She needed to flee but to where? That question had me searching the historic records for a place for Evelyn, along with Nathaniel, to move at the end of Evelyn’s Promise. Somewhere on the new frontier, now that the American Revolution had ended. Somewhere dangerous yet appealing to the adventurous and courageous. Somewhere her friends and family would object to her attempting to make the arduous journey.
After some digging, I found the Yazoo Lands and the ensuing land scandal. The area encompasses what is now northern Alabama and was largely inhabited by Indians, or the ancestors of the people today we call Native Americans. The area only sparsely had white people settling on land, trying to start new towns and cities.
Having identified the ultimate destination, then I had to study the historic maps to determine the route they would most likely take to wend their way across hostile land and territory. How would a lady with an infant travel from the eastern coast near Charlestown (present-day Charleston), South Carolina, across rough roads and trails, crossing swollen rivers, mountains, and forests to the edge of the newly independent country?
As difficult as it must have been, she’d most likely travel by wagon as far as possible. Perhaps later she’d be forced to ride astride through the roughest terrain, but for my purposes, she’d start out in a wagon of some fashion. Which she did through the end of the story, which ends long before she would have reached her destination.
I believe in understanding the situations my characters would have faced in their day and with the constraints of the society and the technology available. Adhering as closely as possible, based on research, to the realities of life in the 18th century enriches the context of the stories. People then faced very different challenges on a day-to-day basis than we do today. The speed with which we can travel across America, and indeed the world, would be truly astonishing to people living in the 1700s. That’s one aspect of life in the past that I’ve tried to underscore for my readers. Did I succeed?
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I realized early on a visual aid would be beneficial. So I located a hand-drawn map of the city as it appeared during my time period. Of course, it was too small for my purpose of locating where my characters would live and the kind of houses they’d live in. So with the help of my creative son, I (read: he) made an enlarged copy and I glued it to a piece of poster board.
Like most historical fiction/romance authors, accuracy is important to the extent possible based on source materials. Sometimes we can’t know the answer to a question because it’s not documented. But in this case, having the street map ensured I could describe the town as it existed during the time period of my series.
I bought a couple of books on edible wild plants and began reading with an eye for possibilities. I had to make sure the plants were native to the south, grew near to the coast though not ocean side, since the manor house is in the country perhaps fifteen miles from the ocean. The plants also had to be growing in November, or at least living in some phase of its life cycle.
To be honest, I’d given myself quite a challenge! But I finally found a few plants she could locate and use. They included 
National Arborists sites.)
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I’ve seen the kinds of instruments doctors used during the American Revolution, both at the Williamsburg museum and at the encampment reenactment at Yorktown. Note the instruments on the table that the doctor would have used for whatever ailed his patient. (Also note that no women were allowed to be trained as a doctor in the 18th century.) A mortar and pestle for crushing herbs into medicine. A chisel and clamps, neither of which I want to think about too long. I’m sure he had a saw around somewhere for cases of gangrene infection, to cut off the leg above the infection. Bottles of various medicinal pills and powders. The pewter bowl with handle was used to catch the blood when bleeding a patient.
Lancets were used to cut a patient, to bleed him in an attempt to balance the body’s 
of Duke University, she is also the author of The Backcountry Housewife: A Study of Eighteenth-Century Foods; Decorative Motifs from the Southern Backcountry, 1750–1825; and Journey to the Piedmont Past.
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Betty Bolte's Musings 