Ghosts Still Haunt the Site of the California Gold Rush

By Paisley Kirkpatrick

I've been enjoying all of the ghosts stories posted this past week. We used to live in a community that is known for its gold rush ghosts. In fact, the art gallery I worked in had its own resident ghosts so I am definitely a believer.

The gallery was housed in a renovated building located in Placerville, California. The building dated back to 1851. Originally it was called the 49er Corner Saloon and to this day a creek runs under the building. My first inclination of a live-in ghost was when I heard heavy footsteps overhead. I wouldn't have thought anything of it except all the tenants who worked above the art gallery were away for Christmas holiday. A man's footsteps walked back and forth; doors slammed. I mentioned this occurrence to my boss. She went upstairs and checked the entire floor. She found nobody. The next year around the Christmas holidays it happened again. Then a few months later, we found one of our wastebaskets missing. There were three gray and one pink left together in the middle of the backroom after we'd emptied them. In the morning, the pink wastebasket was missing and was never found. One of my jobs was to print out tags and tape them on the wall next to each painting. One morning I found all of the tags in the middle of the room on the carpeted floor and several paintings hung crooked on the wall. The final blow was when my boss and another clerk were working behind the counter on one side of the gallery. Across the room, a six-foot tall ceramic vase slammed against the wall hard enough to break into several pieces and the mahogany table that was next to the vase had a leg badly scratched. The ghost had turned violent for the first time. My boss called in a ghost expert and she worked her trade well. The ghost never came back after her visit.

Across the street from the art gallery is The Cary House Hotel, built in 1857. I have used this hotel in several of my books in the Paradise Pines Series. The inside has been kept in the same décor as it was when it was built. The hotel boasts of having two ghosts. The former television show that explored haunted places in the U.S. spent twenty minutes exposing Stan. I did encounter Stan when I was going upstairs to gather information for my stories. The owners have added an elevator to the hotel and it is kept inside a closet. We tried to open the door but it was stuck. The manager told me Stan wasn't happy about us intruding so we walked up the stairs. On the way down, there was no problem. The door slid open and we got our ride. It is rumored that Stan loved women and possibly the men as well. To this day he checks each doorknob in the hotel to make sure the guests are safely locked inside. He also rides the elevator up and down most of the night. Stan was the clerk in the lobby for many years. He was a short, stocky man with reddish brown hair, balding on the top and not what most people would consider a 'ladies' man. He did his job politely until alcohol took effect, loved gossip, and checking people out of the hotel. Sometimes he was insulting and sarcastic. He apparently made a pass at a man, the man stabbed him twice in anger, and Stan fell down the stairs to his death.

The hotel has many ghost sightings and it draws people to tempt their fate with the ghosts. Several other buildings in town are haunted. One day while I was taking notes in the Hangman's Bar I saw a tall man with a long black coat and tall black hat walk out of the women's bathroom. He reminded me of what Abraham Lincoln looked like. He just dissolved a few feet in front of me. No, I had not been imbibing.

We have moved from the Placerville area so I no longer watch for ghosts. They give the town a sense of the past and a bit of mystery.

Declan Grainger, the hero in my Night Angel story, was the owner of Chaumers Hotel, which I modeled after The Cary House. Chaumers Hotel took on a life of its own, but as far as I know no ghosts live there...yet.

http://amzn.com/B00909PON0

The Incredible World of Gold Rush Ghosts written by Nancy Bradley and Robert Reppert give a great accounting of all the ghosts living in this area. I recommend it to anyone with a ghostly imagination.

My Life in a Nutshell

By Paisley Kirkpatrick

I was born at the end of WWII. Right after the war ended, life was easy and people were happy to have the horrors over with. We were an average family - probably considered boring in these times. Santa Rosa, California, is where my younger brother, Steven, and I grew up. My mother was the 'happy' housewife and stay-at-home mother. My father walked to work at the gas and electric company every day.

My education was in the public school systems. After graduating from Santa Rosa High School, I studied business at Commerce Business College and came out with secretarial skills that I still use in my writing career. I always wanted to be a secretary and ended up spending several years working for Certified Public Accountants in Santa Rosa and then Sacramento. It's a good thing I loved to type because we had to type every tax return page without error. It's why I became a qualified statistical typist.

 

I met my husband at an Air Force picnic when I was 23 years old. I knew the minute I saw Ken that he was the man I wanted to marry. Four months after we met, I put him on a plane and watched him fly off to Vietnam for 366 days. Five days after he returned to the states, we got married in a beautiful chapel in Sacramento and have been happy for 45 years. Our daughters were nine and half years apart. We lost our older daughter to cancer when she was 32 years old. Our younger daughter is married and works in a County Clerk's Office.

Writing has always been part of my life. In school I went a bit overboard with term papers. I don't think I ever turned in a project less than 2 inches thick. In 1989 I joined an International Pen Friends Organization and wrote to 41 foreign pen pals for years. Now I am down to fifteen from the original group and think of them as good friends. Cristache from Romania spent three weeks with us, one of my German pen pals and his wife visited us for a day, and we spent three days with in the home of my Scottish penpal and her husband. It's been an amazing part of our lives to have friends in so many foreign countries.

Our 'foreign children' have been a major part of our lives for what seems like forever. We met Bert on a camping trip 33 years ago. He was 21 and touring the states with several other young people at the time. When he got married, we traveled to his homeland of Holland and were part of the wedding party in a grand castle. Our Swedish daughter, Maggie, was an exchange student from Malmo, Sweden for the school year 1986-87. To this day she and her husband consider us their 'other' parents. Luckily for us, we have been able to visit their homes and they ours on many occasions.

In 1996 I became the president of country singing artist, Kevin Sharp's fan club. Those 12 years I worked for him are some of the most treasured moments in my life. I was so proud of Kevin when his first song, Nobody Knows, was No. 1 on the charts for four weeks. My fan club partner and I spent five summers in Nashville running Kevin's fan club booth for a week of greeting his fans and supervising his meet and greets. An extra bonus was standing on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry while Kevin sang.

I started making quilts after we lost our daughter. I have given away 54 quilts in her honor over the years. The first quilts were for babies. I make them out of brightly colored flannel. My husband is the one who finds the best prints and colors in the fabric stores. I have also made quilts with bookcovers on fabric and one wedding quilt.

I actually started having that 'I want to be a published author' dream in 1989. I joined Romance Writers of America in 1999 and after 22 years of practicing the craft, making lots of writer friends, and finishing two novels with a third one started, I received an offer for five books from Desert Breeze Publishing on Christmas Eve, 2011 at 10:35 -- but who is remembering? My sixth historical romance novel is what I am working on now. Since we were living in the Sierra Mountains of California, near where the gold discovery happened, I was able to write about the 1849 gold rush. I loved the history surrounding the area and I wrote what I loved.

Three months ago, we left my native state of California and moved to my husband's hometown in northern Wisconsin. We love living here with the Tomahawk River as our back border. I have the greatest view from my desk in my sunroom office. As I finish writing Paradise Pines Series: Stealing Her Heart, the last book in my Paradise Pines Series, I am looking forward to getting to know my new area and writing the Northwoods Series. This is an exciting time in our lives. We are getting to know my husband's classmates and they are involved in selling my books and making me feel part of their community.

 
My newest book, Broken Promise, was released on May 21, 2014. It can be purchased in ebook or print format at Desert Breeze Publishing at

 http://www.desertbreezepublishing.com/paradise-pines-broken-promise-epub/ and at Amazon http://amzn.com/B00KI268Z6  

Wheelbarrow John Returns to Old Hangtown

By Paisley Kirkpatrick

The El Dorado Republican and Nugget got out a special edition in honor of the occasion of John Studebaker returning to Placerville, California, fifty-nine years after he left the gold rush town. (April 1907)

More than fifty-nine years ago a gaunt youth of nineteen stepped down from an emigrant wagon and took his first look around at the country where he had come to make a fortune. In his pocket was a lone 50-cent piece. Today a kindly-faced aged man stepped from a luxurious automobile and looked around him at the area where he had laid the foundation for his fortune. It was J.M. Studebaker returning to take perhaps his last look at the scenes of his early struggles.

The auto had drawn up in front of the Ohio House where on the wooden porch stood a score of grizzled men. As Studebaker stepped down from his auto he spied a face in the crowd. ''Hello Newt, you around here yet?" he said, by way of salutation.

"Yes, I'm here yet," answered Newton T. Spencer with his Missouri drawl, "but they call me judge now, Mr. Studebaker, ye see I'm the Justice of the Peace."

"Huh! What did you ever know about law when you and Hank Monk used to stop in the road and decide with your fists which of your stages was going to back up to let the other pass?" exclaimed Studebaker in jocular tone.

"And you, too, Charley Von Weidierwachs, where's that rip-snortin' Jayhawk, Blackhawk, Mohawk father of yours?" asked Studebaker, shaking hands with a bent figure, beneath whose black hat hung locks of silver gray.

"City clerk Weatherwax, if you please," he drew himself up with a mock show of pride, "that name bothered me worse than all tarnation, so I had to change it."

"Well, this town hasn't changed," Studebaker paused to glance about him as he shook hands with the men who were young and full of hope when he first came here.

"And where's Mike Mayer, one of the men who worked with me?" he asked.

Studebaker was told. A few minutes later he was driven up to a white painted cottage and was shown inside. His visit must be brief, he knew.

"Is that you, Wheelbarrow John?" a tremulous voice asked the question as a thin and emaciated hand came out from beneath the coverlet and groped for a hand to press in greeting.

"Yes, it's I, Mike," answered Studebaker, as he looked into the sightless eyes and drawn face of Michael Mayer.

There was feeling in his voice as Studebaker said, "I must go now, Mike."

They clasped hands for a minute more -- these two relics of the days of 1849 -- one worth millions and the other -- well, not so rich.

Before Studebaker would sit down to the banquet in honor of his return to Hangtown he must see some of the old places he knew. He saw not many. Hangtown was swept by the fire while he was here in the early days; it was destroyed again many years after he left. But the old-timers who rode alongside of him pointed out the place where he went to work for Joe Hinds to make wheelbarrows for $10 each.

The dining room of the Ohio House where the banquet was served had been elaborately decorated. The tables held bouquets of wild flowers, and the walls of the room were banked with yellow poppies against a solid background of ferns. The menu card, on which was emblazoned a picture of a man swinging from a tree, and another representing a man with overalls in boots trundling a wheelbarrow load of gold, was printed after the manner of pioneer typography, the clever imitation winning compliments for the craftsmen of the Placerville "Republican and Nugget office." The catalogue of eatables was replete with early-day references.

CHUCK LIST:

Chili Gulch Rib Warmer

Sluice Box Tailings, flavored with Chicken

High-grade Olives

Spanish Flat Onions

Cedar Ravine Radishes

Coon Hollow Pickles

Sacramento River Salmon paved with cheese

Indian diggings Spuds

Tertiary Moisture

Slab of Cow from the States

Bandana Fries with Bug-juice

Lady Canyon Chicken, Hangtown dressed

Webbertown Murphy's Shirt-tailed Bend Peas

Dead Man's Ravine Asparagus

Cemented Gravel a la emigrant Jane

Butcher Brown Fizz Water

Assorted Nuggets

Amalgam Cheese, Riffle Crackers

Mahala's Delight en tasse

Texas Hill Fruit

Pay Day Smokes

Hard Pan Smokes

Forever After is Released

By Paisley Kirkpatrick

I am happy to present my third story in the Paradise Pines Series. Forever After is the final story about the Benjamin Sisters. Marinda Benjamin is the youngest. Her story begins six months after her two older sisters, Darrah and Amalie, run away from home. They leave her a difficult situation to deal with.

Abandoned by her sisters, her father in jail, Marinda Benjamin takes on the care of her ailing mother the best way possible -- working for an unscrupulous man with the power to crush her. Forced to spy on a decent man, Marinda's honesty saves her virtue and revenge restores her self-respect.

When Ethan Braddock discovers his brother's poker pot cleaning his private office, he jumps to the right conclusion -- she's there to spy for his nemesis. Ethan can't help but find her irresistible. In spite of what his heart tells him, his brain reserves judgment on her character. Until he unravels the mystery of her connection to Danforth, trust is the one thing he can't allow himself. For that, she'll have to prove herself.

Marinda Benjamin won't marry until she finds the forever after kind of love. Has the man she's dreamed of loving been beside her all along?

EXCERPT:

Fulton County, Illinois August 1850

"I'll bet this little lady against whatever you've got in your hand."

A sudden hush stifled all the noise in the Hidey Hole Saloon. Master against novice. Who would win? Then quiet snickers began to echo off the wood walls. The regulars of the saloon moved in for a closer look.

Marinda Benjamin stared around at all the patrons who just witnessed her humiliation by Danforth's claim. She latched onto the back of her employer's chair to steady her crumbling nerves. Jonas Danforth had bet her, body and soul, in a card game.

Fancy women dressed in garish attire crowded around the poker table. Some stared at her with pity while a few sneered in obvious enjoyment of seeing another Benjamin sister fall from grace.

She wracked her brain for a way of preventing the ridiculous bet, but she knew Danforth held all the cards. Yet she had to stop this travesty. "Enough!" She stepped up beside his chair. "You can't do--"

The menace in Danforth's glare as he looked at her stopped her from saying more.

A malicious sneer marred his face. "As long as I hold the loan on your house, you'll do as I say. Is that clear?"

She wanted to run, but her feet refused to move. She wanted to speak her piece, as she always did, but now was not the time. So instead, she held her head high. She refused to allow Jonas Danforth to see her frustration. He had broken her father's spirit. He would not break hers.

The town's mischief-maker sat across from Danforth. Patrick Braddock glanced her way. "She looks like she might be worth five twenty-dollar gold eagles and I could use a servant. I call your bet. Let's see what ya got."

The knot in her stomach tightened.

My books are sold at Desert Breeze Publishing, Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The links to my new book are:

Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Paradise-Pines-Forever-After-ebook/dp/B00FK8BWAO/ref=sr_1_4?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1380678155&sr=1-4&keywords=paisley+kirkpatrick

Desert Breeze

http://www.desertbreezepublishing.com/paradise-pines-forever-after-epub/

The Wild West Meets the Old South

By Paisley Kirkpatrick

Doc Holliday being in love with Melanie Wilkes from Gone With the Wind -- legend and literature come together.

When John Henry Holliday was a young man, he and his cousin Mattie Holliday were best of friends. During their teen years the friendship turned to a romance. Because they were first cousins, family members pressured them to end their involvement. Some folks say it was their tragic love affair that sent him West and her into a convent.

Doc and Mattie became close friends after Doc's father remarried just three months after his wife died. Doc was 14 at the time and gravitated toward his uncle, which would have given him more opportunities to see Cousin Mattie. Ten years after Doc left Georgia Mattie entered a convent and became Sister Mary Melanie. Mattie corresponded with Doc all of his life, but ultimately burned the letters exchanged by the two of them after his death.

Mattie's uncle was Margaret Mitchell's great grandfather. Years later, Mattie Holliday became a nun and took the name Sister Melanie. That was how she was known when Margaret Mitchell visited with her as an old woman at St. Joseph's Infirmary in Atlanta, Georgia. Mitchell is said to have asked her if she could name a character after her in the story she was writing, to which Sister Melanie replied, ''Just make her a good person."

Several years ago I was fortunate enough to take a tour through Margaret Mitchell's home in Atlanta. The docent pointed out two photos hanging on the wall -- one was Mattie and the other Doc. All of us tourists appeared surprised to hear of this love affair and how it had such a lasting effect on the two of them. Some have said that losing the love of his life might have contributed to his alcoholism.

For some reason I cannot understand, this story left an everlasting impression on me. How strange a man who became known as a fast gun of the west had loved a gentle lady who became a nun.

http://www.amazon.com/Paradise-Pines-Book-One-ebook/dp/B00909PON0/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1359675254&sr=1-1&keywords=paisley+kirkpatrick

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/paradise-pines-book-one-paisley-kirkpatrick/1112576086?ean=2940014889667

BLURB: Sassy Amalie Renard, a poker-playing saloon singer, shakes up Paradise Pines, a former gold-rush mountain community by turning the saloon’s bar into her stage. Her amazing voice stirs the passions of the hotel owner, a man who anonymously travels tunnels at night providing help to the downtrodden as the mysterious Night Angel. Declan Grainger agrees to subsidize the building of a music hall to fulfill Amalie's dream, but a bounty for her arrest could spoil his plans. Distrust and jealousy stir flames of malice and revenge threatening to destroy their town. Drawing from past experiences, Declan and Amalie turn to each other to find a way to save the community.

An ebook copy of Night Angel will be given to one visitor who comments. Please leave an email address.

Paradise Pines Series: Marriage Bargain will be released March 21, 2013

BLURB: The dusty trail of a wagon train leads west, but Darrah Benjamin finds it a pathway to love and forgiveness when an arranged marriage becomes much more than a convenience. Wagon scout Chase challenges her determination with his promise -- she’ll give him her heart and invite him to her bed before they arrive at their destination. Darrah will shape her own destiny and claim a woman’s spirit along the way. Charles Danforth, a scout known as Chase, leads a wagon train of emigrants west through plains plundered by murderers. As an undercover agent of President Polk, he has sworn to stop the massacres. Darrah's inadvertent comment gives him the clue he needs to achieve his assignment. His Sioux blood brother helps Chase end the killings, but almost ruins Chase’s chance of winning Darrah’s heart when he kidnaps her to demonstrate the depth of love Chase has for his wife.

Gold Discovered in 1849

By Paisley Kirkpatrick

The 1849 gold discovery sparked a mass hysteria as immigrants traveled from around the world to what soon would be known as the gold country of California. Digging for gold from early dawn until dusk was a backbreaking job, but the desire to find their fortune in gold drove these miners on. A miner had to find an ounce of gold a day to just break even. Most miners barely found enough for daily expenses.

The gold discovery wrought immense changes upon the land and its people. The peak production of placer gold occurred in 1853. Every year after that, more and more men were in California, but less gold was found. Thousands of disillusioned gold seekers returned home with little to show for their endeavors, glad to escape with their health.

After the boom, many miners -- broke and looking for wages -- headed to San Francisco. Some stayed in the towns that developed during the gold rush. I found this rebuilding of the lives and communities an exciting time in history. Some let disappointment send them into lives of drink and gambling. Others pulled together to rebuild their towns and start businesses, some of which still stand today. Placerville, known as both Dry Diggins and Hangtown during the heydays, still holds onto some of those grand houses, rock buildings, and tunnels zigzagging underneath the town.

Luckily for me, I have this history at my fingertips to inspire my stories. My first book, Paradise Pines Series: Night Angel will be released by Desert Breeze Publishing August 21st. It is a story of a hotel owner who anonymously helps the downtrodden citizens of his community by traveling through the tunnels at night to provide families with goods they need. A vibrant saloon-singing poker player arrives in town and stirs it out of its doldrums with her beautiful voice and colorful costumes.

EXCERPT:

The Scot's insensitive words snapped across her back. Amalie jerked her hands from his grasp and moved behind the chair. She barely controlled the urge to slap his face. "That's the second time you've taken my character to task, Mr. Grainger. Prostitute myself indeed."

Declan got to his feet. Disgust exuded from his powerful gaze. "Woman, you take yourself far too seriously. I did not call you a prostitute. I said--" He stepped back, stared at his feet a moment before speaking again. "You have my apologies. I meant no insult to your character. Buck Thatcher is a dangerous man and must be taken seriously. You and I both know he wanted more than a kiss for the gold nugget."

"I didn't need you to swoop in and protect me. I am not some inexperienced schoolgirl."

He threw up his hands. "My mistake."

He gave her the most pitiful, insincere look she'd ever seen.

"I should have remembered you explained all of this with eloquence outside the saloon tonight, but I couldn't concentrate on your well-chosen words with you barely contained in your black dress."

She caught the mischievous tilt to his lips. She also noticed where his gaze settled. At any other time she'd appreciate the attention, but not under these circumstances. She pulled the soft woolen blanket tighter across her breasts. He baited her, but she couldn't let his comment go. The deliciously handsome man was far too sure of himself and needed to be put in his place.

"Lily Fox doesn't need or want your advice on how to handle Buck Thatcher. She's dealt with worse than the cocksure gambler."

"Not in my presence, you haven't." He moved with slow, but determined steps toward her. "Surely you can find it in your generous heart to take pity on this most humble of men?" He placed his hand over his heart and tapped his fingers. "An uncontrollable desire to protect a woman just bursts outta me when I see her in harm's way."

When he flashed a wide grin, she relaxed her stance. "Oh, you are a charmer, aren't you?"

His low rumbling chuckle shot through her. If she was as smart as she proclaimed, she'd flee from the man's hotel this very night. He was a lot more dangerous than Buck Thatcher ever could be. She feared her defenses might not be strong enough to protect her heart from his more than abundant charm.

Paradise Pines Series: Night Angel

By Paisley Kirkpatrick

August 21, 2012, is a date I will hold in my memory as the day my life-long dream came true. It's the day my first book is published. After 22 years of never giving up on being published, Night Angel, the first of five stories in the Paradise Pines Series, will be released by Desert Breeze Publishing.

In this story set in the 1849 Gold Rush Era, a poker-playing saloon singer tangles with the mysterious Night Angel. She steals his heart the night he robs her the first time.

Sassy Amalie Renard, a poker-playing saloon singer, shakes up Paradise Pines, a former gold-rush mountain community by turning the saloon’s bar into her stage. Her amazing voice stirs the passions of the hotel owner, a man who anonymously travels tunnels at night providing help to the downtrodden as the mysterious Night Angel. Declan Grainger agrees to subsidize the building of a music hall to fulfill Amalie's dream, but a bounty for her arrest could spoil his plans. Distrust and jealousy stir flames of malice and revenge threatening to destroy their town. Drawing from past experiences, Declan and Amalie turn to each other to find a way to save the community.

EXCERPT:

Different colored bottles of whiskey and beer reflected in the mirrors along the wall behind the long wooden bar. Perfect. That's where she'd start her evening.

She slipped off her cape and handed it to Declan. His appreciative gasp brought a smile to her lips. Having men ogle her appearance was hardly new. She'd learned early to use her looks to her advantage. The way Declan's eyes heated with appreciation when he cast a glance at the deep cut of her décolletage reminded her how good it felt to be a woman.

"Now you'll see who I really am."

Declan grabbed her arm. "Don't let them forget you're a lady, Amalie."

She cast him a wicked smile. "The name's Lily Fox. Believe me, honey, Lily's no lady."

She approached a couple of gamblers and leaned over slightly to give them full effect of her daring dress. "Would you mind helping me, gents? I have need of your table for a moment."

The men jumped to their feet in unison, their cards forgotten. Amalie took the nearest man's outstretched palm, stepped onto a chair, over their cards, and up onto the long wooden plank bar.

"Good evening, boys." She strutted along the length of wood, avoiding whiskey glasses and kicking away eager hands. The saloon girl stopped caterwauling. The room went still. She had everyone's attention, just the way Lily liked it.

"Get down, young woman. This ain't no place for you to prance about," the barkeep snarled in outrage.

Ignoring the scowling face with the handlebar mustache, she kicked up her heels. Adding a dance step, she pranced back and forth the length of the makeshift stage. Lily reveled in the whistles and disregarded the uncouth remarks. She was in her element. "My name is Lily Fox, and I'm here to entertain you tonight."

With the flick of her hand, she caught the attention of the stunned piano player. "Play something quick and lively, will you, honey?" She glanced around the room of excited faces and turned on her brightest smile.

My husband and I are so lucky to live in this area where all the excitement happened during the gold rush. The town of Placerville, known as Old Hangtown in 1849, still has some of the same atmosphere of those days. Victorian houses, tunnels under the town, a gold mine, a bar displaying a 'man' hanging by the neck above its front door, amongst some of the old relics. Living in the area I love to write about gives me a chance to experience some of the wild west atmosphere.