tough, hot-tempered, and occasionally violent man, Austin thrived in the rough atmosphere of the frontier. His fortress-like home near present-day Potosi, Missouri was even armed with cannons, which he used on at least one occasion to repel Osage attack.

By the time the Americans took over in 1803, Austin had became one of the richest men in the territory. The federal government enlisted the considerable persuasive powers of William Henry Harrison, the young governor of the nearby Indiana Territory, to persuade Austin to give up his heavy weaponry (Austin initially responded with a note to the effect, "Come and get 'em."). Austin was appointed to a judgeship as a reward for his cooperation and support of the new American government.

But while the Lead Mine King might have been won over by Harrison, such wasn't the case with the governor of his own Louisiana Territory -- who was none other than our old friend General James Wilkinson. That much became clear in 1805, when Wilkinson intervened in a heated land dispute between Austin and one John Smith T.

Smith T (the unusual initial stood for Tennessee) was a wildcat lead miner and one bad hombre to boot. Austin wanted to run Smith T out of the territory, and enlisted the help of Major Seth Hunt, the Army commandant of St. Genevieve, to do so. But Wilkinson overruled Hunt. Not only that, he cashiered the major from the Army, stripped Austin of his judgeship and awarded it to Smith T, and made Smith T the commander of the territorial militia.

With the hindsight of two centuries, it's clear that Wilkinson was frying bigger fish than Moses Austin. He had enlisted Smith T as a co-conspirator in his plot with Aaron Burr. But Austin had no way of knowing this. He naively insisted on an audience with Wilkinson to convince him of the wrongs being committed by Smith T. Ever the master of misdirection, Wilkinson threw the flabbergasted Austin out of his office, accusing Austin and Hunt of forming a cabal to get rid of him.

Fortunately for Austin, the Burr conspiracy broke wide open before Wilkinson could make any further moves against him. President Jefferson ordered Wilkinson to leave the governorship. The task of delivering the news fell to the newly reinstated Major Hunt, which must have given the major and his friend Austin at least a little satisfaction.

Smith T and another conspirator, Henry Dodge, had been away recruiting hired guns for the conspiracy. They returned to St. Louis to find warrants out for their arrest. The charge was treason. Dodge submitted to arrest, posted bail, and then horsewhipped the grand jurors who indicted him. Smith T wasn't such a softy. He vowed to kill anyone who tried to arrest him. Acting Governor Frederick Bates wasn't brave enough to throw Smith T in the calaboose, but he did remove Smith T from his judgeship and milita post "with as much abruptness as the decorums of such a measure would justify."

The region remained an armed camp that threatened to explode for some time. Bates wrote a letter to President Madison, telling him that "this flame will expire as soon as the fuel which feeds it is completely withdrawn." The fuel was General Wilkinson! Wilkinson finally left town on August 16, 1806.

So when Lewis and Clark got back from the Expedition on September 23, they returned home to a frontier buzzing with the news of treason and conspiracy.

More on Moses Austin can be found in Lead King, by James Alexander Gardner (1980) and "Connecticut Pioneers Founded Anglo-American Texas" in The Connecticut Magazine, July-September 1906.

November 16, 2006: Who Spilled the Burgoo?

While Americans today can be awfully wasteful with food, that wasn't the case for folks back in Lewis & Clark's day. When you had to grow, raise, hunt, or catch everything you ate, you tended to make use of every part.

Hence, each region of America had its methods of using up odds and ends of food. One of the best ways of doing this was to make a stew. New Englanders had beef stew and chowder, Louisianans had gumbo, and Southerners had Brunswick stew. William Clark, a Kentuckian, would have called his local version "burgoo."

Burgoo is a close relative of Brunswick stew, with the usual distinction being that Brunswick stew features shredded meat while burgoo uses chunks. I learned from The Burgoo Page that burgoo is not so much a recipe as a concept. It's heavily spiced and cooked outdoors over an open flame in enormous iron kettles. This cooking method is essential! Burgoo may contain any of the following meats:

mutton, beef, pork, chicken, veal, possum, or squirrel

along with veggies including but not limited to:

potatoes, corn, lima beans, tomatoes, or okra

Burgoo cook-offs occupy the same place in Kentucky as chili cookoffs here in Texas. I wonder if the Clarks had their own special recipe for burgoo. If they did, I'll bet it was good.

The Burgoo Page recommends good places in Kentucky to get some burgoo (I got some in Bardstown at the Old Talbott Tavern), and even includes great instructions (sadly obsolete) for transporting it home in your luggage in freezer bags.

Want to try it at home? Here is a recipe said to have been used at the White House when President Franklin D. Roosevelt expressed a desire to try some burgoo. Surprise your family with something different this Thanksgiving:

Elza Perry's Burgoo

25 lbs. beef
9 hens
14 cans (#2) corn -- Elza used cream-style
8 gallons of cabbage
8 gallons of tomatoes
8 gallons of carrots
1 bushel of potatoes (60 lbs.)
4 bunches of celery
3 gallons of onions
salt and pepper -- 4 T.
paprika
(Makes 50 gallons.)

For those of us who need more guidance, I found some instructions on the cooking. On the day of the feast, set your giant iron kettle over the fire and get the meat to simmering. Hie yourself to the garden and pick the veggies. Throw everything in and cook it until it's falling apart and done to oblivion. Serve with beer, iced tea, and hard crusty bread for dippin'.

November 10, 2006: Historical Novels Review Online

Check out our latest review!

This story begins in 1809 St. Louis, three years after Lewis and Clark finish their expedition to the Pacific coast. It is a time of heavy responsibility for Lewis, as governor of Upper Louisiana. Political intrigue and personal demons dog his heels as he tries to keep Clark free from the influence of evil men such as James Wilkinson. Lewis, in desperation, finally decides that he must take his beloved journals to Thomas Jefferson by way of the Natchez Trace. While it is true that Lewis died on the Natchez Trace, the author completely fictionalizes the particulars of the trip, yet makes her theory very plausible.

In this book, Hunter attempts to explain the mystery surrounding Lewis’s death in the wilderness, yet, the story is more than a whodunit. It is also an exploration of Lewis and Clark’s legendary friendship and Clark’s effort to save Lewis from a tortured fate. The story explores the personal tensions in these great men’s lives, the political tensions rocking the United States in that era, and recreates the raucous atmosphere of the early 1800s.

The author gets the feel of the era right, making her own judgments about the hot-headed Clark and the ravaged Lewis. The story is one for readers who love adventure, interesting settings, a little romance, blood and gore, and characters who live life largely. It is a page-turner until the end and leaves one yearning to know more about Lewis’s mental health and the first journey that Lewis and Clark so successfully took together. - Naomi Theye

November 2, 2006: Lewis & Clark, All-Americans?

I've started reading a very long and detailed book about American cultural history. Albion's Seed, by David Hackett Fischer, is all about the four major groups of Britons who settled America during the colonial period, creating distinct cultures in New England, the South, the Delaware valley, and the backcountry that still resonate today.

So far I've read the first part, about New England, and it is full of amazing insights about the Puritans and how they created an orderly community with strict adherence to hierarchy and a strong sense of obligation to the greater good. But enough about that. Let's talk about football!

Both baseball and football descend from English folk games first brought to America by the Puritans. First known as the "Boston game," football began as an annual event in English villages to mark a special day such as Christmas, New Year's Day, or Easter Monday. The village cobbler would make a handsome leather ball, and the town would divide up into two teams. Men and women, rich and poor, young and old, would cast aside their usual dignity (and even their clothes) and pile about the streets with riotous good cheer, trying to move the ball to the opposite end of town.

In New England, football become more organized and eventually moved out of its rough-and-tumble beginnings and developed elaborate rules. By Lewis & Clark's time, football contests between schools had become common.

Baseball, too, came out of an English folk game known as bittle-battle, which was very similar to modern baseball. Sometimes called "town ball" or "the New England game," it was played by men at Valley Forge in the terrible winter of 1778. College games were being held by the 1780s. Abner Doubleday codified one set of rules before 1840, which became the foundation of the modern game.

I wonder if Lewis and Clark ever played football or baseball. No mention of ball games is made in the journals, and dancing seems to have been the main recreation for the Corps of Discovery. Fischer notes that ball games were much less common in the southern states, where Lewis and Clark and most of the men originated. Too bad. The broad-shouldered captains certainly look like they would have been right at home on the gridiron.

Fischer notes that football and baseball bring a typical slice of early New England to American life. The games exemplify the combination of "order and action, reason and emotion, individuality and collective effort which was characteristic of Puritan culture."

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