Weston Wagons West - Ep. U1 - Update One

As I write the seventh hub in this series, let's step back a moment to reflect on what has been shared, so far, and take a look ahead as to where we will be going.

In the Introduction Hub:

http://drbill-wml-smith.hubpages.com/hub/Weston-Wagons-West-Family-Saga-Historical-Fiction-Introduction

... we spoke of the first three Weston men to come to America: William Weston, James Weston, and Thomas Weston.

Each of these men came over to the colonies to start their lives in an American colony. They were the second, third and fourth sons in an affluent family, but knew they had little to look forward to in England. Their family supported them in their move, and prepared them well.

These Weston Wagons West (WWW) stories will now be grouped into four groups on HubPages, as well. One group will be for the Introduction and these occasional Updates. One will be for James Weston and his descendant's stories. One group will be for Thomas Weston and his descendant's stories. The final group, of course, will be for William Weston and his descendant's stories. I hope you find this useful, moving forward.

To the time of this writing, we have shared five hubs on James Weston and his family in Maryland. His son, Keith, was successful with his career, becoming friends and a horse supplier to Captain Richard Brightwell, Horse Soldier, and other prominent Maryland planters and politicians during the 1660s to 1680s near Poplar Hill plantation northwest of Benedict, off the Pautuxant River.

Research is already available for several more hubs in this series. The next stories continue to follow Keith and Richard as they begin and raise their families in central Maryland. Keith had a son, Delton, and a grandson, Theo, who will follow the Brightwell family and then the Kinnick family into the Revolutionary period in the colony.

A Family History Writing Challenge in which the author will be participating during the month of February may either help or delay progress with these stories. I will be writing about the Sergeant Major William Kinnick life and times in the Revolutionary War era. This is an ongoing non-fiction book project that has started and stopped over the last five years or so. Hopefully the Challenge will move it forward, and provide additional depth of research for use in WWW stories, as well! ;-)

As a change of pace, we will soon be sharing some stories based on Fred Weston, the great-grandson of Thomas, and his three sons, Charles, Truman, and Jacob, who were truly a part of the Westward Movement. You will see them in Ohio, Illinois, and in Missouri. They will interact both with some the author's ancestors as well as with other historical fiction characters of the author's The Homeplace Saga series of stories:

http://homeplaceseries.hubpages.com/

http://thehomeplaceseries.blogspot.com/

The stories will include: 1) the first Sheriff elected in a county in northwest Ohio following the War of 1812, 2) a young man leaving his home to go off on a “successful” career in the California Gold Fields, and 3) a fictional look at a small southern Missouri Ozarks community (modeled after actual towns of the period and region) during the upheaval of the Civil War (from the Founding of The Homeplace Saga) and the Reconstruction years that followed.

Some of the stories related to these episodes have already been written in another context and only need to be translated into the hub stories formats. Check back regularly to see how these stories unfold.

The stories of William and his family in the early founding of the Massachusetts colony are yet to be written but much of the research is done. Ancestors in New England, of course, have a rich history involving many well known family names as well as the many other important people who are less well know. The author's family includes both and weaving them into interesting and useful stories is a bit more of a challenge.

Among the notable names are Roger Conant, a founding governor of the Massachusetts Bay colony and the village of Salem (a few years before the Witch Trials). Conant is a ninth great-grandfather of the author. His statue in Salem, as the founder, stands near the Witch Trial Museum, in a town square.

Stories based in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, then, eventually Ohio and further west present some fun challenges that both the author, and you, the reader, can look forward to anxiously. A cousin has done extensive research on one of the lines in this storyline. How much of that research will be integrated and how it will be done is part of the fun and the challenge. Stay tuned to see how this works out.

I wanted to take this first opportunity to sit back and review our Weston Wagons West series of stories to date and look ahead a little bit so that you, my readers, can anticipate but also not be surprised when we begin to take some stories out of chronological order. This does not preclude going back in time to share stories that may appear to have been "skipped." It does allow me, as author of these stories, to keep them coming on a little more regular basis. Thanks for your interest, and your patience.

Hub readers are a faithful group and I want to thank you in advance for reading this series of stories. I will do my best to make them interesting, to make them plausible, and to make them as historically accurate as I am capable of doing. I look forward to receiving your feedback and meaningful comments on each story. I am using my real name on these stories and will reply to each comment, as I've noticed is common among the more prolific writers on this platform. As a retired university professor, I do have the time for this level of interaction and pledge that I will do so as long as I feel the comments are well intentioned - which I assume will be indefinitely. Thank you, again, for your support! ;-)