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!

 

Where Was Long Gulch? by Zina Abbott

 For my most recent book, I set the story in today's Tuolumne City. At the time the major scenes in my book took place, it was known as Summersville. Here is what the historical marker about Summersville has to say:

Tuolumne (formerly called Summersville)

 Geographical center of the East Belt Placer Gold Rush, 1857-58, first white settlers, the Franklin Summers family, arrived in 1854, and built log cabin half mile west. James Blakely, in 1858, discovered first quartz lode, half mile east, naming it "Eureka", which mine became nucleus of town of "Summersville", later called "Carters'" and finally "Tuolumne".  Other towns lively in gold rush days were Long Gulch, two miles south and Cherokee, two miles north.

Snippet of 1879 Tuolumne County Mining Map

I can look at a map and tell where Cherokee is. It is still in existence, although it has been reduced to more of a neighborhood village. Tuolumne City, although a small community, is still thriving. Where was Long Gulch? 

Even on the 1879 map of the mines in the region, there is no indication of a mining area or town two miles south of what was then Summersville.

My clue came from a booklet compiled and printed by the members of the Tuolumne City Memorial Museum.

One of the earliest mining camps was located in Long Gulch which runs down a gentle water course and flows into the Tuolumne River. The area is located east of Apple Colony Road close to the end of the paved road. The first trading store was run from a tent at that location by Charles Carter in 1857.

This area was worked by panning, hydraulic mining and some hard rock mining. Water for the hydraulic mining was delivered by the Eureka Ditch which brought water from the Stanislaus River in the early 1860’s. This ditch is still in service, bringing water for agriculture and households in Tuolumne City. The cement base for an ore processing plant can be seen from the paved Mt. Eaton Road.

This map shows a ditch. It appears to break off of Turnback (aka Turn Back) Creek, which passes close to the Eureka Mine. I also marked a road which, in 1879, led to newer mines across the North Fork of the Tuolumne River. Could this same road have led to Long Gulch?

Terrain map of Tuolumne City and environs courtesy of Google Maps

Here is a current terrain  map of the area several miles south of Tuolumne City, its boundaries edged in pink. It is important to keep in mind that the city's boundaries have grown over time. However, the approximate two-mile distance to a gulch that might have been fed by water could be one of two places. Both are characterized by having a stream of water running through it (possibly seasonal unless fed by the Eureka Ditch) and it had a lot of rock, some of which was gold-bearing quartz. Here are my two guesses. 

Terrain map courtesy of Google Maps

 One is to the north side of the North Fork of the Tuolumne River, just south of the northerly "hump" in the river, and south of where Hunter Creek (Big Canón on older maps) flows into the river.

Terrain map courtesy of Google Maps

 

The other is also on the north side of the North Fork of the Tuolumne River, farther south of where Hunter Creek (Big Canón on older maps) flows into the river and not too far north of where the North Fork joins the Tuolumne River.

Either way, this "mining town," which passed from history once everyone there packed up and moved near the Eureka Mine shortly after its discovery of gold, played a significant role in the East Belt mining history of Tuolumne County.

My latest release, Wyatt's New Bride, takes place while there are still miners working their claims in Long Gulch. To find the book description and purchase options, please CLICK HERE

 

 

Sources: 

California Centennial Commission, base provided by Tuolumne City Progressive Association, dedicat4d October 24, 1948.

Excerpts from Gold Mining in Tuolumne’s East Belt. Tuolumne City Memorial Museum, Tuolumne, California, pages 3-5

Google Maps