Nineteenth Century Heroines: Reaching for the Top

When I was researching for A View Most Glorious (lovely, lovely research), one of the first people that popped up was the first woman to reach the top of Mt. Rainier. That in itself is an amazing feat! But it was only one of many for Evelyn Fay Fuller.

Fay was born in 1869 in New Jersey, though her family later moved to Chicago. Her family moved again in 1882 to settle near Tacoma, Washington Territory. Her father edited a number of newspapers there, starting with the Evening News and going on to the Tacoma Ledger, Every Sunday, and The Tacomian. Fay fell in love with the grandeur of the area. She made her first visit to Paradise Park, at the 5,000-foot level on the mountain, when she was 17 and managed to make it to nearly the 9,000-foot level. She vowed then and there to reach the summit.

Fay graduated from high school at age 15 and began a career as a teacher. She and a group of young women also banded together for exercise, including calisthenics and rifle drills. But still the mountain called her. In August 1890, a couple of months shy of her twenty-first birthday, she was once again at Paradise Park at the invitation of Philemon Van Trump, who, with Hazard Stevens, had been the first white men to reach the summit. They were intent on making another trip, and they invited her to join them. They didn’t have to ask twice.

Accompanied by three other men (one a minister), but refusing their aid, she reached the summit at 4pm on August 10, having overnighted at Camp Muir. Bad weather forced the party to spend a second night on the mountain, this time on the summit in ice caves near steam vents to keep warm.

Fay returned to fame. The report of her climb crossed the nation, and a local photographer took a picture that would become iconic (see above), careful to disguise the fact that she had been wearing bloomers at the time. Scandalous! She quit teaching and joined her father as a reporter. Her “Mountain Murmurs” column would inspire countless others to attempt the climb or at least dream of doing so.

Fay was a founding member of the Washington Alpine Club in 1891, the Tacoma Alpine Club (now gone) in 1893, and the Mazamas (Portland, Oregon) in 1894. She made her second ascent of Rainier in 1897, having reached Paradise with more than 200 members of the Mazamas and taken 57 of them with her to the summit. Besides climbing, she advanced to city reporter for her father, walking all over Tacoma to cover the waterfront, equity courts, and the markets. She was sent to report on the World’s Fair in Chicago and St. Louis. She also served as the first female harbormaster.

In 1900, she left to explore beyond Washington, taking up reporting jobs in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and New York City. She was in her thirties when she married an attorney named Fritz von Briesen, who appears to have been fairly well off. They had three children, one which didn’t live to see her first birthday. The von Briesens later moved to California.

Fay died at age 88 in Santa Monica, California, having reached heights few still have ever attained.

You can catch a glimpse of the view of Paradise that so inspired her below.

Taking in the View

Today, Coraline Baxter begins her historic climb! Yes, A View Most Glorious, the third book in my American Wonders Collection, launches in ebook, trade paperback, hardcover, and audiobook, from Revell.

Reluctant socialite Coraline Baxter longs to live a life of significance and leave her mark on the world. When her local suffragette group asks her to climb Mount Rainier to raise awareness of their cause, she jumps at the chance, even though she has absolutely no climbing experience. If she can do it, any woman can do it. And after her mother issues an ultimatum—that Cora marry the man of her mother’s choosing if she is not successful—Cora must do it. But she can’t do it alone.

Noted mountain guide Nathan Hardee initially refuses to help Cora but has a change of heart when he sees what is at stake. He knows enough about the man Cora’s mother has chosen to know that the headstrong young woman should have nothing to do with him, much less marry him.

Climbing Rainier will require all of Cora’s fortitude and will lead her and Nathan to rediscover their faith in God and humanity. These two loners make unlikely partners in righting a wrong and may just discover that only together is the view most glorious.

“Unputdownable! A View Most Glorious is historical romance at its best.” Amanda Cabot, bestselling author 

“A View Most Glorious is, indeed, glorious! This adventure-filled tale with its wonderful characters will have you holding your breath as Coraline faces more opposition than what the mountain can throw at her.” Kit Morgan, USA Today bestselling author

You can find the book at fine online retailers and physical bookstores nationwide:

Baker Book House (30% off release and free shipping) 

Baker Publishing Group 

Amazon (affiliate link)

Apple Books 

Barnes and Noble 

Books-A-Million 

Christian Book 

Indie Bound (an independent bookstore near you) 

Kobo 

The Book Depository, free shipping worldwide 

Audio

Kobo 

Audiobooks

iTunes 

A View (or Two) from Regina Scott

Did I mention how excited I am to be writing about the history in my own backyard? As I type this, it’s two weeks until A View Most Glorious launches, and I can hardly wait. I can’t fly to England every time I write a book set there (worse luck!), but I can walk and drive to many of the places in this third book of my American Wonders series.

So, I did. And I’m going to take you with me. 😊

I’ll be doing a series of videos about some of the places that inspired scenes from the book. The book opens along the waterfront, where Coraline Baxter, my heroine, and her stepfather come seeking a guide to help them reach the top of Mt. Rainier. This video was shot less than 2 miles from where Shem’s Dockside Saloon might have been.

Nathan Hardee, my hero, reluctantly agrees to consider guiding Cora up the mountain, but he wants to make sure she has what it takes to reach the top. Taking an inexperienced climber into the heights is a hazard in and of itself. So, he sets her to climbing one of the highest hills in Tacoma, in 10 minutes or less. I had to try it myself. Here’s the results.

You can read the first chapter of A View Most Glorious on my website. Look for more peeks behind the scenes soon!

It’s a Celebration!

Cue the music and the confetti cannons! We are celebrating here at Nineteen Teen. 

Why?

First, we have surpassed 1 million views! That is pretty amazing for a lil ole blog devoted to the nineteenth century and books. Thank you all for your support!

Second, this month marks our 14th anniversary for blogging and the beginning of our 15^th year. We didn’t know what to expect when we started, but we’ve had the privilege to guest host or interview wonderful authors like Julie Klassen, Nancy Sanders, Charlotte Henry and her alter ego Shelley Adina, YS Lee, and Patrice Kindl; try a book club and movie watch parties; and dig into everything from fashion to fitness in early Georgian into Victorian times. What a ride!

As we usually do at our blog birthday, we are asking for you input. 

What do you want more of? 

What else shall we try?

Finally, on a personal note, I’m delighted to report two recent developments in the publication side. Always Kiss at Christmas, the prequel novella to my Fortune’s Brides series, is now available as an audio book, once again voiced by the marvelous Jannie Meisberger. Mary Rose has one goal for her mother’s Christmas Eve party: convince her friend Julian Mayes to marry her. Julian is ready to make his mark in London. As the danger to Mary’s future becomes clear, will one kiss prove to him how far he will go to protect her? You can find it at fine online retailers such as Amazon, Audible, and Apple.

And I cannot wait for the publication in October of the finale of my American Wonders Collection, A View Most Glorious. To celebrate, my publisher has put the first two ebooks in the series on sale for September. A Distance Too Grand is only 99cents, and Nothing Short of Wondrous is only $1.99. Grab them while you can!

If you are eager for the third book, you can preorder now. Headstrong beauty Coraline Baxter must rely on rough mountain guide Nathan Hardee to help her reach the top of Mt. Rainier so she can bring attention to a woman’s right to vote and avoid marrying the man her mother has chosen for her. But her mountain man has hidden potential—and so, she discovers, does their future together. 

Baker Book House (40% off preorder, 30% off release and free shipping) 

Baker Publishing Group 

Amazon 

Apple Books 

Barnes and Noble 

Books-A-Million 

Christian Book 

Indie Bound (an independent bookstore near you) 

Kobo 

The Book Depository, free shipping worldwide 

Stay tuned for more tidbits about the mountain and the fun I had writing this book in coming weeks.

At the Point of Fisticuffs: Naming Mt. Rainier

I loved getting to write about the history in my own backyard for A View Most Glorious, out in October. But I ran across a few things that surprised me, and none more so than the controversy surrounding the name of one of the highest mountains in the Continental U.S.

Captain George Vancouver claimed the mountain when he sighted it from his ship on his survey of the Pacific Coast of North America in 1792. He named it after his friend, Rear Admiral Peter Rainier. Later settlers to the area called it Tacoma or Tahoma, thinking they were following the tradition of some of the tribes in the area. When the Northern Pacific Railway roared into the city of Tacoma in 1883, the executives were determined to encourage tourism to spur rail travel. All their literature touted trips to Mt. Tacoma.

Suddenly, the name became a household debate. Prominent citizens brought forth pamphlets listing names of tribal members favoring the name Tacoma. Others brought forth scientists and political leaders who favored Rainier. Seattle accused Tacoma of attempting to appropriate the mountain. Tacoma accused Seattle of attempting to steal their history.

In 1890, the nascent U.S. Board of Geographic Names listed the name as Rainier. That only fueled the raging fires. When a map of Washington State was displayed at the World’s Fair of 1893, viewers actually started a fight over which name should be on the map!

A group of Washingtonians petitioned the U.S. Geographic Board to change the name in 1890, 1917, and 1921. All three times they were denied. Finally, the matter reached Congress, resulting in a Joint Resolution to change the name. By that time, those in favor of the name had created a sizeable mythology.

First, they claimed the name Tacoma must be kept to honor Native Americans. The Geographic Board’s research of tribes in the area concluded that Tacoma or Tahoma might be the name of any snow-capped mountain, not Rainier specifically. The name might also have been completely fabricated!

Second, they claimed that Admiral Rainier was unworthy of having anything named after him. He was a pirate who had “raided our shores, captured our citizens, and burned our cities.” The closest Rainier had come to America was the West Indies where, as a young lieutenant, he had helped capture an American privateer during the Revolutionary War and been wounded for his trouble.

Finally, they came out against the Geographic Board itself. They claimed the 1890 pronouncement had been reached after a “midnight orgy” at the capital, in which the attorney for the Rainier Brewing and Malting Company, Senator Watson C. Squire, had delivered a train car full of beer and other intoxicants, to bribe the Geographic Board into keeping the name Rainier. Big problem with that story: Rainier Beer was a brand name, not a company, and Senator Squire had no connection to it. 

In their report to Congress, the Geographic Board stated that to change the name “would be a blow to the stability of geographic and historical nomenclature, and a reflection upon the intelligence of the American people.”

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, one of the leading newspapers in Washington State, added, “It is of course possible to decree that henceforth the name of the mountain shall be ‘Mount Tacoma’ or ‘Mount Somethingelse.’ But no decree can make people use the name. It will still be ‘Mount Rainier’ in speech and written word.”

Funny thing about that. Rarely does anyone here call it Mount Rainier. To us, it’s just “the mountain.” 😊

Apparently, my own love for that mountain was showing when I wrote A View Most Glorious, as I learned that Booklist, the publication of the American Library Association, has awarded it a coveted starred review!

“As a native to the Mount Rainier region, Scott writes with an exhilarating wealth of sensory detail, bringing the setting to such vivid life the mountain becomes a dynamic character in its own right.”

A rose by any other name…

My Father's Mountain

Today would have been my father’s 91^st birthday. He died in his early 80s from Alzheimer’s. I think of him often, but never more so then when I see the massive, majestic bulk of Mt. Rainier rising into the heavens. My father loved that mountain.

He was born in the Appalachians, in a sleepy little town now called Whitehall, whose claim to fame is that it was the birthplace of the U.S. Navy in the Revolutionary War. A silk mill employed many in town for some years. The oldest of ten children, he wanted more than anything to get out and see the world. As soon as he could, he enrolled in the Air Force. His dream was to go into radar.

After some training, he ended up at what is now Joint Base Lewis-McChord. He arrived in the winter and endured weeks of unrelenting rain and snow. The first sunny day, he looked out in surprise, then asked his fellow airmen, “Who put that big pile of snow at the end of the runway?”

That big pile of snow was Mt. Rainier. From a certain angle, it does indeed look as if it rises from the end of the main runway.

Even before he married my mother, he was spending his free time up on the slopes, hiking, taking pictures, soaking up the beauty. The tallest mountain he’d seen before then had been less than one-quarter the size. He and Mom went there often. When I was a few months old, he was given the chance to go to Greenland and learn about radar. Instead, he mustered out. His dream was less important than spending time with his family.

I don’t recall a time growing up when we didn’t spend a good chunk of the summer on the mountain. My father liked to brag that I had made the long and steep climb to the Ice Caves (now gone) above Paradise when I was only six. One of the pictures of the climb shows me up on his shoulders, so I’m pretty sure I didn’t walk the entire way!

We hiked, and we camped. He always wanted to summit, but life got in the way. When we moved north for five years, he found other mountains to love in the North Cascades, but Rainier was ever his favorite.

She is mine as well. Happy birthday, Papa. Now, at least, you get to look down at her instead of up. 

Revealing A View Most Glorious

Those of you who have been following the blog know I have loved the covers for my American Wonders Collection. In case you missed them, here’s the first, A Distance Too Grand, set in the Grand Canyon of 1871:

And the second, Nothing Short of Wondrous, set in Yellowstone, 1886:

As my publisher, Revell, began working on the cover for the third, I told them my most fervent wish that the cover could look a little like this postcard of the first woman to climb Mt. Rainier, Fay Fuller. Miss Fuller reached the summit 3 years before my heroine, Coraline Baxter, in 1893. And she reached it in bloomers, a fashion nearly as shocking as a woman mountain climber.

But mimicking the picture wasn’t easy. Revell prides itself on period-correct clothing, going so far as to borrow historical clothing from museums or purchasing outfits from reputable antique dealers. Finding a blue flannel bloomer suit (long coat and bloomers) was a long shot.

But they did it.

I am delighted to give you the cover for my third book, A View Most Glorious:

That is my beloved Mt. Rainier in the background and the alpine meadows of Paradise around her. Here’s a little about the story: 

Headstrong Coraline Baxter has worked all her life to be more than the spoiled socialite others expect. When her beloved stepfather's bank is threatened by the Panic of 1893, she makes a deal with arrogant entrepreneur Cash Kincaid, who has been pressuring her to marry him. If she can climb Mount Rainier, he will bail out the bank. All Cora needs is a guide to get her to the top.

Nathan Hardee may look like a mountain man, but he once ruled the halls of high society. He left all that behind after his father broke under financial pressure from Kincaid. To best Kincaid now, Nathan agrees to guide Cora up the mountain.

Climbing Rainier will require all of Cora's strength and will lead her and Nathan to rediscover their faith in God and humanity. These two loners make unlikely partners in righting a wrong and may just discover that only together is the view most glorious.

You can preorder the book now at

Baker Book House (40% off and free U.S. shipping on all Revell preorders) 

Amazon 

Barnes and Noble 

Christian Book 

Books-a-Million 

The Book Depository (free shipping worldwide)