Jim McFarlane's world of historical fiction
Truth through fiction
What do we know about an ordinary person who died a hundred or more years ago? Perhaps land titles, a will and a tombstone with dates. History books describe the events a common man lived through or died in but not the emotions he felt, not the decisions he made, not the actions he performed or failed to.
We know more about the land on which ordinary people subsisted than their lives.
In order to understand our forebears better, I imagine what they might have experienced and convert my feelings into novels: truth through fiction.
Penelope -- The Manuscript
Genealogy
I like to incorporate historical events and persons into my novels. A surprising amount of information has survived from 17th century New Netherland.
Secondary characters in this novel are
planter Richard Stout;
Indian fighter and adventurer Lieutenant Nicholas Stillwell, his wife Anne and his children Richard, Nicholas, Anne and Alice;
merchant Augustine Herrmann.
The following Gravesend residents are mentioned:
Lady Deborah Moody, founder of Gravesend;
Thomas and Elizabeth Applegate and daughter Emilie;
Ambrose London and his wife;
Rodger Scott;
Thomas Greedy;
James Grover;
James Bowne;
James Hubbard.
The following inhabitants of Manhattan are mentioned:
Peter Stuyvesant, his wife Judith Bayard Stuyvesant and first child Balthazar, his sister Anna Stuyvesant Bayard and children, including Balthazar;
Caspar Varleth, his wife Judith and children Nicholas, Jannetje, Judith, Ann;
merchant Seth Verbrugge;
Indian trader Govert Loockersman;
sheriff Hendrik van Dyck;
Lieutenant Brian Newton;
minister Johannes Bogardus;
shipmaster Juriaan Andriessen;
Lucas Rodenborch, director of Curacao;
shipmaster Paulus Leendersz;
Penelope -- Chapter 1
Penelope -- The Inspiration
"The origin of this Baptist family is no less remarkable: for they all sprang from one woman, and she as good as dead: her history is in the mouths of most of her posterity, and is told as follows: 'She was born at Amsterdam, about the year 1627; her father's name was Van Princes. (She married in Amsterdam, and) she and her first husband, whose name is not known, sailed for New York, then New Amsterdam, about the year 1645. The vessel was stranded at Sandy Hook. The crew got ashore and marched toward New Amsterdam: but Penelope's husband, being hurt in the wreck, could not march with them. Therefore, he and his wife tarried in the woods. They had not been long in the place before the Indians killed them both (as they thought) and stripped them to the skin. However, Penelope came to, though her skull was fractured, and her left shoulder so hacked that she could never use that arm like the other. She was cut across the abdomen so that her bowels appeared: these she kept in with her hand. She continued in this situation for seven days, taking shelter in a hollow tree, and eating the excresences of it. The seventh day she saw a deer passing by with arrows sticking in it, and soon after two Indians appeared, whom she was glad to see, in hope they would put her out of her misery. Accordingly, one made toward her, to knock her on the head; but the other, who was an elderly man, prevented him; and , throwing his matchcoat about her, carried her to his wigwam (said to have been near the site of Middletown village), and cured her of her wounds and bruises. After that, he took her to New Amsterdam, and made a present of her to her countrymen, that is to say, an Indian present, expecting ten times the value in return.
