Book Writings
I have two or three things going. The current project is the most expansive to date. The title isn't official, but it may be as I wrap the project up.
The Eckerson Family and Their impact on American History -- This features the life experience of the Eckerson family dating back to their arrival in the mid-1600's to a time set in Manhattan, moving to Albany and then to Schoharie. We are related to the Stuyvesant family and that has it's own story of love, rejection, loss and acceptance. We married into the Van Slichtenhorst family, more particularly the granddaughter of Brant Van Slichtenhorst, director of Rensselaerwyck patroonship (plantation). We moved to Schoharie where we continued our often hard-scrabble existence. Three generations of Eckersons fought in the Revolutionary War. We fought in the Civil War in an elite group known as the Ellsworth's Avengers. My grandmother, Thelma Eckerson Gras' uncle served and died in the Civil War, making my generation two degrees of separation from that experience.
At Odds: How the Revolutionary War Split Neighbors and Families -- This is a draft I'm working on that focuses on how divisive the Revolutionary War. How families and neighbors, once interdependent on each other for survival turned into enemies. How the pull for independence from an oppressive English rule pushed people passionately in very different directions, pitting families and neighbors against one another. Our own beloved Cornelius Eckerson took a wife at the end of the war, whose half brothers were highly regarded Tory instigators, involved in brutal murders, burning of the valley and destroying everything in their wake. In fact Adam Crysler's brother was captured and hung for treason.