May Tea Party -- The Most Eligible Bachelor collection and The Lumberjacks' Ball

Martha Custis's house in Colonial Williamsburg

WELCOME to our May Tea Party!!!

We're gathering in the parlor of Martha Dandridge Custis's lovely home at Colonial Williamsburg. I'd never have noticed that this was her residence had not my friend, Mistress Cynthia Howerter, pointed it out on our recent visit. This fine home is located directly across the street from the historic 

Bruton Parish Episcopal Church. This house is NOT on the CW tours. But we are going to virtually hold our party here and the cook house out back has already been preparing a lovely tea for us!  While you are visiting you may want to take a Tour of Colonial Williamsburg!

Colonial Williamsburg postcards atop a CW paper bag.

One of our guests will take home this goody bag with Colonial Williamsburg postcards just for leaving a comment on the blog today.

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THE MOST ELIGIBLE BACHELOR

Romance Collection

9-in-1 Anthology

ISBN 978-1-63058-876-2
Barbour Publishing May 2015

A hero often has larger-than-life qualities and is the one for whom all the women set their cap. But some are unassuming and overlooked. Meet nine men from bygone days who have all the qualities of a true hero and who all the single ladies wish to court—though some are unassuming and overlooked until their worth is revealed. The socialite, the architect, the doctor, the masked vigilante, the missionary, the postmaster, archaeologist, the wealthy widower, and the heir can have their pick of brides, but which one will they choose?

Three CQ authors are in the same collection! Shannon McNear, Gina Welborn, and Gabrielle Meyer.

The Highwayman, by Shannon McNear

The collection's only colonial, The Highwayman, is set during the summer of 1774, on the eve of the American Revolution. Samuel Wheeler is an ordinary colonial wagonmaster by day, a masked vigilante by night. It started as a lark, but has gotten out of hand. He hardly sleeps, his secret identity has taken over his life, and the girl he loves barely notices him while his alter ego sets her aflutter.


Sally Brewster works hard at her parents’ inn, nestled in the lower Shenandoah Valley, along the Great Wagon Road that runs from Philadelphia down through the Carolinas. She pays little mind to the gossip about the mysterious highwayman who lately makes life difficult for the redcoats—until the night when the heroic figure saves her from brigands.

The Highwayman is the second colonial novella by Shannon McNear. Her first, Defending Truth, a 2014 RITA nominee, was part of A Pioneer Christmas Collection, first released September 2013. (The collection is up for a second edition in September 2015.)

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Four Brides and a Bachelor, by Gabrielle Meyer

In 1852, missionary Luke Longley travels a hundred and fifty miles down the Mississippi River to convince a stranger to marry him. When he arrives, there isn't one single female missionary, there are four, and all are eager to become his bride. He only has one week to choose, but can he pick the right one before time runs out?

Gabrielle Meyer lives in central Minnesota on the banks of the Mississippi River with her husband and four young children. As an employee of the Minnesota Historical Society, she fell in love with the rich history of her state and enjoys writing fictional stories inspired by real people and events. Gabrielle can be found at www.gabriellemeyer.com where she writes about her passion for history, Minnesota, and her faith.

Four Brides and a Bachelor is the first of two novellas Gabrielle will release with Barbour in 2015. The second, A Groom for Josette, releases July 1st.

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Baker's Dozen, by Gina Welborn

Twelve socialites vie to win the heart of a widowed shipping baron
who has his own fascination with the childhood friend-tuned-cook
who has aspirations of her own.

1910 / Autumn / Fort Worth, TX

Grieving widower Duke Baker needs to remarry. Thus his father invites twelve socialites from all over Texas to a weeklong house party in Fort Worth’s exclusive Quality Hill neighborhood. Duke doubts he’ll find a woman comparable to the wife he buried two years earlier, but his five-year-old daughter, Tabitha, needs a mother. Only Tabitha is more interested in hiding out in the kitchen with the cook than with helping Duke “connect” with any of the socialites. After four years of studying at Miss Farmer’s School of Cookery, Irie LaCroix is back home and wants to open her own cooking school. What she needs is financing. So when Duke’s father offers her a chance to prove her cooking and teaching skills to a dozen socialites, she jumps on the chance. She never anticipated a child re-awaking a past she’s tried to forget. Will Duke and Irie allow God to heal their brokenness and restore their hearts to love. (Click here to go to Gina's Pinterest page for Baker's Dozen.)

Gina Welborn is the author of eight inspirational romances, including an Amazon and an ECPA bestseller. After a decade in Virginia, she now lives in Oklahoma with her pastor husband, their five Okie-Hokie children, and a slew of pets.

Click here to purchase THE MOST ELIGIBLE BACHELOR ROMANCE COLLECTION on Amazon. Slide sy Christian Book Distributors and Barnes and Noble and the following:

Bookshout!

http://bit.ly/1QCxi1E

Gospel Bookstore

http://bit.ly/1oLTUmz

IndieBound

http://bit.ly/1KXZrwL

Parable

http://bit.ly/1J6tK5x

Vyrso

http://bit.ly/1PCKHEs

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Do a little time traveling with me to 1891 to the woods of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan!

The Lumberjacks' Ball by Carrie Fancett Pagels

The Lumberjacks' Ball, by Carrie Fancett Pagels.  Available in ebook and paperback on Amazon (click here). This is book two in The Christy Lumber Camp series.

The Lumberjacks' Ball Blurb

A decade after surviving a brutal attack, a mercantile owner’s daughter begins her life anew in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. A gifted craftsman wishes to leave the lumber camp and seeks employment at her new store. When his presence dredges up memories she wishes to suppress, the proprietress must learn to face her past and open her heart. When complications arise, will they overcome adversity in time for The Lumberjacks’ Ball?

Book One, The Fruitcake Challenge was a Family Fiction finalist for Book of the Year and is a Selah Award finalist! The winner of the Selah will be announced next week at Blue Ridge Mountain Christian Writers Conference in North Carolina! Very thrilling! Originally part of The Christmas Traditions series, The Fruitcake Challenge has a new cover.             


My three ebook novellas are all on sale for only 99 cents right now through Friday May 15th! So grab them now on Amazon!

I am giving away some wonderful hand-made soaps from The Feathered Nest (a company co-owned by my son's homeschool co-op drama teacher!) They'll be tucked inside a mini bag from Colonial Williamsburg (on the left).  Get your sweetheart to use the Bay Rum soap (mmm! Smells so good) and you try to sweet Spring Rain scent. All natural ingredients, e.g., olive oil.

Don't forget to come by the Facebook Page Party from 2-4:30.

Come in character here to the blog party if you wish! (We encourage it!!!)  And share your gowns on the Facebook page if you like!

Giveaways: 
See above PLUS:

Two paperback copies of The Most Eligible Bachelor Collection (USA only). (CFP: I have read these novellas and LOVED Gina's, Shannon's, and Gabrielle's stories!!!)

Winner's choice of Carrie's Lumber Camp series books, choice of format (international ebook only).

Please leave a comment below. For Carrie's giveaways please answer this question: Have you ever been to Michigan's beautiful Upper Peninsula? If so, what did you think? 

Come be seated for the Tea Party or walk around the nearby gardens and come back for your tea time! All manners of teas and lemonade served throughout the day and hearty food for our travelers--many of whom have had coach rides from far away. Martha's china is simply fabulous and should hold up well for our Southern biscuits and ham, Sally Lund with fresh butter and jam, pudding or custard, salat with fresh greens and more! And we have a small quartet playing music in the courtyard out back. Enjoy and mingle!

Handling oxen, colonial style

A team of ten pairs of oxen in Australia (Wikipedia)

 When developing the setting and details for The Highwayman, I had to decide whether my hero and his cousin made their trips up and down the Great Wagon Road with horses or oxen. Horses would have been an easy choice, since I practically grew up on horseback ... but silly me, I decided I wanted the challenge of researching oxen.

My standby research source, a Yahoo discussion group for all things 18^th century, turned up some unexpected and delightful resources. Who remembers Almanzo, from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Farmer Boy, training his pair of calves to be good oxen when they grew up? I was surprised to find that my memories of the process, gleaned years ago from that story, were fairly accurate.

What are oxen, you might ask? They are, by mere definition, working bovines. Not even any special breed, and either bulls or cows can be used, although bulls are usually castrated to make them easier to handle. Training begins early, with teams chosen as calves, handled and gentled so they grow into the calm, dependable, but powerful sources of energy.

Karel Dujardin, 1622–1678: A Smith Shoeing an Ox (Wiki)

It’s been fun over the years to meet various people who dedicate themselves to practicing various ancient life-skills, either for living history demonstrations or just for the personal satisfaction of keeping some dying knowledge alive a little longer. I knew many who work with teams of horses and wagons, but didn't realize so many focus on handling yoked oxen.

I'm indebted to several on the 18cLife Yahoo group who took the time to answer questions and point me to various online sources, but especially one gentleman, Bob Sherman of Charleston, SC, a historic interpreter at Middleton Place who works with many aspects of colonial agriculture and technical skills. He shared the following resources online:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul2PFDdeJ2k - a video on the basics of training oxen, from Rural Heritage

http://thefarmersmuseum.blogspot.com/2011/03/lippitt-farmstead-in-winter-new.html - scroll down for a photo of oxen in harness and yoke

http://www.history.org/Foundation/journal/Spring08/oxen_slideshow/ - various photos from Colonial Williamsburg

I also found this charming set of videos featuring working oxen in Ross, Nova Scotia: https://www.youtube.com/user/cooper68ns/videos ... scroll wayyy down past the personal farming stuff, which is also interesting. Especially check out "ox on road," featuring several yoked oxen taking a stroll, with their drovers, down a modern highway:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSqQ0XDvwws

Prairie Ox Drovers is another site I happened upon that might provide a good primer on working oxen.

Zebu oxen in Mumbai, India (Wikipedia)

Though treated as a quaint oddity in our country, oxen are still very much in use in many parts of the world. I'm so glad I took the time to research this fascinating method of colonial travel and freight hauling. I'd have missed learning some of the quirks and charms of working cattle--how they are less temperamental than horses, but still very attuned to the emotional state of their handlers. How they are such creatures of habit, some teams have been known to head for the barn a certain time of day with or without their handler, and pairs often insist on sharing a stall or at least being stabled next to each other.

Makes me almost want to go out and find my own pair to train and work!

Navigating the Great Wagon Road: William S. Alexander, Colonial Wagonmaster

The Most Eligible Bachelor Romance Collection

In less than two months, my second novella The Highwayman releases as part of Barbour’s Most Eligible Bachelor Romance Collection. This story stars Sam Wheeler, a young wagonmaster-turned-vigilante who finds his true courage when the girl he secretly loves is threatened by a local bully.

A good part of my inspiration for this character comes from the diary of real-life colonial wagonmaster William Alexander, who in the early years of the Revolutionary War, drove up and down what is known as the Great Wagon Road. This trail, originally used by native hunting and war parties, stretched southward from Philadelphia, down through Virginia into the Carolinas and, eventually, Georgia.

I was first introduced to young Master Alexander when researching for Defending Truth. The simple Word document containing the text from his diary, dated 1776-78, was at first glance some mighty dry, dull reading, lacking proper punctuation and full of spelling errors (as we know modern spelling):

First page of Alexander's diary, UNC Archives

Memorandom

Be it remember’ed; to call at fredrick town Docter Thompsons- at york town Dutch Doctors 100 yd. North west the court house – at Lancaster Docter Adams left hand side the street west from the court house)  Henry Sluber Apothecary North the court house

Memorandom of things to fetch for the family –

• Blue Sagathy for one Suit of clothes
• 1-piece-of-4 Lb.-Linnen

      3 pair of Silver Buckles

• 1 raim good writeing paper
• 1 doz. Linen handkerchiefs
• White persian red lining      )

                                                        )      Bonnets

• Black tafoty with trimmings)

• 1 yd. Cambrick-
• ½ yd. Lawn.

      2 Calf Skins

• 1 check Silk hank [torn]

Map of the Great Road as drawn by Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson

The more I read, however, the easier it was to see past the spelling and punctuation issues, and the more I realized I could glean about colonial living and culture on several levels:  what people bought, what they imported and exported up and down the colonies, what monetary payments they used, how long travel took by wagon, what sort of things might delay travel, how long they might stay in a given place, and why. What a young man in his twenties thought of life, the universe, and everything, and how he liked to spend his spare time. I found it especially amusing to note William Alexander's reference, in the middle of an otherwise spare account of one journey north, to a "pretty young Virginia woman" who ran the ferry on the Yadkin River.

Curiosity about the wider history of the man himself led me via online search to scanned pages of the original Alexander diary, and this bit:

One volume, a diary of about 130 small pages, kept by William Sample Alexander (d. 1826), of Mecklenburg Co., N. C., 1770-1778. [Other accounts say the diary only covers 1776-78.] Alexander was the son of Hezekiah Alexander (1728-1801), a prominent settler of Mecklenburg County. William Sample Alexander operated a wagon train between Mecklenburg County and Chester Co., Pennsylvania. The diary provides a partial description of his wagon train journeys and includes a record of accounts which he maintained with friends and family members, as well as descriptions of a few “home remedies.”

The first substantive entries in William Sample Alexander’s diary are from 1774, when he left Mecklenburg County on a trip northward.Philadelphia and Charleston served as Mecklenburg County’s main trading centers, and traders such as William Sample Alexander traveled to these centers quite frequently by wagon train. Alexander operated a wagon train to the Philadelphia area, and one author reports that he “would haul the pelts and produce of the farms and forests to Philadelphia and would bring back all sorts of goods ordered by the ladies and men of the community.” [Victor C. King, Comp. and Ed., Lives and Times of the 27 Signers of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence of May 20, 1775: Pioneers Extraordinary (Charlotte: Anderson Press, 1956).]

I was able to find out exactly how old William was during the time he kept the diary, make a decent guess as to whether or not he was married yet (one source says no, but then another source says he and his first wife married in 1770), what rank he held in the local militia (and which one he served in), even a nickname and a fair guess as to his activities during the latter part of the Revolution. It was also fun to find connections to Augusta County, Virginia, where much of The Highwayman is set, and a transcript of his will.

I'm indebted to his diary to help me figure out not only the route my character Sam Wheeler and his cousin Jed might take, but what distance they might cover on a good day and what sorts of issues they might run into. Tracing the actual journey from Charlotte, North Carolina, up to Philadelphia proved fascinating as well, and the discovery that Thomas Jefferson's father Peter helped draft the earlier map of Virginia, above.