A (Vermont) Romance of the Revolution: DEAREST BLOOD by Jessie Haas

Ready to detach from the politics of the moment, to celebrate the American Revolution? Although the big national festivities will blossom next year, when we reach 250 years from the Declaration of Independence, this past April marked a quarter century from the Battles of Lexington and Concord. In many ways the push for independence was already "old" by 1775, with initial historical moments coming in 1763 (end of war with the French) and 1765 (protests begin).

Vermont author Jessie Haas, an expert in the history of the Vermont towns of Westminster and Westminster West, provides an exciting, enjoyable, and yes, romantic way to step into the flow of revolution in her newly self-published novel DEAREST BLOOD. (I bet some traditional publishers are hating that they missed out on this!) Cleverly, she positions her 250-page tale on the very edge of the young adult/adult reading line: Fifteen-year-old Fanny Montresor is the daughter -- well, that's complicated, because neither of her parents in Westminster is her birth parent -- but let's keep this simple for now and say that, as the townspeople see her, she is the daughter of a British-loyal civil servant whose wealth is mostly in land, and a lovely and skilled mother who's even more loyal to The Crown. In a town and state on the verge of armed rebellion, that's not a helpful heritage. And it's a shock to Fanny when her mother prescribes marriage to a man of means, locally, as a way to keep Fanny safe in the likely dangerous times ahead.

But there's little time for Fanny to seek other options: "War was normal in America, and left its long trail of debris and grief." Whether battling Abenaquis or the French or pestilence, Fanny's seen enough to believe her mother's insistence that an arranged marriage is suddenly a must.

Armed conflict breaks out far sooner than either expects, and surrounds Fanny's home; she witnesses the death of a young man her own age, and there's ample reason to fear she and her mother could be attacked soon. Her discoveries quickly shatter her worldview, even bringing her toward the rebel cause in her own reasoning.

Haas is a seasoned author, noted for both her often horse-focused children's and adult fiction, and her dedicated historical research that bore fruit in her 2011 book Revolutionary Westminster. Scene by exciting scene, she draws Fanny into deeper understanding of what freedom and liberty might mean, personal and national. Sharp-eyed readers will spot the potential romance that will become a force in the second half of the novel, which jumps to the year 1783, when the Treaty of Paris affirmed America's liberation and (more or less) safety. 

But it is also a time of grief for Fanny, who's endured multiple large losses in the meantime. Returning to Westminster with her mother, she visits the grave of the man she saw killed, and here is the source of the book's title -- on his marker stone, "For Liberty and his Countrys Good / he Lost his Life his Dearest blood." Fanny reflects, "His dearest blood. In my mind's eye I saw that dark smudge on [friend] Isaac's handkerchief. The lump in my throat grew."

How Fanny will resolve her compromises and take agency in her own life becomes a delightful background to a much happier situation than an arranged marriage "for safety." The sweetness and cleverness of the remaining plot -- based on real people and events -- make this novel of the American Revolution into a swift and uplifting read. 

And that, in short, is why historians like Haas sometimes bring their deep knowledge around the corner to a fictional approach. Lucky readers: Those who love American history, Vermont history, historical fiction, and a true-life romance can all savor this book. Do you know a dreamer who's paying attention to friendship and maybe the scary edge of current events, and wish you could draw that person's eye to what this nation has achieved in the past? Here's a great gift, then. Order two copies, because you'll want to hold onto your own. 

DEAREST BLOOD can be ordered by bookstores, or online; read more about the author and her other publications at her website, https://www.jessiehaas.com.

PS: Watch for family names of people who settled much of Vermont; Haas writes that her "work of fiction" is "closely based on historical people and events." Maybe you will spot some relatives or familiar neighbors among the names. I did! 

Historical Erasure: Far From New!

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Westminster_Town_Hall.jpg

Earlier this week I shared some resources for parts of New England history that are often buried in the rush to "explain" who we are and what has happened. In this season of thinking about the early battles of the American Revolution, 250 years ago, I've been mulling over that sharply uncomfortable phrase, "History is written by the victors."

According to Slate.com, although the line is often attributed to Winston Churchill, it has earlier and maybe more authentic roots. Remember my mention of the Battle of Culloden in Scotland, with a survivor who came to my part of Vermont and has an extensive tribute on his burial stone? Check this out: 

"One biographer’s description of the 1746 Battle of Culloden in Scotland laments that we will never know how many members of his subject’s clan died on the battlefield, because 'it is the victor who writes the history and counts the dead.'"

That's what Matthew Phelan wrote at slate.com (https://slate.com/culture/2019/11/history-is-written-by-the-victors-quote-origin.html).

As we work hard to sort out the most credible parts of each day's global news now, this second example from Phelan may be equally important: 

"Two years later, the saying was in use in United States. In 1891, Missouri Sen. George Graham Vest, a former congressman for the Confederacy who was still at that late date an advocate for the rights of states to secede, used the phrase in a speech, reprinted by the Kansas City Gazette and other papers on the next day, Aug. 21, 1891. 'In all revolutions the vanquished are the ones who are guilty of treason, even by the historians,' Vest said, 'for history is written by the victors and framed according to the prejudices and bias existing on their side.'"  (https://slate.com/culture/2019/11/history-is-written-by-the-victors-quote-origin.html)

The next post here will be, accordingly, an invitation into a newly published novel of the American Revolution, by Vermont's own Jesse Haas and set in Westminster, Vermont. 

Preserving and Reconnecting With Our History

Time chugs along -- I will soon mark 50 years of living in my adopted state among the Green Mountains and the many rivers. When I first arrived here, people still liked to say Vermont had more cows than people. It probably wasn't quite true then, and it's definitely not so today. But still, with about six hundred thousand people making up the entire state, there's an illusion that a person can learn and catch up with the intimate details of its history.

That's sort a a fun-house mirror effect, maybe because we don't see many people around us (not counting life in Burlington, our big city). If you know the name of each person you talk with in the grocery store, and standing in line to check out refreshes your memory of recent losses among them, well, it's easy to think you can know most of what there is to know about Vermont.

Nope.

The town where I first began delving into Vermont's history, Barnet, is a dozen miles from where I now live. I left Barnet in 2002, but I'm still learning from my explorations there. The church, the beach, the back roads I walked as I adjusted to single parenting, the school where my sons developed their determination and their desire to mingle with other cultures and travel far and wide -- all those are "mine" even though I don't live there any longer. 

But it was the cemeteries that adjusted my sense of America, and of time, of history. On the hillside halfway between the church and the dairy barn where I shoveled sawdust every Sunday for more than a year, my favorite of the town's handful of burying grounds shelters the stone markers of many a Scottish settler who farmed here in the 1800s and even earlier. Although many people call it "the West Barnet cemetery," its other name is the Stuart Cemetery. Among the Scottish immigrants buried in it, there lies Claudius "Cloud" Stuart, also spelled Stewart. I am still amazed to find that Claud Stuart fought in Scotland's Battle of Culloden in 1746 with the supporters of Bonnie Prince Charlie.

Alas, not all of Vermont's history has been so proudly or clearly preserved. Its vanishing is called "historical erasure" -- and today a number of organizations and individuals work to undue that erasing. One I appreciate is called Atlantic Black Box, and features the work of both professional historians and grass-roots sorts. It asks: "Why have we been telling certain stories about New England and not others? How did we come to unknow the region’s deep complicity in the institution of slavery and systems of oppression?" 

I connect with those questions because I've found details of both enslavers and enslaved in the Northeast Kingdom, yet we "don't talk about that" very much ... maybe because it embarrasses us?  But Atlantic Black Box is geared mostly to the New England coast,

 To counter historical erasure in our area, grass-roots historians work with the actual Census pages of the 1800s, to see who lived where and did what. My historical fiction is crammed with details gained in this way. Another resource is the Northeast Slavery Records Index (NESRI), which has a searchable database that includes Vermont. Nola Forbes, a retired teacher and ardent historian in our area, also recommends these: DAR has this database Patriots of Color, and this a research guide for Forgotten Patriots (Black Americans & American Indians).

 Try one out. See who you find. Share your discoveries, if you like.

It takes all of us to preserve our history, and to make sure we know what is "real."