Spanning Half of a Century by Zina Abbott

As I prepared to focus on my year-end reviews of my 2024 books, I realized my stories had covered a wide span of years. Only seven this year—I planned on the time off in the summer to heal from my full knee replacement surgery—yet I realized what I wrote required quite a bit of research in order to keep them true to the decades and locations in which they took place.

I did not write my books in chronological order. My book with the earliest calendar setting—1855-1858—was Wyatt’s New Bride. My book with the latest calendar setting—1896-1898—was Phoebe. Here are the book timeframe/calendar settings in chronological order:

Between 1850 and 1869, except for very short spurs of rails in Kansas as the Kansas Pacific Railway began to build its line starting in Kansas City, Kansas, there were no transcontinental rail lines between the Mississippi or Missouri Rivers and the Pacific states. All long distance travel was accomplished by steamship, steamboat, carriage, covered wagons (or other wagons), carriages, or horseback/mule teams.

Wyatt in Wyatt’s New Bride (1855-58) probably covered the longest distance when he traveled by steamship, steamboat, and stagecoach from Maine to Sonora, California. It is interesting that Tuolumne County attracted many gold prospectors from Maine and other New England states. When he sent for a bride, she traveled by riverboat, covered wagon, and local freight wagon from Michigan to Sonora, California. To find the book description and purchase options, please CLICK HERE

Lucy and her Aunt Caroline plus the other characters in Lucy (1863-1865) traveled by covered wagon from Lawrence, Kansas, to a foothill community between Placerville and Sly Park, California. The Genoa, Utah Territory, characters who met them in Atchison, Kansas, (Oregon and California Trail travelers stopped using Independence and St. Joseph, Missouri, at that time due to the Civil War) traveled east from Carson City by Stagecoach on the Overland and Central Overland Trails. To find the book description and purchase options, please CLICK HERE

In A Surprise for Christmas (1864-1867), what was left of the North Carolina household of Analia’s family traveled by carriage and steamboat to her aunt’s house in Baltimore, Maryland. A couple of years later, train travel was available as far as Topeka, which was in east Kansas, where Analia met the husband she married by proxy. That was just about the limit of where the Kansas Pacific Railway tracks reached at that time. To find the book description and purchase options, please CLICK HERE

 Starting after the end of the American Civil War, the effort to expand railroad service between the Missouri River west to California began in earnest. That was when the West opened up to many. Since men were the first to head to the West—some to escape the Civil War, some seeking opportunity, or both—the issue of their being a far greater proportion of men to women continued. The number of women who made arrangements to travel to the West seeking husbands and families increased. Although it still had its drawbacks, rail service made travel much quicker. Since train service did not go everywhere, there still was plenty of stagecoach, covered wagon, and steamboat travel.

 

In Florence’s Good Deed (1877), Florence travels from West Virginia to Wisconsin to meet her groom she met through letters, only to end up traveling back after he rejects her. In Columbus, she meets Ash, who was bound for New York. He had traveled by steamboat from Fort Benton, Montana Territory, before taking the train from St. Joseph, Missouri. They continue on the train together to allow Florence to perform what could be a dangerous good deed. To find the book description and purchase options, please CLICKHERE

Jocelyn’s Wedding Dilemma starts with a prologue in 1877 and ends in 1886. However, the bulk of the story takes place in 1881. She travels by buggy while still living in Columbus, Ohio. When she leaves to meet her groom, she travels by train. Too back her mother is following close behind. To find the book description and purchase options, please CLICK HERE

Lisbeth in Lemon Cookies by Lisbeth (1883-1884) is not a mail-order bride romance. Her father’s job with the Denver & Rio Grande Railway resulted in the family moving to Cleora, Colorado. However, my hero, Roy Hobart, is also an employee of the same railway—much of the time working track, then later part of the section crew based out of Gunnison, Colorado. He travels between his job and visits to his family—his cousin in Lisbeth’s brother-in-law. To find the book description and purchase options, please CLICK HERE

In the 1890s up until the end of the century, many of the travel conditions of the previous four decades still provided the means of transportation. However, there was a new development—the invention of the automobile.

In Phoebe (1896-1898), her love interest, Graham, embraces the future of the automobile to the point he is anxious to position himself to help finance the development of the oil industry in Oklahoma Territory and neighboring Indian Territory. Part of the conflict involves the attitudes of his father and Phoebe’s parents—both parties insisting they prefer to travel by train and in a well-sprung carriage. To find the book description and purchase options, please CLICK HERE

That is my writing year in review as far as place settings, and how my brides and grooms got from here to there, depending on the decade in which they lived. If you do not already receive my newsletter or follow me on BookBub, I would love for you to sign up to do so. Please click on the links below:

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I wish all a very happy and prosperous New Year. Happy 2025!

 

Maps and Research by Zina Abbott

 

One thing I find indispensable when it comes to writing historical novels is using maps for my research. I have developed quite an online collection as a result of my past almost ten years of writing. I’ll focus on a few maps I found helpful for my three books which are either published, or will be published, in the first half of 2024.

I write most of my novels—many of them in the mail-order bride category—primarily set in the 1860s through 1900s. The main mode of long-distance transportation at that time was the railroad. One map I use frequently enough that I keep it on my computer wallpaper shows the primary lines built up to the 1870s (just after the Trans-continental Railroad was completed), and the lines built between the 1870s and 1890s. I refer to it as part of my advance planning to make help determine if a connection between two or three points by rail is even feasible.

For two of my books, several scenes in each were set in Columbus, Ohio. Although not the West, I like to use it as one of the places from which my characters originally lived. I found a map with the major cities in Ohio helpful.

For my second book, my heroine was a secondary character in one of my earlier books. In the first book, although she appears in the scenes set in Columbus, I identified her destination as West Virginia. This year, with her as my main character, I needed to develop a backstory and location for the opening scene. I looked for cities that were connected by rail to Columbus during the decade my story was set. I settled on Huntington, West Virginia, which is across the Ohio River from the state of Ohio. This city was developed as a railroad terminal for a Virginia-based road so that freight could be carried across the river and continue on the myriad of rail lines available in Ohio. 

As a side note, Huntington, West Virginia, was named after the same Collis Potter Huntington who was one of the "Big Four" who financed the Central Pacific Railroad, the western portion of the Transcontinental Railroad. Once that project ended, he moved on to other railroads in the East.

For my Rejected Mail-Order Bride book, I needed a location farther west than West Virginia, but where the return trip after she is rejected will take her through Columbus. I looked for locations in Wisconsin. The issue I ran into was that, although Wisconsin still had a lot of wilderness areas, many towns were settled by the 1850s or earlier. If a settled area, there might not have been a big need for finding wives through correspondence. 

I searched until I found Marshfield, a town not developed until 1872 when the Wisconsin Central Railroad built a line to connect Chicago with Lake Superior. The railroad chose Marshfield to be a rail stop for taking on fuel and water, and the town developed from there. I love finding railroad maps like the one below.

 

Often, I go straight to Google Maps for one of two reasons. For one book, I knew the cities highlighted in the snippet, below, were close to each other. However, I had two soldiers being discharged from Fort Leavenworth, but who end up in St. Joseph. From there, they planned to board a train taking them east and north. I needed to know if the fort was north or south of St. Joseph. Also, I needed an idea of the approximate distance between the two locations.

For my last book, the opening scenes will take place in Lawrence, Kansas. This same map also gives me the locations and proportionate distances from other major cities.

 

In another instance, I looked up Columbus, Ohio, on Google Maps. I needed to know the names of the surrounding small towns. Once I identified them, from there I checked Wikipedia to see if the towns were in existence at the time of my story, and, if so, what their general status was. That was how I chose Franklinton, a town that is now a neighborhood of Columbus, no longer a separate town.

 

 

In one of my stories, I have my characters going all over the country. As my one hero, a former soldier, considers what sort of work he wishes to do now he is no longer in the U.S. Army, he ends up looking into the stagecoach run between Deadwood in the Black Hills of Dakota Territory. I looked for a map of the stagecoach route.

 

My third book is my covered wagon story, the third I have written for the Prairie Roses Collection. Each of my stories followed the one before. I started by gathering the maps for the major trails, like the one below, that I already had on file for the major trails.

Last year, when I began looking for maps that showed greater detail of the California Trail, one interesting source I stumbled across were the Triple-A maps. Along with current streets and features, several show some of the early trails. I used the one below for the section of the California Trail that took my characters to Carson City. That, combined with research of the physical characteristics of the landscape, helped me better describe the setting as the small train crossed the Forty Mile Desert and where exactly they finally reached the Carson River.

These are just a small sample of the maps I have searched for and keep on file to help flesh out the details of my books.

My first book published in 2024 was Jocelyn’s Wedding Dilemma, Book 2 in the series, The Matchmaker and the Mother-in-Law. I used the United State railroad map, plus the maps I have of Ohio and Colorado. 

Jocelyn’s Wedding Dilemma is now available for sale as an ebook and at no additional cost with a Kindle Unlimited subscription. To find the book description and purchase options, please CLICK HERE

My next publication will be Florence’s Good Deed, Book 6 in the Rejected Mail-Order Brides series. Again, I placed part of this story in Columbus, Ohio. Florence and Asher were introduced as secondary characters in my last year’s book, Elise. That was when I first became familiar with Columbus. Parts of this book took me to Huntington, West Virginia; Marshfield, Wisconsin; Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory; and Helena, Montana. I sought out maps for all locations, particularly the railroad maps I needed.

 Florence’s Good Deed is now on pre-order with a release date of April 15, 2024 (tax day). To find the book description and link, please CLICK HERE

My third book for which I have already started gathering maps is Lucy, Book 46 in the Prairie Roses Collection. This book takes me from Lawrence, Kansas, during the Civil War to California.

Lucy is now on pre-order with a release date of May 2, 2024 (yes, my writing schedule will be tight). To find the book description and link, 

please CLICK HERE