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Tracking William West Durant

4/22/2020

 
PictureWilliam West Durant leaving his cabin at Pine Knot circa 1880.
William West Durant was a scandalous genius, a man with a vision for the untamed Adirondack wilderness of the late 1800s. 

At first I thought I would write a book about his philandering antics with his supposed mistress Minnie Kirby while he was completing his compound great camp Pine Knot  (now named Camp Huntington and owned by  Cortland College as an education facility on Raquette Lake, NY). But after conducting research about William and his family I realized I had an epic saga on my hands. A story of greed and naivete, bred from privilege and corruption. A family history that involves love, indiscretion, and betrayal. It's also the story of a visionary who altered the face of rural architecture across America and continues to influence us today.

William was educated in England and Europe while his father was busy building the Transcontinental Line through the United States. In his youth he and his sister Ella socialized with aristocracy and royalty, blissfully unaware of the major societal changes going on in the U.S. after the Civil War.

A complicated man, William had little knowledge of  his father's business when he was summoned to return to the U.S. while on a hunting trip in Egypt.  It was 1874 and Dr. Durant, on the brink of bankruptcy needed William to help him build an empire in the Adirondack wilderness that would attract the elite from major U.S. eastern cities. As the story unfolds the reader will learn what happens to this grand idea and also how William, with little training but great ambition, starts a tradition of building with local material and craftsmanship that permeates modern-day construction techniques for second and rustic home-building throughout the United States.

William played a major part in opening up the Adirondacks through the railways, and steamship business in partnership with his father Dr. Thomas C.  Durant. Yet after his father's death William became embroiled in the unraveling of the railroad business and family battles that ultimately ended in penury.

This is the story of my following a story and the people and places that motivate me to continue on the quest: my muses, friends, and family members that have put up with my fascination with this intriguing clan and my ambition to bring its members to life in fictional form.

Hell on Wheels Spin-Off: Durant Family Saga

10/5/2019

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Picture
Inevitably when I give a talk about my Durant Family Saga trilogy, I get asked if I've been approached by producers who want to turn it into a tv series or movie. Usually, these people are avid fans of the t.v. series Hell on Wheels. This show had a five season run starting in 2011. It was an AMC series that was then picked up by Netflix. The setting is mid 1860s and the plot is about the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad which connected the eastern and western states in America.

I was almost done writing my first novel in the saga when someone alerted me to the series. I hated to watch it at first because I didn't want the show to taint my view of the main characters in my novel who also play a leading role in the tv series: Dr. Thomas Durant (Doc Durant) and Collis P. Huntington. In the series Doc Durant is played by Colm Meany who does an excellent job portraying him as the blustery, conniving robber baron that he was as head of the Union Pacific. Collis P. Huntington, played by Tim Guinee, is head of the Central Railroad, and Doc's arch enemy.

When Doc Durant was done with the Transcontinental he was mired in debt and lawsuits. But he happened to have acquired 1/2 million acres of land in the Adirondack wilderness to exploit. He summoned his son William and daughter Ella back home from their posh life in England to help him regain the family fortune.

When Doc Durant dies, his enemy Huntington befriends Doc's son William (a friendship that leads to William's downfall). When I discovered this I knew I had a great plot twist on my hands. I continued to watch the series as I wrote books two and three but by then, Doc Durant was dead (he dies in novel 2) and I was focused more on Collis and his relationship with Doc's son William.

My novels continue where the Hell on Wheels Series ended. I'm not one to fantasize about success or making millions, but when I realized what I was writing was a sequel to the stories of two of the main characters on Hell on Wheels, I registered my saga with the Writers Guild just to be on the safe side.

And after so many fans asking me about the potential for my novels to be considered for production, I am writing a screen play for the pilot to send to a TV executive. Of course, I have no idea if this will lead anywhere. But when I started writing the Durant Family story, I thought I was going to be writing a love story set in the wilderness, with William Durant as the leading man, and found myself tracking his family story all over the place: museums and libraries all up and down the east coast, England, and an auction house. I had descendants of the Durants provide me with family lore; a couple from Pennsylvania tell me they had Ella Durant's scrapbook sitting in their attic for over three decades and didn't know what to do with it until they read my blog about her; and an archivist at the NY Law Library help me track down a Durant sealed divorce file from 1898.

When I started this writing journey I never thought I'd be breaking the wax seal of a 100 year old divorce file in the basement of a Manhattan Courthouse; nor did I think I'd be writing a trilogy, or speaking to over 300 people each year about my novels. If I've learned anything it's that one never knows where a story might lead. You just gotta have faith it will end well.

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    Sheila Myers  Professor at Cayuga Community College in Upstate New York.

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