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Fred Thompson
- Thread starter Xath
- Start date
The_Universe
First Post
That's fine - let me think about what I want to do with the Kennedy affair. Honestly, though - even if she's just a capable cowhand/rider/whatever, her gender and age (and the fact that she's apparently pretty well travelled) would probably be enough to justify her reputation bonus in the area.Xath said:
Yeah - the site you linked was pretty fond of him, and sort of glossed over the fact that he was a dedicated racist accused of killing a half-dozen mexican cowhands in the period we're talking about - and largely ignored his scrapes with lawmen in other states (including the infamous Earps!)
Yep - his gravestone has the masonic symbol carved into its face, as it shows in one of the sites you linked.
The_Universe
First Post
I don't really care about this, because as I've noted elsewhere, it's really an artifact of any game that starts at level 1 where there's any amount of backstory.Xath said:
That's cool, but it sort of conflicts with these other two things....
....Because by 1879 the Santa Fe Ring is no longer a going concern in the region, as they'd essentially won the war (the railroad was already here, Allison and the other members of the Colfax County Ring had moved on, etc.)
Nonetheless, there's enough there to work with, and I'm not precisely sure how I'd adjust things at this point. We'll play it by ear to see if we can make some of it fit a little better.
The_Universe
First Post
I'd make her older, as I'd rather not shift an extended series of events forward in time to conflict with the other stuff I have going on. It's both the strength and weakness of tying everything so closely to over-arching historical events.Xath said:
Queen_Dopplepopolis
First Post
Clay Allison was a pretty bad guy... not to mention completely insane. Total maniac. (got kicked out of the Confederate Army for being crazy, as a matter of fact)
The_Universe
First Post
I posted all those times and I still didn't really get to the core of what I wanted to know -
Is Mr. Thompson a squatter, or a legitimate large land-owner? Is he a poor, scrappy rancher (trying to hold his claim against the "big boys" who already have more than they "need") or part of the local aristocracy (defending his own legitimately held lands from squatters with no respect for the fact that accomplishments and profits must be earned, and cannot be stolen)?
The apparent size of his spread would tend to indicate the latter, but would certainly have an effect on the proto-equal rights populist personality and background he seems to have.
Just trying to make it all fit.
Is Mr. Thompson a squatter, or a legitimate large land-owner? Is he a poor, scrappy rancher (trying to hold his claim against the "big boys" who already have more than they "need") or part of the local aristocracy (defending his own legitimately held lands from squatters with no respect for the fact that accomplishments and profits must be earned, and cannot be stolen)?
The apparent size of his spread would tend to indicate the latter, but would certainly have an effect on the proto-equal rights populist personality and background he seems to have.
Just trying to make it all fit.
The_Universe
First Post
Winifred Thompson - the Director's Cut
Winifred “Fred” Anne Thompson
Winifred Anne Thompson was born to Jonas Michael Thompson and Annabelle Elizabeth Grey Thompson, on the 18th of August, 1858 in Savannah, Georgia.
Her father had inherited his own family’s plantation at the age of 13, following his parents’ and older siblings' demise in a cholera epidemic. A bright boy with several business advisors that had been loyal to his father and mother, he retained much of his parents' wealth until the War of Northern Aggression made his continued prosperity off of the land almost impossible. His prosperity, combined with dashing good looks and an intense personality earned him a place in the upper echelons of the Savannah societal hubbub and to-do. He was a suitor to a number of young ladies in his youth, and was widely reputed to have left a number of broken hearts (and rumored to have left at least one fatherless child among them). But, his reputation was unimpeachable, as no evidence of note could be summoned to impugn this charming rapscallion's honor (witnesses of his transgressions, it is still whispered in Savannah, often refused to testify at the last second).
In March of 1854, at the age of 21, met Annabelle Grey.
She was the youngest of the seven surviving Grey children, and was thus searching for a beneficial marriage so that she could continue living in her accustomed way after the inevitable eventual deaths of her parents. Cold, Anabelle was dominated by a single emotion: greed. Jonas Thompson seemed the perfect opportunity for such a life. As the wife of a plantation owner, her prosperity would be assured. She spoke with her father soon after their meeting, and he in turn spoke with the young Master Thompson. The marriage was arranged, and it took place on the 15th of September, 1855.
Publicly, the union was the picture of the social perfection southern gentry had come to expect. Privately, it was not a happy union.
Jonas stayed out of Savannah, managing his plantation's holdings from his family's ancestral Manse while Anabelle maintained a seperate residence in Savannah, proper. Though Jonas made frequent trips into the town in order to visit his young wife and to perform his duties as a husband. His social prominence assured that he often had to leave the country estate to take care of business in the city.
Winifred was born on August 18th, 1858, less than a year after they had been married. Though officially their first child, various sicknesses had resulted in the early term loss of four earlier pregnancies, and two children that Anabelle had taken to full term had died shortly after childbirth, making Winifred their seventh child (though the first to live).
Pregnancy and illness had done little to ensure Anabelle's beauty, but she had not lost all of her feminine wiles by the time Winifred came screaming into the world. Throughout the girls young life, she endured whispers that both her mother and father entertained various suitors in less-than-socially-acceptable ways. Anabelle's fortunes fell further when a local drought followed by a brush fire destroyed Jonas's plantation and reduced the primary support for her lavish lifestyle to ash.
Jonas was penniless, and there would be little means for them to support their child - a child that (incidentally) both Anabelle and Jonas showed little interest in raising except at social gatherings. Anabelle sold her the Thompson estate in Savannah, and took her daughter to the Grey plantation, just south of Savannah, itself.
Jonas hadn’t been happy with the marriage from the start. Though the marriage had improved his already-high social standing, Anabelle had proven less than he had hoped as a wife. Publicly, she thought it crude that he seemed to like to work the land himself, and put considerable social pressure on him to leave the management of his plantation to his more than capable overseers. In fact, her concern was not with the fact that his hands were all over the land, but rather that they seemed to frequently wander to those who worked it for him.
With his plantation gone, he had little choice but to return to his father-in-law's plantation, and to the watchful eyes of his scheming wife. Yet, Jonas was not without his own talents. By the end of 1860, he had confinced the Greys to fully support himself, his wife, and their child, and had diverted a great deal of their earnings to his own pocket, at least in part to pay for the lavish frivolities his wife continued to demand. Without a plantation of his own, he turned his talents to the Greys' holdings, managing the books for his own benefit. Not only were the Greys subsidizing this lavish lifestyle officially - they were also paying for a substantial private savings that Jonas had diverted to a number of European banks.
He treated his daughter well, in part because of the utter lack of children her own age, and because of the slave children's general insistence to avoid his seventh child of a seventh child. She was precocious, but rebellious - an entertaining diversion for a man largely concerned with himself.
When the Civil War broke out, Jonas answered the call in true patriotic fashion. He used his father-in-law's lands to grow foodstuffs and useful supplies for the war effort, and offered his own abandoned plantation as a staging ground for growing regiments of Confederate volunteers in an attempt to curry favor with the administration that would eventually make its home in Richmond, VA.
Jonas joined the Hardwick Mounted Rifles with a Lieutenant's commission, and and served with the Confederate Cavalry throughout the war, making friends with a number of men in both his own command and others throughout the conflict. At one point, Jonas was accused by a junior officer of passing information on troop movements to neighboring Union commanders, but the man was killed in battle before formal charges (or evidence of Jonas's apparent treason) could be produced.
Meanwhile, in Savannah, Winifred was being brought up in normal aristocratic fashion. Her mother had very little to do with her, except to display her at appropriate social functions.
Despite the fall of Fort Pulaski on May 1, 1862, Savannah was left mostly in peace until General Sherman's arrival in December 1864. Until she was five, Anabelle and Winifred's lives were minimally effected by the conflict. At Jonas's behest, The Greys had not completely halted their own stopped their cotton production during the war, and instead had much if it smuggled around the Union blockade of southern ports through Texas and Mexico, and sold it for great profit to dealers who were hoarding the product throughout the war.
John Peter Grey had not let the Civil War get in the way of his way of life. He made sure that those of his sons who did not wish to serve did not, and those who did were posted where they wanted to be. His daughters and his sons’ wives lived in the ample comfort of the Grey estate while their husbands were at war, and John Peter made sure that his grandchildren were properly educated. Even with Jonas secretly manipulating the family's fortunes to his own benefit, the Greys had few financial worries, even after the government they had supported with blood and money collapsed in the face of Sherman and Grant's combined victories.
Winifred began her schooling at the age of three, learning French and Spanish under the tutelage of a governess. She learned history, theology, mathematics, art, southern culture, and all things appropriate for a Savannah Grey or Thompson. Her father's long absence at such a young age had wiped much of his presence from her memory, and she was comforted only by vague memories of a man who was not her grandfather.
When Jonas returned to Savannah in 1865, he purchased a small house in town and took up residence. He demanded his daughter be brought to live with him, though he allowed her to go to her grandfather’s house every day for schooling. In the company of her governess, attended church every Sunday. Anabelle, meanwhile, had begun to grow tired of her charade with Jonas, and her trysts with various illicit suitors became less and less private. With her daughter in the care of her husband, she had few reasons to hide her transgressions from all but the most casual view.
But, Jonas and Winifred would not remain in Savannah for long after the war. John Peter Grey discovered his son-in-law's financial trickery soon after he returned to once more control the Grey's fortune, and accused Jonas of embezzlement during an important function. Though the elder Grey took sick soon after making the accusation, and died before he could bring proof to bear against his daughter's husband, Savannah itself was no longer a place safe for Jonas Thompson.
Using connections he had developed both before and during the War, Jonas made arrangements to purchase a large block of land along the smuggling route his cotton traders had used throughout the conflict. Buying up part of the Maxwell Grant west Maxwell (now Springer), in New Mexico Territory, Jonas took his daughter and moved west, using her as a sort of insurance against the pursuit of claims against him in Savannah by his wife and her (understandably) angry family until they sank completely into obscurity.
With Jonas Thompson gone and John Peter Grey dead, the Greys soon fell on hard times. Preyed upon by northern carpetbaggers and by profiteering southern politicians, the once great fortune dwindled into nothing - leaving Anabelle Grey with an estranged husband, no daughter, and nothing but her own greed and a hatred of her husband to keep her going. The Greys sank into obscurity, and Anabelle found herself sinking lower and lower into Savannah's underworld. This is probably not the last we'll hear of Anabelle...
Travelling west by horse and wagon, staying with business partners, friends, and war-buddies as they travelled, Jonas and Winifred wasted little time in arriving at their new home on the lawless frontier. Mary Krelberg, Winifred's governess for as long as the child could remember, accompanied them, in no small part due to the affections that Jonas had showed her before leaving Savannah.
For the first time, Winifred was forced to spend time with her father frequently, and she learned much by the association. A shrewed businessman and undeniably, strangely charismatic, Jonas never left a place without getting what he wanted. Nonetheless, the warmth he had showed her on the limited visits she had been granted in the past began to evaporate. His affections were reserved for older women, and Winifred was at least peripherally aware (though Mary wasn't) that he did not confine himself to the attentions of his daughter's governess.
The Thompson spread on the old Maxwell grant was vast - Jonas's agents had chosen well, and by the time they arrived, a rudimentary ranch house and a small (but growing) herd of cattle was already grazing the limited brush on the arid, mountainous land. The locals, mostly Apache and Ute Indians, weren't pleased with the new influx of settlers. Attacks had decreased since the first migrations of 1857, but as more and more people began to settle in the area, unrest became apparent.
Though his neighbors suffered much until the US Army out of Fort Union was able to largely subdue both native populations, and confine them to their agencies west of the Turkey Mountains, the Thompson spread was almost entirely untouched. Jonas had met with both Apache and Ute leaders shortly after arriving, and apparently arrangements were made that left the Thompson ranch untouched by the numerous raids.
The Apaches in particular - formerly poorly armed with old flintlock muskets out of Mexico - began arming themselves with what seemed to be old Confederate weapons, and made raids on several of Jonas and Winifred's neighbors shortly after the Thompson's arrival. As they were either killed or driven out, Jonas's herds and holdings expanded. The Lazy Diamond brand was ubiquitous in the area.
The Apache's had a sort of unofficial sanctuary on the Lazy Diamond, far north of their agency, and an effective hiding place from the Army at Ft. Union. They traded freely with the Thompsons and their ranch hands, though not when any remaining neighbors could see. The Apache never lacked for beef, though none that they acquired from Jonas carried the Lazy Diamond brand.
In 1870, the Maxwell Land Grant was sold to the Dutch East Indies Company and they allotted a portion of that land to Frank Springer. A settlement was soon formed there.
At first, Fred and her father would venture into town once or twice a year to sell their cattle and buy supplies from Mr. Florsheim's General Store. Once the town was firmly established, Mary Krelberg opened a school near the church and began teaching all of the local children. Jonas had lost interest in the girl over time, and her move to Springer - though funded by the Lazy Diamond - was a sort of exile from Jonas's presence. Fred came into town as often as she could be spared from the ranch to attend services and lessons with her former Governess.
Life for Fred in Colfax County was nothing like life in Savannah. But Fred preferred it. She had finally escaped the hoards of "proper" relatives who called her "Winnie" and thought it "quaint" when she informed them that she prefered to be called Fred. Now she was free. Ranch life wasn't suited to the customs and traditions of the South, including clothing. Fred took to wearing boys clothes, partially because of the physical freedom they allowed, and partially because neither her father nor his hands (most of which were as good or better with a gun than they were with a rope) could sew to save their lives. Faced with a vastly different social climate than he had known in Savannah, Jonas simply failed to purchase clothes for his daughter; instead, he too castoffs and hand-me-downs from the Harmon boys.
Fred couldn't escape the South entirely. Every year, for her birthday and Christmas, Mr. Forsheim would have a package for her, ostensibly from her Grandfather and Mother (Fred knew that her mother didn't have a part in this, and thought her grandfather just added her name - she was unaware that he had died shortly after her father's departure from the area). A steam trunk with a new dress of the highest southern fashion, several books, and fifty dollars would arrive like clockwork, with nary a word from her relatives back east. Apparently sent to insure that Fred didn't lose every vestige of culture that they had tried to instill, she'd dutifully don her newest dress, "do herself up" like a lady, and have her picture taken by Mr. Forsheim, who owened one of the only cameras in the county. She'd change back into her normal clothes, and send the photograph to their sender by post, pocket the 50 dollars, and not don formal clothing again until the next package arrived.
Fred's father had hired ranchhands from far and wide. His men were feared and respected everywhere they went, and the Lazy Diamond brand came to mean something in the area around Springer. A few of the men were immigrants from Europe, and a couple of the hands seemed to be ex-slaves - but the vast majority of his men were drifters given a chance to work, and Mexicans slipping north to work. His men were decent with cattle and horses, but they were all good with guns. The Lazy Diamond was respected and feared, though Fred would hear none of it from the locals, for they feared offending her powerful father.
Fred's Spanish improved with the influx of vaqueros from the south, and she learned a fair amount about tending herd from the rough men her father hired. She learned more about violence, as well as a few words that would be considered colorful in any language.
New ranch hands would try to "help" Fred do the "hard work." She was no stranger to grasping, calloused hands by the time she was 16. Jonas and his most experienced hands took these transgressions seriously, and more than one ranch hand would ride out to check the herds and not return after an attempt to help young Fred with her own chores. No one was "learned" twice. Nonetheless, Fred had gained a suprisingly accurate knowledge of the male anatomy from working with the ranchers, as the older men soon taught her to defend herself, rather than have to ride the lonely trail with a man who'd not return to employment at the spread.
In 1873, when Fred was 15, industrialists who hoped to bring the railroad (and a modicum of civilization) to Santa Fe by way of the quiet cowtown of Maxwell/Springer approached Jonas about buying some land for the rail. Apparently the deal was not lucrative enough for the cattle baron and former plantation owner, and he refused. Selling the land to the railroad would likely end the Lazy Diamond's time as an Apache refuge.
In 1874, a second offer was made to Jonas - once more, he considered the paltry offer an insult, and had some of his hands throw the young banker off of his land. Fred, taking the railroad owner's offer as a threat, took matters into her own hands to further embarass and drive off the railroad's representative.
Her father was not pleased at her behavior (as he had indeed intended to eventually take this second offer after driving up the price of the land), and she was sent into a sort of semi-exile from the Lazy Diamond by her father. She spent some time in town with her old Governess, but turned some of her rougher talents toward making a living for herself independent of her father.
Fred began to drive and ride shotgun on shipments between Maxwell (Springer) and Elizabethtown. Elizabethtown was a prosperous gold-mining settlement, and the desperado-filled county made transport risky at best, deadly at worst. In the five years that Fred made runs, she prided herself on never losing a shipment. It was not all easy though.
Fred came into contact with a number of colorful characters as she supported herself in Colfax County, including Clay Allison - a psychotic gunfighter and former criminal whose beliefs closely matched Fred's own ideals (or at least seem to). Allison violently opposed the railroad's entry into Colfax county, not least because the rail would bring the law with it. He became something of a second father to the young and impressionable (but undeniably tough) young girl.
Back in Springer, Jonas Thompson had begun to offer a great deal of surrepitous support to the Santa Fe Ring, a group of investors and cattle barons that hoped to speed the Railroad's arrival in New Mexico territory. Though he was feeding both funds and expertise to the Santa Fe Ring, Jonas and his cowhands publicly supported his daughter's fanciful cause, lending his lean and violent cowhands to more than one of the activities of Allison's opposing Colfax Ring.
The war between the Santa Fe Ring and the Colfax Ring continued, both sides' actions ultimately orchestrated by Jonas Thompson. Squatters and settlers on potential railroad land were given arms and encouragement, but the Santa Fe Ring was not without victories. The violence and difficulties drove up the price of land actually owned by Jonas and his allies.
By 1875, the Santa Fe Ring both Melvin W. Mills and Dr. Longwell jumped on the political bandwagon behind the Santa Fe Ring. In the election of that year, with the Ring (and Jonas, secretly) backing them, Longwell became Probate Judge while Mills became State Legislator.
Conditions began to worsen for the squatters around Maxwell. Sheriffs served eviction notices and retaliation began. Violence increased as both the Colfax County Ring and the Santa Fe Ring continued their unofficial war. By 1875, land prices had reached heights that Jonas could barely have dreamed - it was time for the end game. He let his daughter continue to defend the "preyed upon" squatters and settlers, but moved to bring the conflict to a swift and bloody end.
Without explanation or preamble, a methodist circuit rider rode into Colfax County, siding with the settlers and squatters against the Santa Fe Ring.
Parson Franklin J. Toby brought a spiritual influence into the Colfax County cause - he was well loved and respected by all of the locals, and managed to whip the Colfax Ring into a nearly fanatical religious fervor, encouraging increasing violence against the ephemeral "enemies" of the Colfax Ring, preaching the impending arrival of a communalistic Utopia where no "landowner" could or would stop them from taking whatever land they could.
On September 14, 1875, the Parson was found shot in the back, and was buried the next day. Rumors flew - the Cimarron Constable, Cruz Vega was behind the murder of the demogogue. The Colfax County Ring dealt swift justice to him to the constable, despite his claims of innocence. Vega had claimed that Manuel Cardenas was behind the killing before he was lynched, and he in turn implicated Melvin Mills and Dr. Longwell in the sacrificial killing. Both barely escaped lynch mobs as word spread - selling some of their own holdings to Thompson, rather than depending on the rapidly increasing violence to decrease to allow them to profit from the coming railroad.
Later, Cardenas (a former Lazy Diamond hand) claimed that the names of Mills and Longwell had been coerced out of him because he had been questioned at gunpoint. The two were legally cleared, but some of the vigilantes (more former Lazy Diamond ranch hands) did not believe him and shot Cardenas in the jail. None of the vigilantes involved in this were officially part of the Colfax County Ring, but they were blamed for it anyway. The Mexican portion of the population turned away from them in outrage. Clay Allison, as the figurehead of the Ring, had to walk about with a 45-man escort for protection in town. This was the beginning of the real Colfax County War - a war that ultimately ended with victory for a reduced Santa Fe Ring, the arrival of the Railroad, and nearly unimaginable profits for Jonas Thompson.
As the War ended, Jonas and Fred reconciled, and she moved back out the Lazy Diamond to once more take her place at her father's side.
Winifred “Fred” Anne Thompson
Winifred Anne Thompson was born to Jonas Michael Thompson and Annabelle Elizabeth Grey Thompson, on the 18th of August, 1858 in Savannah, Georgia.
Her father had inherited his own family’s plantation at the age of 13, following his parents’ and older siblings' demise in a cholera epidemic. A bright boy with several business advisors that had been loyal to his father and mother, he retained much of his parents' wealth until the War of Northern Aggression made his continued prosperity off of the land almost impossible. His prosperity, combined with dashing good looks and an intense personality earned him a place in the upper echelons of the Savannah societal hubbub and to-do. He was a suitor to a number of young ladies in his youth, and was widely reputed to have left a number of broken hearts (and rumored to have left at least one fatherless child among them). But, his reputation was unimpeachable, as no evidence of note could be summoned to impugn this charming rapscallion's honor (witnesses of his transgressions, it is still whispered in Savannah, often refused to testify at the last second).
In March of 1854, at the age of 21, met Annabelle Grey.
She was the youngest of the seven surviving Grey children, and was thus searching for a beneficial marriage so that she could continue living in her accustomed way after the inevitable eventual deaths of her parents. Cold, Anabelle was dominated by a single emotion: greed. Jonas Thompson seemed the perfect opportunity for such a life. As the wife of a plantation owner, her prosperity would be assured. She spoke with her father soon after their meeting, and he in turn spoke with the young Master Thompson. The marriage was arranged, and it took place on the 15th of September, 1855.
Publicly, the union was the picture of the social perfection southern gentry had come to expect. Privately, it was not a happy union.
Jonas stayed out of Savannah, managing his plantation's holdings from his family's ancestral Manse while Anabelle maintained a seperate residence in Savannah, proper. Though Jonas made frequent trips into the town in order to visit his young wife and to perform his duties as a husband. His social prominence assured that he often had to leave the country estate to take care of business in the city.
Winifred was born on August 18th, 1858, less than a year after they had been married. Though officially their first child, various sicknesses had resulted in the early term loss of four earlier pregnancies, and two children that Anabelle had taken to full term had died shortly after childbirth, making Winifred their seventh child (though the first to live).
Pregnancy and illness had done little to ensure Anabelle's beauty, but she had not lost all of her feminine wiles by the time Winifred came screaming into the world. Throughout the girls young life, she endured whispers that both her mother and father entertained various suitors in less-than-socially-acceptable ways. Anabelle's fortunes fell further when a local drought followed by a brush fire destroyed Jonas's plantation and reduced the primary support for her lavish lifestyle to ash.
Jonas was penniless, and there would be little means for them to support their child - a child that (incidentally) both Anabelle and Jonas showed little interest in raising except at social gatherings. Anabelle sold her the Thompson estate in Savannah, and took her daughter to the Grey plantation, just south of Savannah, itself.
Jonas hadn’t been happy with the marriage from the start. Though the marriage had improved his already-high social standing, Anabelle had proven less than he had hoped as a wife. Publicly, she thought it crude that he seemed to like to work the land himself, and put considerable social pressure on him to leave the management of his plantation to his more than capable overseers. In fact, her concern was not with the fact that his hands were all over the land, but rather that they seemed to frequently wander to those who worked it for him.
With his plantation gone, he had little choice but to return to his father-in-law's plantation, and to the watchful eyes of his scheming wife. Yet, Jonas was not without his own talents. By the end of 1860, he had confinced the Greys to fully support himself, his wife, and their child, and had diverted a great deal of their earnings to his own pocket, at least in part to pay for the lavish frivolities his wife continued to demand. Without a plantation of his own, he turned his talents to the Greys' holdings, managing the books for his own benefit. Not only were the Greys subsidizing this lavish lifestyle officially - they were also paying for a substantial private savings that Jonas had diverted to a number of European banks.
He treated his daughter well, in part because of the utter lack of children her own age, and because of the slave children's general insistence to avoid his seventh child of a seventh child. She was precocious, but rebellious - an entertaining diversion for a man largely concerned with himself.
When the Civil War broke out, Jonas answered the call in true patriotic fashion. He used his father-in-law's lands to grow foodstuffs and useful supplies for the war effort, and offered his own abandoned plantation as a staging ground for growing regiments of Confederate volunteers in an attempt to curry favor with the administration that would eventually make its home in Richmond, VA.
Jonas joined the Hardwick Mounted Rifles with a Lieutenant's commission, and and served with the Confederate Cavalry throughout the war, making friends with a number of men in both his own command and others throughout the conflict. At one point, Jonas was accused by a junior officer of passing information on troop movements to neighboring Union commanders, but the man was killed in battle before formal charges (or evidence of Jonas's apparent treason) could be produced.
Meanwhile, in Savannah, Winifred was being brought up in normal aristocratic fashion. Her mother had very little to do with her, except to display her at appropriate social functions.
Despite the fall of Fort Pulaski on May 1, 1862, Savannah was left mostly in peace until General Sherman's arrival in December 1864. Until she was five, Anabelle and Winifred's lives were minimally effected by the conflict. At Jonas's behest, The Greys had not completely halted their own stopped their cotton production during the war, and instead had much if it smuggled around the Union blockade of southern ports through Texas and Mexico, and sold it for great profit to dealers who were hoarding the product throughout the war.
John Peter Grey had not let the Civil War get in the way of his way of life. He made sure that those of his sons who did not wish to serve did not, and those who did were posted where they wanted to be. His daughters and his sons’ wives lived in the ample comfort of the Grey estate while their husbands were at war, and John Peter made sure that his grandchildren were properly educated. Even with Jonas secretly manipulating the family's fortunes to his own benefit, the Greys had few financial worries, even after the government they had supported with blood and money collapsed in the face of Sherman and Grant's combined victories.
Winifred began her schooling at the age of three, learning French and Spanish under the tutelage of a governess. She learned history, theology, mathematics, art, southern culture, and all things appropriate for a Savannah Grey or Thompson. Her father's long absence at such a young age had wiped much of his presence from her memory, and she was comforted only by vague memories of a man who was not her grandfather.
When Jonas returned to Savannah in 1865, he purchased a small house in town and took up residence. He demanded his daughter be brought to live with him, though he allowed her to go to her grandfather’s house every day for schooling. In the company of her governess, attended church every Sunday. Anabelle, meanwhile, had begun to grow tired of her charade with Jonas, and her trysts with various illicit suitors became less and less private. With her daughter in the care of her husband, she had few reasons to hide her transgressions from all but the most casual view.
But, Jonas and Winifred would not remain in Savannah for long after the war. John Peter Grey discovered his son-in-law's financial trickery soon after he returned to once more control the Grey's fortune, and accused Jonas of embezzlement during an important function. Though the elder Grey took sick soon after making the accusation, and died before he could bring proof to bear against his daughter's husband, Savannah itself was no longer a place safe for Jonas Thompson.
Using connections he had developed both before and during the War, Jonas made arrangements to purchase a large block of land along the smuggling route his cotton traders had used throughout the conflict. Buying up part of the Maxwell Grant west Maxwell (now Springer), in New Mexico Territory, Jonas took his daughter and moved west, using her as a sort of insurance against the pursuit of claims against him in Savannah by his wife and her (understandably) angry family until they sank completely into obscurity.
With Jonas Thompson gone and John Peter Grey dead, the Greys soon fell on hard times. Preyed upon by northern carpetbaggers and by profiteering southern politicians, the once great fortune dwindled into nothing - leaving Anabelle Grey with an estranged husband, no daughter, and nothing but her own greed and a hatred of her husband to keep her going. The Greys sank into obscurity, and Anabelle found herself sinking lower and lower into Savannah's underworld. This is probably not the last we'll hear of Anabelle...
Travelling west by horse and wagon, staying with business partners, friends, and war-buddies as they travelled, Jonas and Winifred wasted little time in arriving at their new home on the lawless frontier. Mary Krelberg, Winifred's governess for as long as the child could remember, accompanied them, in no small part due to the affections that Jonas had showed her before leaving Savannah.
For the first time, Winifred was forced to spend time with her father frequently, and she learned much by the association. A shrewed businessman and undeniably, strangely charismatic, Jonas never left a place without getting what he wanted. Nonetheless, the warmth he had showed her on the limited visits she had been granted in the past began to evaporate. His affections were reserved for older women, and Winifred was at least peripherally aware (though Mary wasn't) that he did not confine himself to the attentions of his daughter's governess.
The Thompson spread on the old Maxwell grant was vast - Jonas's agents had chosen well, and by the time they arrived, a rudimentary ranch house and a small (but growing) herd of cattle was already grazing the limited brush on the arid, mountainous land. The locals, mostly Apache and Ute Indians, weren't pleased with the new influx of settlers. Attacks had decreased since the first migrations of 1857, but as more and more people began to settle in the area, unrest became apparent.
Though his neighbors suffered much until the US Army out of Fort Union was able to largely subdue both native populations, and confine them to their agencies west of the Turkey Mountains, the Thompson spread was almost entirely untouched. Jonas had met with both Apache and Ute leaders shortly after arriving, and apparently arrangements were made that left the Thompson ranch untouched by the numerous raids.
The Apaches in particular - formerly poorly armed with old flintlock muskets out of Mexico - began arming themselves with what seemed to be old Confederate weapons, and made raids on several of Jonas and Winifred's neighbors shortly after the Thompson's arrival. As they were either killed or driven out, Jonas's herds and holdings expanded. The Lazy Diamond brand was ubiquitous in the area.
The Apache's had a sort of unofficial sanctuary on the Lazy Diamond, far north of their agency, and an effective hiding place from the Army at Ft. Union. They traded freely with the Thompsons and their ranch hands, though not when any remaining neighbors could see. The Apache never lacked for beef, though none that they acquired from Jonas carried the Lazy Diamond brand.
In 1870, the Maxwell Land Grant was sold to the Dutch East Indies Company and they allotted a portion of that land to Frank Springer. A settlement was soon formed there.
At first, Fred and her father would venture into town once or twice a year to sell their cattle and buy supplies from Mr. Florsheim's General Store. Once the town was firmly established, Mary Krelberg opened a school near the church and began teaching all of the local children. Jonas had lost interest in the girl over time, and her move to Springer - though funded by the Lazy Diamond - was a sort of exile from Jonas's presence. Fred came into town as often as she could be spared from the ranch to attend services and lessons with her former Governess.
Life for Fred in Colfax County was nothing like life in Savannah. But Fred preferred it. She had finally escaped the hoards of "proper" relatives who called her "Winnie" and thought it "quaint" when she informed them that she prefered to be called Fred. Now she was free. Ranch life wasn't suited to the customs and traditions of the South, including clothing. Fred took to wearing boys clothes, partially because of the physical freedom they allowed, and partially because neither her father nor his hands (most of which were as good or better with a gun than they were with a rope) could sew to save their lives. Faced with a vastly different social climate than he had known in Savannah, Jonas simply failed to purchase clothes for his daughter; instead, he too castoffs and hand-me-downs from the Harmon boys.
Fred couldn't escape the South entirely. Every year, for her birthday and Christmas, Mr. Forsheim would have a package for her, ostensibly from her Grandfather and Mother (Fred knew that her mother didn't have a part in this, and thought her grandfather just added her name - she was unaware that he had died shortly after her father's departure from the area). A steam trunk with a new dress of the highest southern fashion, several books, and fifty dollars would arrive like clockwork, with nary a word from her relatives back east. Apparently sent to insure that Fred didn't lose every vestige of culture that they had tried to instill, she'd dutifully don her newest dress, "do herself up" like a lady, and have her picture taken by Mr. Forsheim, who owened one of the only cameras in the county. She'd change back into her normal clothes, and send the photograph to their sender by post, pocket the 50 dollars, and not don formal clothing again until the next package arrived.
Fred's father had hired ranchhands from far and wide. His men were feared and respected everywhere they went, and the Lazy Diamond brand came to mean something in the area around Springer. A few of the men were immigrants from Europe, and a couple of the hands seemed to be ex-slaves - but the vast majority of his men were drifters given a chance to work, and Mexicans slipping north to work. His men were decent with cattle and horses, but they were all good with guns. The Lazy Diamond was respected and feared, though Fred would hear none of it from the locals, for they feared offending her powerful father.
Fred's Spanish improved with the influx of vaqueros from the south, and she learned a fair amount about tending herd from the rough men her father hired. She learned more about violence, as well as a few words that would be considered colorful in any language.
New ranch hands would try to "help" Fred do the "hard work." She was no stranger to grasping, calloused hands by the time she was 16. Jonas and his most experienced hands took these transgressions seriously, and more than one ranch hand would ride out to check the herds and not return after an attempt to help young Fred with her own chores. No one was "learned" twice. Nonetheless, Fred had gained a suprisingly accurate knowledge of the male anatomy from working with the ranchers, as the older men soon taught her to defend herself, rather than have to ride the lonely trail with a man who'd not return to employment at the spread.
In 1873, when Fred was 15, industrialists who hoped to bring the railroad (and a modicum of civilization) to Santa Fe by way of the quiet cowtown of Maxwell/Springer approached Jonas about buying some land for the rail. Apparently the deal was not lucrative enough for the cattle baron and former plantation owner, and he refused. Selling the land to the railroad would likely end the Lazy Diamond's time as an Apache refuge.
In 1874, a second offer was made to Jonas - once more, he considered the paltry offer an insult, and had some of his hands throw the young banker off of his land. Fred, taking the railroad owner's offer as a threat, took matters into her own hands to further embarass and drive off the railroad's representative.
Her father was not pleased at her behavior (as he had indeed intended to eventually take this second offer after driving up the price of the land), and she was sent into a sort of semi-exile from the Lazy Diamond by her father. She spent some time in town with her old Governess, but turned some of her rougher talents toward making a living for herself independent of her father.
Fred began to drive and ride shotgun on shipments between Maxwell (Springer) and Elizabethtown. Elizabethtown was a prosperous gold-mining settlement, and the desperado-filled county made transport risky at best, deadly at worst. In the five years that Fred made runs, she prided herself on never losing a shipment. It was not all easy though.
Fred came into contact with a number of colorful characters as she supported herself in Colfax County, including Clay Allison - a psychotic gunfighter and former criminal whose beliefs closely matched Fred's own ideals (or at least seem to). Allison violently opposed the railroad's entry into Colfax county, not least because the rail would bring the law with it. He became something of a second father to the young and impressionable (but undeniably tough) young girl.
Back in Springer, Jonas Thompson had begun to offer a great deal of surrepitous support to the Santa Fe Ring, a group of investors and cattle barons that hoped to speed the Railroad's arrival in New Mexico territory. Though he was feeding both funds and expertise to the Santa Fe Ring, Jonas and his cowhands publicly supported his daughter's fanciful cause, lending his lean and violent cowhands to more than one of the activities of Allison's opposing Colfax Ring.
The war between the Santa Fe Ring and the Colfax Ring continued, both sides' actions ultimately orchestrated by Jonas Thompson. Squatters and settlers on potential railroad land were given arms and encouragement, but the Santa Fe Ring was not without victories. The violence and difficulties drove up the price of land actually owned by Jonas and his allies.
By 1875, the Santa Fe Ring both Melvin W. Mills and Dr. Longwell jumped on the political bandwagon behind the Santa Fe Ring. In the election of that year, with the Ring (and Jonas, secretly) backing them, Longwell became Probate Judge while Mills became State Legislator.
Conditions began to worsen for the squatters around Maxwell. Sheriffs served eviction notices and retaliation began. Violence increased as both the Colfax County Ring and the Santa Fe Ring continued their unofficial war. By 1875, land prices had reached heights that Jonas could barely have dreamed - it was time for the end game. He let his daughter continue to defend the "preyed upon" squatters and settlers, but moved to bring the conflict to a swift and bloody end.
Without explanation or preamble, a methodist circuit rider rode into Colfax County, siding with the settlers and squatters against the Santa Fe Ring.
Parson Franklin J. Toby brought a spiritual influence into the Colfax County cause - he was well loved and respected by all of the locals, and managed to whip the Colfax Ring into a nearly fanatical religious fervor, encouraging increasing violence against the ephemeral "enemies" of the Colfax Ring, preaching the impending arrival of a communalistic Utopia where no "landowner" could or would stop them from taking whatever land they could.
On September 14, 1875, the Parson was found shot in the back, and was buried the next day. Rumors flew - the Cimarron Constable, Cruz Vega was behind the murder of the demogogue. The Colfax County Ring dealt swift justice to him to the constable, despite his claims of innocence. Vega had claimed that Manuel Cardenas was behind the killing before he was lynched, and he in turn implicated Melvin Mills and Dr. Longwell in the sacrificial killing. Both barely escaped lynch mobs as word spread - selling some of their own holdings to Thompson, rather than depending on the rapidly increasing violence to decrease to allow them to profit from the coming railroad.
Later, Cardenas (a former Lazy Diamond hand) claimed that the names of Mills and Longwell had been coerced out of him because he had been questioned at gunpoint. The two were legally cleared, but some of the vigilantes (more former Lazy Diamond ranch hands) did not believe him and shot Cardenas in the jail. None of the vigilantes involved in this were officially part of the Colfax County Ring, but they were blamed for it anyway. The Mexican portion of the population turned away from them in outrage. Clay Allison, as the figurehead of the Ring, had to walk about with a 45-man escort for protection in town. This was the beginning of the real Colfax County War - a war that ultimately ended with victory for a reduced Santa Fe Ring, the arrival of the Railroad, and nearly unimaginable profits for Jonas Thompson.
As the War ended, Jonas and Fred reconciled, and she moved back out the Lazy Diamond to once more take her place at her father's side.
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The_Universe
First Post
The above is a work in progress that should help unite Fred with the historical record, as well as open up a couple of interesting tracks for her eventual story. I plan to do essentially the same for everyone's backstory, letting each of you know the subtle hints of conspiracy, etc. that might surround your character.
