The Last Runaway by Tracy Chevalier: A Story of Nineteenth Century Quakers and Runaway Slaves

In some ways, The Last Runaway by Tracy Chevalier is similar to Finding Fortune by Pippa Goodhart which I reviewed recently. Both books have a girl emigrating to America in the nineteenth century and writing home.
The first words of this book are 'She could not go back' which is a great hook, because you immediately ask why?
Honor Bright, what a fabulous name for a Quaker girl, is leaving for America because her fiancé has broken off their engagement, and she can't face life amongst her own community in Bridport. She is accompanying her sister, Grace, to Ohio where she is to marry Matthew, an English draper, who has set up business there. However, Grace dies on the way and Honor is left to make her own life in a new Quaker community. This is complicated by the runaway slaves escaping to the north and freedom. Honor is torn between sheltering them, and Jack Haymaker, whom she marries, and his family who will not let her. In addition, two characters are set in contrast to the straight-laced Quakers: Belle Mills, the colourful milliner, and her brother, Donovan who is out to find the slaves and return them to their owners.
I have only read one other book by Tracy Chevalier: Girl With a Pearl Earring and what sticks in my mind from that is the clear detail of colours and scenes, for example when Griet arranges the vegetables on the kitchen table like a palette of paints. Never mind about writing about a painter, Tracy Chevalier writes like one! This is carried through in The Last Runaway when she describes the quilts that Honor sews and the hats she makes at Belle's millinery shop; the bright fields of corn and the dark woods.
It is an intriguing story. Will Honor make a life for herself in Ohio? Will she help the slaves despite what people say? And will she fall for Donovan's doubtful charms?

I was pleased to win this book on The History Girls blog in a competition where you had to write about your most interesting historical research. I wrote about finding out about where my father was shot in the First World War, and later visiting the canal towpath in Northern France where it took place. Standing there on a misty morning, I could almost see the battle and hear the shots.

Journey to the Klondike Goldfields with Finding Fortune by Pippa Goodhart and Great Uncle Arthur!

 Finding Fortune by Pippa Goodhart is an adventure novel for older primary school children, although I enjoyed it a lot myself! It tells the story of Ida, whose mother has died, and who runs away with her father, Fa, to find their fortune in the Klondike Goldfields in 1897 at the height of the Gold Rush.
Pippa has done a lot of thorough research to make  the story believable, and you can find how she did it here on The History Girls blog.
From Grandmama's house, they escape across the Atlantic by ship to Quebec and then by train across the Canadian prairies to the west coast where they get yet another ship up to Dyea at the start of the Chilkoot Trail. On the way, they meet helpful and not so helpful prospectors who serve to hinder their progress.
The real challenge comes when Ida and Fa have to provide a ton of goods to last them for a year. They make many trips to Pass Summit carrying it all on their backs and then build a wooden boat to sail to Dawson before they can even think about finding gold. Some of the story is told in letters that Ida writes to Grandmama, in the hope that they will travel the thousands of miles to England. But did they find gold? You'll have to read Finding Fortune to find out!

I've always been interested in the Gold Rush, because my Great Uncle Arthur, pictured here, actually went! Aged just twenty, and the only boy in a family of five girls, he decided to go and seek his fortune. Heaven only knows what his mother went through!
I'm not sure whether he followed the Chilkoot Trail or the White Pass to the south, but both routes were treacherous, and the pack horses that people bought were no use and often left by the trail where they fell.
  

 In 1898, they began to build the White Pass Railroad, too late for Ida and Fa, and too late for Great Uncle Arthur.
We were able to ride on it on a trip to Skagway, Alaska. You can see how the train clings to the mountain side, and then rattles over the sort of trestle bridge you see in cowboy films, before entering a tunnel.
It made me think about the journey that he made over one hundred years ago, and the hardships he must have endured without the luxury of train travel.
The story goes that he did find gold, but spent it all on wine, women and song, despite how innocent he looks in the photograph!
Have you read Finding Fortune or travelled up the White Pass Railroad?