A Tallahassee lawyer-turned-writer has penned a work of historical fiction. This is not John Williams first book. Almost five years ago, he published the imagined sayings of his rescue greyhound, called “Tillie’s Tales.” Tillie passed on a few years back. But by then, Williams was already deep into a new writing project. A story based on an old childhood obsession.
“From the time I was a kid, I love to read about western history. And Jim Bridger was one of the ones I read about as a kid, 19-years old.”
Jim Bridger was a real icon of the early American West. A mountain man, trapper, army scout and wilderness guide. He explored and trapped the area during the first half of the Nineteenth Century. When John Williams was in his 40s, he finally visited Bridger’s old stomping grounds during a trip to Utah.
“I realized I was in Mormon country so that there was some connection between the Mormons and Bridger, being in Utah.”
Williams embarked on a search to find that connection. Discovery didn’t take long and Williams says the relationship between Jim Bridger and the Mormon Church wasn’t exactly friendly. He cites this interaction between Brigham Young, the second president of the Mormon Church after Joseph Smith, and Bridger.
“He had a fort out there and eventually there was a situation between him and Brigham Young and Brigham Young burned the fort down. That’s in the book. So there are things that happened that are historically accurate and some that COULD be historically accurate (laughs.)”
Williams weaves his retelling of historical events with the time-honored technique of using a number of fictitious characters as metaphors for diverse social, political and religious groups within the larger, historically accurate story of that era.
“And that was truly a melting pot, when you talk about that era of America from 1830 to 1850. I don’t think there’s a lot written about it. And it shows the interaction of politics, religion, exploration of the West, it being unmapped and how these two men born within a year of each other and fairly close to each other in the eastern part of the United States ended up going west and what their impact was.”
“Bridger and the Prophet’s Pages.” This historical fiction will be available online and locally in Tallahassee.
