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The American Triology #2
Beardstown
A B.R.A.G. Medallion Honoree
When Americans created civilization from wilderness, there were those who followed the rules and those who created their own—an enduring conflict between liberty and virtue that formed a new land.
Five years have passed since the death of the Shawnee leader Tecumseh. The native peoples of the Midwest have been defeated, and the fertile soil of Illinois is up for grabs by a steady stream of opportunistic dreamers. The ones who get there first will shape this new America as it suits them—or so they intend.
When two young adventurers, Thomas Beard and Murray McConnel, find their way to Mascouten Bay in 1818, the land is full of promise. There, Beard envisions a town built on the bank of the Illinois River, a bustling place of commerce. With McConnel’s gift for political strategy, the two manipulate the land, and the laws, to work in their favor. This new town—Beardstown—will be above all a place of civilization and culture. But the untapped wealth of the region attracts more than just families. Fierce young people are out to make their fortunes in any way they see fit, and the frontier promises them the freedom to do so. As the town’s founders wrestle to manage the clash of virtue and liberty, they bear witness to a nation shaping itself, a nation whose powerful forward momentum might be impossible for them, or anyone else, to control.
Beardstown boldly tracks the sweep of the nineteenth century across middle America and features an incredible cast of characters, from farmers, philosophers, soldiers, and gamblers to calculating entrepreneurs, charming and brilliant madams, and even a young captain-turned-lawyer named Abraham Lincoln. Beardstown is the second book of the American Trilogy series, three novels that reframe the epic legacy of the fight for the American Midwest.
When Americans created civilization from wilderness, there were those who followed the rules and those who created their own—an enduring conflict between liberty and virtue that formed a new land.
Five years have passed since the death of the Shawnee leader Tecumseh. The native peoples of the Midwest have been defeated, and the fertile soil of Illinois is up for grabs by a steady stream of opportunistic dreamers. The ones who get there first will shape this new America as it suits them—or so they intend.
When two young adventurers, Thomas Beard and Murray McConnel, find their way to Mascouten Bay in 1818, the land is full of promise. There, Beard envisions a town built on the bank of the Illinois River, a bustling place of commerce. With McConnel’s gift for political strategy, the two manipulate the land, and the laws, to work in their favor. This new town—Beardstown—will be above all a place of civilization and culture. But the untapped wealth of the region attracts more than just families. Fierce young people are out to make their fortunes in any way they see fit, and the frontier promises them the freedom to do so. As the town’s founders wrestle to manage the clash of virtue and liberty, they bear witness to a nation shaping itself, a nation whose powerful forward momentum might be impossible for them, or anyone else, to control.
Beardstown boldly tracks the sweep of the nineteenth century across middle America and features an incredible cast of characters, from farmers, philosophers, soldiers, and gamblers to calculating entrepreneurs, charming and brilliant madams, and even a young captain-turned-lawyer named Abraham Lincoln. Beardstown is the second book of the American Trilogy series, three novels that reframe the epic legacy of the fight for the American Midwest.
436 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 4, 2022
3 people are currently reading
12 people want to read
About the author
Sam Foster
6 books15 followersMy ancestral home is a dying little port on the Illinois River. But my father was, as the ‘80s country song tells, “The next of kin to the wayward wind.” One result being that until I came to Los Angeles for college, I’d never lived for more than two years in the same place in my entire life. That was in 1962. My intention at the time was to become a vet, to drive around country roads in a pick-up truck and do for farm animals what the farmers could not do themselves. But my inability to pass organic chemistry and my draft boards clear statement that I had only 8 semesters of deferment before “going into the pool” changed my major to history.
When I was graduated I, like every other man who was graduated that year, had a choice for my graduation trip - Canada or Vietnam. My antipathy to cold weather and a little of Socrates wisdom picked up in college caused me to select the latter. So, my first job out of college was with the U.S.M.C. A few years later I was honorably discharged after 5 months in a Naval Hospital but body and spirit mostly intact.
I’ve always been a story teller, but at 24 I was not willing to “starve for art” and wanted disparately to find stability. So, I married, moved back to Los Angeles and dove into corporate America. It wasn’t until I was in my mid-forties and a divorced father of two with a house and a little money that I was brave enough to indulge my creative impulses. I’m not entirely my father’s son. I’ve got the “wayward wind” gene but mine is recessive. Aside from a year in Washington DC and a few years in New York City I’ve lived at the beach in Los Angeles my entire life. That “wayward wind” gene I inherited just makes me travel a lot, not pick up and move.
The stories I’ve always liked best have more than a plot and a couple of memorable characters, they also introduce me to an entire world I do not know. I write about things I know just so I can show you worlds you may not. My first book was about a business hustle and set in Los Angeles. My second was about the U.S.M.C. during the Vietnam era. (It is more about race in America in the 60s than killing Vietnamese.) But this story, the one that led you open this webpage and bio, is about the American I grew up with and know well, whose history I understand perhaps better than it’s present, and whom I will love until I die.
I had a friend who died a few years ago, one whose name you may have heard. It was Al Sparlis. Al was U.C.L.A.’s first football All American. He was 185# center on the 1941-42 & ‘45 teams. Al flew in three American wars. He flew with Chennault in China; he flew in Korea and was one of only 7 pilots in his squadron to come back alive; when he volunteered again during Vietnam, they told him he was to old. Al could be very forceful. They gave in and let him fly soldiers back and forth to Hawaii – live ones going over and dead ones coming back. I tell you about Al because he once said something that struck me as so profound, I’ve never forgotten it. “The measure of a man is the things he’s willing to die for.”
My stories are about the things in America men, and women, are, if not willing to die for, at very least risk all for.
When I was graduated I, like every other man who was graduated that year, had a choice for my graduation trip - Canada or Vietnam. My antipathy to cold weather and a little of Socrates wisdom picked up in college caused me to select the latter. So, my first job out of college was with the U.S.M.C. A few years later I was honorably discharged after 5 months in a Naval Hospital but body and spirit mostly intact.
I’ve always been a story teller, but at 24 I was not willing to “starve for art” and wanted disparately to find stability. So, I married, moved back to Los Angeles and dove into corporate America. It wasn’t until I was in my mid-forties and a divorced father of two with a house and a little money that I was brave enough to indulge my creative impulses. I’m not entirely my father’s son. I’ve got the “wayward wind” gene but mine is recessive. Aside from a year in Washington DC and a few years in New York City I’ve lived at the beach in Los Angeles my entire life. That “wayward wind” gene I inherited just makes me travel a lot, not pick up and move.
The stories I’ve always liked best have more than a plot and a couple of memorable characters, they also introduce me to an entire world I do not know. I write about things I know just so I can show you worlds you may not. My first book was about a business hustle and set in Los Angeles. My second was about the U.S.M.C. during the Vietnam era. (It is more about race in America in the 60s than killing Vietnamese.) But this story, the one that led you open this webpage and bio, is about the American I grew up with and know well, whose history I understand perhaps better than it’s present, and whom I will love until I die.
I had a friend who died a few years ago, one whose name you may have heard. It was Al Sparlis. Al was U.C.L.A.’s first football All American. He was 185# center on the 1941-42 & ‘45 teams. Al flew in three American wars. He flew with Chennault in China; he flew in Korea and was one of only 7 pilots in his squadron to come back alive; when he volunteered again during Vietnam, they told him he was to old. Al could be very forceful. They gave in and let him fly soldiers back and forth to Hawaii – live ones going over and dead ones coming back. I tell you about Al because he once said something that struck me as so profound, I’ve never forgotten it. “The measure of a man is the things he’s willing to die for.”
My stories are about the things in America men, and women, are, if not willing to die for, at very least risk all for.
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September 17, 2023
We are proud to announce that BEARDSTOWN (The American Trilogy Book 2) by Sam Foster has been honored with the B.R.A.G.Medallion (Book Readers Appreciation Group). It now joins the very select award-winning, reader-recommended books at indieBRAG.
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September 11, 2022Having lived in the Midwest, the premise of this book intrigued me. The places in it were familiar. The story is a fictionalized history of a place, Beardstown and the arrival and establishment of settlers in this region.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews