Fiction, memoir, travel & essays
The random discovery of an 1866 survey map allows a historical novelist to better reconstruct the frontier town of Greenwood (Elk, CA) along the Mendocino Coast. Continue Reading →
When lumber mills first began sprouting up along the 19th century Mendocino coast, Native Americans were still a constant presence. Many indigenous place names were adopted by settlers and remain with us to this day. Others have faded into obscurity. We know, for instance, that the area now known as Mendocino village was originally called Bool-Dam or Buldam by subgroups of the Northern Pomo. Bool-Dam meant “big holes” and referred to the blowholes on the Mendocino headlands. Early maps created after California statehood refer to Big River as Bool-Dam River. Continue Reading →
At the peak of Lorenzo White’s success his holdings stretched from Oakland to Fort Bragg. He owned stores, ranches, sawmills, hotels, ferries, saloons, restaurants, real estate, a fleet of ships, and several logging railroads. He commanded the attention of powerful politicians statewide and held sway over four California counties. White’s ambition at times seemed limitless and was the driving force in amassing a considerable fortune. So what can we conclude about L. E. White from this jumbled legacy he’s left us? Was he a mean spirited, ruthless villain and thief or a generous benefactor, a savvy businessman, a civic leader, and an all around stand up guy? Continue Reading →
![Sketch of Lumber Schooner [Public domain]](https://i0.wp.com/keith-skinner.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/LumberSchooner-e1453311604684.jpg?resize=754%2C400&ssl=1)
In the mid-nineteenth century, the sawmills and lumber towns of Mendocino County were isolated from the more settled places that lined San Francisco Bay. The lack of roads, the ungainly North Coast mountains, and the abundant rivers and streams made overland travel difficult and dangerous. Lumber schooners provided the only viable conduit between frontier towns and the civilized world. It was a ship, in fact, that triggered the lumber boom along the redwood coast. Continue Reading →
One of the biggest challenges in writing historical fiction is managing the facts. Sometimes those facts are inconveniently arranged. Other times, there is a paucity of information. The former requires careful structuring of the story. The latter, however, presents a perfect opportunity for the historical novelist to exercise a little freedom in shaping the story. To illustrate this point, we’ll look at two real people who appear in my story, how I used reliable facts, and how I invented history for the gaps or stitched seemingly unrelated facts together. Continue Reading →
![Drawing of the New York Knickerbockers baseball team during a practice session by Homer Davenport [Public domain]](https://i0.wp.com/keith-skinner.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Knickerbocker_practice.jpg?resize=465%2C400&ssl=1)
An author asks himself, “What if a transplanted Easterner taught loggers in 1850s California how to play baseball? Would that be an anachronism?” As it turns out, no. Thanks to Alexander Cartwright, the game of base-ball, a refined form of the older game town ball, spread across the American prairie to California and beyond during the great California Gold Rush. Continue Reading →
The idea for a historical novel set in 19th century Mendocino County first came to me in the small town of Albion, California. I was spending a weekend in an old converted water tower and reading about William Richardson’s first lumber mill in Albion. Three years later, after extensive research that has led me as far afield as Saint Louis, Nicaragua, Baltimore, New Orleans, and Hong Kong, I am halfway through the second draft of the story. In that time, my eyes have been opened repeatedly to the breadth of the saga I’m attempting to write. Continue Reading →
![Sharps Rifle Photo: Thuringius (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://i0.wp.com/keith-skinner.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/640px-Sharps_falling_block_action.jpg?resize=640%2C400&ssl=1)
Why would loggers carry guns? They worked in small crews alone in the forested mountains of Mendocino County. At the time, the area was crawling with black bear, grizzly bear, wolves, and mountain lions, not to mention bands of indigenous Pomos who, even by the early 1850s, still scuffled from time to time with settlers intruding on their territory. So what firearm were they likely to keep handy? Continue Reading →
![Whitman in 1875 by Thomas Dewing [Public domain]](https://i0.wp.com/keith-skinner.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/459px-Thomas_Wilmer_Dewing_-_Walt_Whitman_-_1875-e1429045016370.jpg?resize=307%2C400&ssl=1)
Though Whitman may never have “[Faced] west, from California’s shores,” as he trumpeted in one California poem, his opening stanzas resounded with authenticity. I expected the rest of the poem to be a testament to the grace and beauty of the redwood-covered hills and a condemnation of the jack-screw men intent on plundering ancient natural resources. Then I reached the line which read, “not of the past only, but of the future.” Uh-oh. Continue Reading →
Even by the mid-1850s, trouble was brewing for people of color in California. There were frequent skirmishes between settlers and the local Pomo communities. Chivalry Democrats, who were pro-slavery Southern sympathizers, passed California’s own version of the Fugitive Slave Act and, by 1870, would take aim at the large Chinese population with the Chinese Exclusion Act. White workers were up in arms that jobs were allegedly going to the people of color who would work harder, longer, and for lower wages. Given that social and political backdrop, it is remarkable that Nathaniel Smith not only survived but seems to have thrived. Continue Reading →