Release Day: Gold Rush Bride Tegan

Release Day: Gold Rush Bride Tegan

Thanks to everyone who pre-ordered Gold Rush Bride Tegan. I had fun writing her story. She is the granddaughter of Hannah and daughter of Caroline (Books 1 and 2 in the series). Exploring this trio of women has been fascinating. In many ways similar - tenacious, bold, and adventuresome, they are also quite different, dealing with insecurities and issues of their own.

I read lots of diaries and memoirs of women who were part of the various gold rushes, and for this book, the Alaskan gold rush in particular. We often romanticize history, and there may have been some glamour in leaving everything behind to travel to a distant location and seek one's fortune. But the reality was more often than not harsh with injury, disease, danger, hunger, cold, bankruptcy, and failure. Some of the women followed fathers, husbands, or brothers. A small number went on their own, to the dismay of most of the men.

I hope you enjoy this peek into America's history. Here's the blurb:

She’s out to prove herself. He’s only looking for adventure. Neither one realizes they’ll find more than gold “in them thar hills.” 

 

Tegan Llewellyn has always been different than her adopted family, except Grandmother Hannah, a prospector during the 1829 Georgia gold rush. Now, seventy years later there are reports of gold in Nome, and the opportunity is too good to pass up. But Tegan doesn’t count on the dangers that strike from the moment she steps off the steamer, including the threat of losing her heart. 

Elijah Hunter has prospected for gold all over the US and Canada and likes being on the move. The last thing he expects to find on his latest search is a lady miner who proves to be nothing but trouble. Can he convince her that leaving is for her own good before it’s too late...for both of them? 

Gold Rush Bride Tegan is part of the exciting multi-author Gold Rush Brides series set in 19th century America. First, there was Hannah, then Caroline, and now Tegan. If you enjoy clean romances with a taste of intrigue, you’re sure to enjoy this series of books. You might even catch some gold fever of your own.

Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3gqoFvj

Traveling Tuesday: Steaming to Nome

Traveling Tuesday: Steaming to Nome 

“At 3 o’clock this morning, the steamship Portland, from St. Michaels for Seattle, passed up [Puget] sound with more than a ton of gold onboard and 68 passengers.” 

July 17, 1897, Seattle Post-Intelligencer 

Three days prior to when they article ran, the SS Excelsior arrived in San Francisco with over $500,000 worth of gold. These two reports prompted an immediate stampede to Nome, Alaska by thousands of men and women to seek their fortune. The percentage of those who “struck it rich” was small, with merchants, suppliers, and service providers often earning more than the miners. 

 

Before they could dig for gold, the miners had to find a way to the gold fields. The land route was long and treacherous. Travelers on this course had the choice of carrying several hundred tons of foods and necessities with them or purchasing the items at exorbitant rates upon their arrival. Most prospectors elected to make the trip via steamship, either from San Francisco or Seattle. 

 

Between July and December, over 8,000 people steamed north out of Washington. Even more flocked from San Francisco. Alaska Steamship Company (1 ship) and Pacific Coast Steamship (4 ships) soon faced heavy competition as more shipping companies created routes to ferry passengers to Nome. The existing companies as well as the new companies scrambled to find ships to send to Alaska. Fares plunged by mid-April as the contest to entice miners continued. 

The aforementioned SS Portland was constructed at Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine in 1895 and originally christened Haytian Republic. Before its illustrious voyage to deliver nearly one million dollars worth of gold to Seattle, the vessel was a known opium runner and Chinese smuggler. Another ship, the SS Hassler was renamed Clara Nevada and ran service between Seattle, Skagway, and Dyea with room for one hundred first-class passengers, one hundred in steerage, and three hundred tons of freight. Unfortunately, the ship completed only one round trip before becoming victim to one of the worst gold rush marine disasters when she struck an unchartered rock near Eldred Rock and sank with no survivors. 

 

As the rush continued, reports indicate it became difficult to secure passage as evidenced by another Seattle-Intelligencer article (January 1, 1901) that told about Sarah A. Menagh who paid $100 for a first-class ticket and ended up using a bathtub as her stateroom. According to the essay, she was thrown out of the tub by a “sudden jar” and sustained injuries that confined her to bed for twenty-five days. She sued the owners of the ship for damages of $1,896. It is unclear if she won her case. 

_____________________

Gold Rush Bride Tegan

She’s out to prove herself. He’s only looking for adventure. Neither one realizes they’ll find more than gold “in them thar hills.” 

Tegan Llewellyn has always been different than her adopted family, except Grandmother Hannah, a prospector during the 1829 Georgia gold rush. Now, seventy years later there are reports of gold in Nome, and the opportunity is too good to pass up. But Tegan doesn’t count on the dangers that strike from the moment she steps off the steamer, including the threat of losing her heart. 

Elijah Hunter has prospected for gold all over the US and Canada and likes being on the move. The last thing he expects to find on his latest search is a lady miner who proves to be nothing but trouble. Can he convince her that leaving is for her own good before it’s too late...for both of them?

Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3H6cT42

Traveling Tuesday: Nome, Alaska

Traveling Tuesday: Nome, Alaska 

Fifty years after the California gold rush, prospectors flocked to Nome, Alaska for one of the biggest rushes in the far north of North America. The Klondike or Yukon is also often referred to as an Alaskan rush, but in reality, that rush occurred in Canada. 

Nome is located on the southern Seward Peninsula coast on the Norton Sound of the Bering Sea. The city has a subarctic climate, experiencing long, very cold winters, and short, cool summers. Because of its location on the coast, the seasons are somewhat moderated and less severe than in the interior. The coldest month is January, averaging five degrees Fahrenheit. Average high temperatures remain under freezing from late October until late April. July is the warmest month with average temperatures in the low fifties Fahrenheit and rarely reaching eighty degrees. 

Home to the Inupiat natives for several millennia, the area was quickly overrun by thousands of gold seekers from all over the United States. The rush is said to have started as a result of the discovery made by “Three Lucky Swedes” in Anvil Creek in September 1898. (Technically, one of the “Swedes” was Norwegian, but with the amount of money he was making, he didn’t refute the nickname.) 

 

By the following summer, gold was found in the beach sands for dozens of miles along the Nome coast

bringing even more prospectors. Gold seekers only needed a shovel and a sluice box to mine the copious nuggets from the gritty shoreline. Reports about the ease of extracting gold attracted women and the less hearty to the Alaskan goldfields. The spring of 1900 saw even more people pour into the area aboard steamships from Seattle and San Francisco. Word reached as far as Australia, and it wasn’t long before a schooner set sail from the continent. Additional mining was done in the creeks, however, the process was slow and cold. A layer of permafrost lies just below the surface, requiring equipment to thaw the ground and suck up the gravel. 

 

With the amount of wealth coming from the area, it’s not surprising that corruption reared its head. In 1900, North Dakota politician Alexander McKenzie managed to secure appointments for his hand-picked candidates for a federal judge, federal district attorney, and other positions. He then traveled to Nome where crooked Judge Arthur Noyes took mines and claims from their rightful owners and appointed McKenzie as the receiver to operate the mines. The closed court of appeals was in San Francisco, a two- to three-week voyage by boat, but the owners made the trek. 

 

After several months, the appeals court reversed Noyes’s decisions and ordered McKenzie to return the gold he’d received. However, the politician refused and continued removing gold from the mines. The claim-jumping scheme was finally stopped when the court had him arrested, them found him guilty of contempt of court. He was sentenced to one year in jail, of which he served three months. President William McKinley pardoned him in May, 1901. 

 

Most of the gold had played out by the end of summer 1909, and the prospectors trickled away. The 1910 census reported only 2,600 residents, down from the 20,000 that had called the area home for the prior decade. Fire and storms over the subsequent years destroyed most of the rush-era buildings.

 

Intrigued? Immerse yourself in the Gold Rush Bride series, a multi-author collection of stories about the U.S. and Canadian gold rushes in the 19th and early 20th centuries. 

About Gold Rush Bride Hannah, Book 1:

 

A brand-new widow, she doesn’t need another man in her life. He’s not looking for a wife. But when danger thrusts them together, will they change their minds...and hearts? 

 

Hannah Lauman’s husband has been murdered, but rather than grief, she feels...relief. She decides to remain in Georgia to work their gold claim, but a series of incidents makes it clear someone wants her gone...dead or alive. Is a chance at being a woman of means and independence worth risking her life?

 

Jess Vogel never breaks a promise, so when he receives a letter from a former platoon mate about being in danger, he drops everything to help his old friend. Unfortunately, he arrives just in time for the funeral. Can he convince the man’s widow he’s there for her protection not for her money?

Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3H1YVBn