-
Though there are many biographies of the great Shawnee chief Tecumseh (1768-1813), this effort by historical novelist Allan W. Eckert may spark new interest — and controversy — with its "hidden dialogue" technique. After more than 25 years of research, the author felt free to recreate Tecumseh's conversations and thoughts in what proves to be an entertaining blend of fact and fiction. The orator and organizer's life was shaped by his tribe's tragic confrontation with westward-moving whites, who encroached on Native American lands along the Ohio River valley. His long struggle against this dispossession led Tecumseh to create a historic confederacy of tribes, but this crowning achievement was destroyed by his own brother at Tippecanoe in 1811. SOFTCOVER By Allan Eckert -
In the year 1771, a white boy named Marmaduke Van Swearingen was captured by the Shawnee Indians in what is now West Virginia, but was then the edge of the American frontier. Impressed with his bravery, he was not killed but instead was taken to Ohio where he was adopted into the tribe and given the name Blue Jacket, from the blue shirt he was wearing at the time of his capture. Eckert has taken all of the known facts of Blue Jacket's life and has woven them into a narrative of compelling interest, with a very different perspective on the way America was settled. The reader will learn what life was really like on the dangerous frontier wilderness that was West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio before the Revolutionary War. By Allan Eckert -
Oliver Elliott “Zeke” Stayner grew up during the Great Depression and returned to Peebles, Ohio, after serving in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II. Zeke wed his hometown sweetheart, became a small-business owner, and began a family, settling into the post-war American milieu, well on his way to a happily-ever-after life. That changed in a flash on the night of the Monday after Thanksgiving, 1949, when Zeke, characteristically on a mission of mercy, was brutally slain. It’s from this event that the book draws its title, with the poignant image of a wife looking for her husband, not yet knowing what she would find, on a dark, frigid, rainy night that served as both reality and metaphor. SOFTBACK By Robert E. Hawkins -
Sale!
"Nothing is impossible to a determined woman."
This quote by Louisa May Alcot adorns a beautiful tote bag available at the Jesse Stuart Foundation. This large, 100 percent cotton bag is more than 16 inches deep, and it will handle books, bottles, groceries, mail and anything else you choose to carry. The bag normally retails for $35.00. You can purchase it for $28.00 on this website. It will make a meaningful gift to the "determined woman" in your life. -
Growing Up in the Last Small Town: A West Virginia Memoir is a humorous and poignant account of Bob Barnett, a bad student and undersized athlete coming of age in the 1950’s, but it is also the story of all of us who grew up in small towns across America between 1940 and 1960. It was a time of simple pleasures that included shedding winter coats on the first day of spring, playing baseball until dark, watching four-hour children’s matinees on Saturday, and breaking plates in the town dump, our favorite playground. It was a time when we wrote term papers, ate fish sandwiches at the Fireman’s Carnival, cheered our high school teams, and lived for soak hops and dances –a time when getting the right date for the prom was more important than the election of the president. The story is set in the unincorporated pottery town of Newell, West Virginia and captures the rhythm of life in small towns that we thought would never change. But change came quickly. Television became a staple of modern life in the 1950s offering Elvis, the evening news, and a vivid view of our changing world. School consolidations robbed the towns of their souls, supermarkets eliminated the need for corner grocery stores, and the closing of mills and factories brought an end to small towns as we knew them. The generation whose story is told in this book grew up in the last small town in America. SOFTBACK By Bob Barnett -
Originally published in 1934, this book was so successful that the first printing of the first edition sold out in less than a month! Man With a Bull-Tongue Plow is a collection of sonnets that Stuart weaves into a personal narrative describing the rural Kentucky life and events he knew so well. Packed with emotion, and sometimes harsh observations, the poetry in this book comes from the heart of a young man who was always full of enthusiasm. At this stage of his life, Jesse Stuart was bursting with pure expression and had not yet learned to polish his poetry in an effort to make it more palatable to a broader audience and Interestingly, that's exactly what made this volume so popular. It was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and selected as both One of the 100 Best Books in America and One of the1000 Great Books of the World. An introduction by John H. Spurlock adds context and insight to Stuart's writing. HARDCOVER By Jesse Stuart -
The Ohio River, a principal route for pioneers pushing westward along its 981-mile course from Pennsylvania through Kentucky and Indiana to Illinois, was the scene of fierce battles among warring Indian tribes, Shawnee, Miami, Cherokee, Iroquois, etc., and between Native Americans and white settlers. Tapping journals, letters, diaries and government memoranda from 1768 to 1799, and fleshing out his panoramic chronicle with reconstructed dialogue adapted from primary sources, historian-novelist Eckert has fashioned an epic narrative history of the struggle for dominance of the Ohio River Valley that makes compelling reading. The lives of notable pioneer families (Zanes, Bradys, Wetzels), incursions of traders, explorers, colonists, adventurers and the historic exploits of George Washington, Daniel Boone, George Rogers Clark and others intersect. SOFTBACK By Allan Eckert -
Winning of the West: Book 1 This riveting book may well be the most historically accurate and detailed telling of the 1846-47 Donner-Reed Party's traumatic journey to California. Of the hundreds of wagon trains traveling west, only the Donner Party left an indelible imprint on our national imagination, the wagon trains fame sealed by its terrible fate. Eckert's masterful telling brings alive the Donner Party's 88 members and the fates of the eleven families and numerous single men who risked all, of whom just 51 survived. He enriches the compelling tale with vivid descriptions of the colorful characters, both in the party and among those they met: mountain men, native peoples both hostile and helpful, and more. This poignant and dramatic account provides a rigorously accurate and comprehensive telling of one of America's great pioneer sagas. SIGNED HARDBACK By Allan Eckert -
Jesse Stuart Junior Book By Jesse Stuart -
Written and created by Joan Litteral, Angel: A Donkey's Tale is a full color, fully illustrated children's book. Illustrations by Evan and Joe Kovach. HARDBACK VERSION Joan Litteral -
In her Introduction, Glennis Stuart Liles provides some historical background on Greenup and Greenup County and then she focuses on her parents and her family in “W-Hollow Holidays and Holiday Recipes." “My parents, Martha and Mitchell Stuart, married at Plum Grove (Greenup County) and went to house keeping in W-Hollow just over the hill from the town of Greenup. They lived there until they died in the early fifties. They, and their neighbors, grew their vegetables on the rocky hillsides, milked cows, and killed their own meat. Everyone was poor, but they did their best to make holidays special. The most important part of each holiday was the food. It was served in the dining room, on a fancy tablecloth with cloth napkins and their best silverware and china. The recipes in this book are special to the people of W-Hollow. They have been used over and over on special occasions – some for more than one-hundred-fifty years.” HARDBACK VERSION By Glennis Stuart Liles -
The Scotia Widows: Inside Their Lawsuit Against Big Daddy Coal On March 9, 1976, a violent explosion, fueled by high concentrations of methane gas and coal dust, ripped through the Scotia mine in the heart of Eastern Kentucky coal country. The blast killed fifteen miners who were working nearly three and a half miles underground; two days later, a second explosion took the lives of eleven rescue workers. For the miners’ surviving family members, the loss of their husbands, fathers, and sons was only the beginning of their nightmare. By Gerald M. Stern
