What are you reading?

by chuckofish

It has been such a cold week! Thankfully the sun has been out much of the time and I have been able to needlepoint by my window. I also sent the Review off to the printer. I do love crossing items off my to-do list, don’t you?

I am also making headway reading Drums Along the Mohawk–the 600+-page tome given to me for Christmas. I am more than a third of the way in and I must say, it is wonderful. Published in 1936, it is well-written, exciting, and populated with realistic characters. It is very scary in parts and well it should be. It was a scary time to be on the New York frontier.

“For the first time they began to realize that there was no protection for them except in themselves. An unpredictable force had been born in the Mohawk Valley…”

The book is peopled with historical persons such as General Nicholas Herkimer and Adam Helmer, and other descendants of the German immigrants who were the majority residents in the central Mohawk Valley at the time. It also features such historical events as the Battle of Oriskany.

(Side note: When I was writing the Review article about RADM Courtney Shands, I learned that he was the commander of the aircraft carrier USS Oriskany during the Korean Conflict. The USS Oriskany was named after the famous and bloody engagement during the Saratoga Campaign. Synchronicity!)

Anyway, I am learning a lot and enjoying the book. Of course, young people today never read books like this and it is a shame. They might actually learn something about our country and the pioneers who built it. It was not easy, not easy at all.

Here’s another bit of trivia. Henry Fonda, the star of the film Drums Along the Mohawk (1939), was a descendent of Douw Fonda, (1700–1780) a prominent settler and trader in the Mohawk Valley. During the fighting with Loyalists, he was captured by a Mohawk, tomahawked and scalped. Two of Douw Fonda’s sons, John and Adam, were taken prisoner in the raid and taken to Canada.

Our ancestors were a hardy lot. They had to be.

So stay warm, read some (good) historical fiction, watch an old movie. Be thankful for and remember those who came before you.