Free downloads of historical novels inspired by Upstate New York history

In this time of the corona virus epidemic when so many of us are confined to our homes, I wanted to make available free downloads of the Kindle version of five my novels. They are all appropriate for high school students as well as adults. Relying on Amazon guidelines, the books below will be available at no charge  for five days each from now into the middle of April. Each is closely based on the historical record of figures from our local history who were maligned and misunderstood in their own times.

March 22 to March 26, 2020

Neither Rebel Nor Tory is the story of Hanyost Schuyler who grew up near Little Falls, NY among the Mohawks and who was regarded as "feeble minded" by his white neighbors. His affinity with Mohawk culture allowed him single-handedly to cause the British and their allies to break off the siege of Fort Stanwix in 1777. The novel also features a close look at the Battle of Oriskany and the role played by Hanyost's uncle, Nicholas Herkimer.



March 27 to March 31, 2020

The River That Flows Both Ways is the story of Harmen van den Bogaert, the first European to visit the Mohawk heartland in the 17th century. An explorer and surgeon, he played a central role in building the relationship between the first people and the Dutch settlers at Fort Orange, now Albany.
Later, his same-sex relationship with his African slave Tobias came to the attention of the Calvinist Dutch authorities and he fled to refuge among the Mohawks, only later to perish in another escape attempt. His story is told in the voice of Matouac, a Mohican boy taken as a servant by Bogaert.




April 1 to April 5, 2020

Roxy Druse and the Murders of Herkimer  County is based on a notorious murder case which attracted national attention in 1880s. Roxy Druse was convicted and hung at Herkimer for killing and dismembering her husband on an isolated farm in Jordanville, NY. Although branded as "a female fiend" by the press, this novel paints a more sympathetic picture of Roxy Druse, told in the voice of an actual journalist of the time, W.H. Tippett. The volume also includes Tippett's own history of the Druse and many other murders in Herkimer County.



April 7-11

The True History of Joseph Smith is a re-telling of the life of the Mormon prophet through the eyes of his sister Sophronia. She is very devoted to him as a boy and, like the rest of the Smith family, is in awe of his cleverness. As he grows into adolescence, she learns to make excuses for each new act of fraud, or perhaps imagination, which he initiates. Although she tells her granddaughter, who is the audience for her narrative, that she completely believes all of her brother's stories about visions and angels and golden books, the very details she chooses lead to less generous interpretations.

Every character and incident is patterned closely on the historical record of the remarkable young man from Palmyra, New York.


April 12-16

The Red Nurse is a story of the 1912 textile strike in Little Falls, New York through the eyes of one of its leaders, the public health nurse M. Helen Schloss. The strike by the largely female workers burst out in response to wage cuts and soon drew in the leading radicals of the age. Mayor George Lunn of Schenectady led his socialists to support the women while Big Bill Haywood and Carlo Tresca came with the far more radical International Workers of the World. When the professional and male organizers were jailed, Helen Schloss and IWW organizer Matilda Rabinowitz led the strikers to an arbitrated vistory.

New edition of "The River That Flows Both Ways"

Now on amazon

The River That Flows Both Ways has been issued in a revised edition drawing on new research and correcting inconsistencies noted by readers in the 2008 edition. The novel centers on Harmen van den Bogaert, a nearly forgotten early Dutch explorer and surgeon who has recently been recognized as a gay martyr. In a 2015 Huffington Post article, Gay New Amsterdam: The Queer Case of Harmen van den Bogaert, Kim Dramer describes the historical record upon which I draw in this novel. And Ted O’Reilly, the head of the manuscript department at the NY Historical Society posted an interesting article in June: The Bad Fate of Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert. George O’Connor also published a well-received graphic novel on Harmen’s visit as the Mohawk villages: Journey into Mohawk Country.

My novel is told through the voice of Matouac, a young Mohican who comes to live with Harmen and his family after his own family was slaughtered by Mohawk raiders. The story is imagined as being transcribed by the Calvinist pastor, Johannes Megapolensis, who provides his own footnotes to quibble and critique the tale of the boy he views as a heathen. Many other historical figures from the Dutch settlement at Fort Orange (now Albany NY) appear, including Harmen’s wife Jelisje and his African slave, Tobias. Harmen’s downfall came when his relationship with Tobias was discovered, and they both fled to the more tolerant society of the Mohawks.  

    Navajo two-spirits

Although suppressed by Christian missionaries, indigenous tribes often made provision for same sex couples, whom many called “two-spirits.” The seventeenth century century Dutch, like other European countries of that era, provided the death penalty for the same behavior. The power differential between Harmen and his African slave certainly suggests to us today that the relationship was predatory. However, the historical fact is that Tobias fled with Harmen into Mohawk country, perhaps out of fear or dependence but also possibly out of genuine affection. Here is a brief excerpt from my book on their refuge with the original inhabitants of the Mohawk Valley:

    There were also two women living in the lodge. They dressed as men and cut their hair in a scalplock. They were seldom in the lodge and were usually out hunting with their bows.

    “I am happy here,” Harmen said to me. “These are good people and they do not say that Tobias and I are wicked or wrong. They say that they will teach me all their ceremonies and in the corn festival next year I will be made a member of their secret society.”

   “Will you be here that long?” I asked.

   “I want to stay here,” he said. “I will never return to the country of the whites.”

   “Is Tobias is happy here?” I asked him.

  “Yes,” he said, watching Tobias help one of the men-women stretch a deerskin over a framework made of branches. “The Mohawks do not look down on him because he has black skin. He can be a person here, as he could never be among the whites.”

    Realizing that Catharina was listening closely to our conversation, he added. “You, too, Catharina, can find a true home here. You will never be a slave again if you live with the Mohawks.”

   I knew that the Mohawks were capable of great cruelty and might easily turn on us as they had turned on Ondessonk. I never forgot my grandfather’s warning that they, even more than the whites, were the true enemies of my people. But for now, the Mohawks were our friends and we would be warm and have enough to eat as the winter deepened.

Ondessonk, to whom Matouac refers, meant "the indomitable one" and was what the Mohawks called Isaac Jogues, the Jesuit missionary and martyr. In the novel Matouac comes to know and admire him, and is present when he is killed at Ossernenon. 

The River That Flows Both Ways, 2017 edition is now available:

Amazon paperback   $14.95

Amazon Kindle          $1.99

Lulu Paperback        $14.95


For more on the historical sources of the novel see The Tale of Harmen Meyndertz van den Bogaert on this site.