Delaware County Historical Association Director Timothy Duerden usually tries to stick to the historical facts. With his newest book, he’s taking some liberties.
“Escape From The Sugar House: Levi Hanford and The American Revolution” is a historical fiction novel based on real events involving a Connecticut militiaman who moved to Walton sometime after the war.
Duerden, who is also an adjunct history professor at SUNY Oneonta, said one of the impetuses for the book was “this item in our collections that we call the Sugar House cane,” a three-foot walking stick that “came from the old Livingston Sugar House prison, which was used by the British to incarcerate American patriot POWs.”
He said the “direct, tactile” connection to the American Revolution came into DCHA’s possession in the 1980s.
“It’s one of our most prized possessions,” Duerden said.
Duerden said that about the first half of the book was entirely fictional, but the second half was “based relatively closely on the historic record, or at least what happened to Levi Hanford during the American Revolution.”
“By writing fiction, it’s kind of allowed me to explore larger themes that I may not have been able to if I’d stuck to nonfiction,” he added, saying that people’s complex allegiances, slavery and the role of women in the revolution were explored in the book.
Duerden said he would pitch the book to young adult readers as a good and fairly easy read. The fictionalized aspects made the book more of an adventure story.
“I was thinking of our youngest son, who was about 13 or 14 when I began to write it,” Duerden said of the new book.
Duerden’s previous books have included a history of Delaware County and a biography of photographer and reformer Lewis Hine, whom Duerden said has a local connection to his “adopted hometown” of Franklin. Duerden is originally from the United Kingdom.
He said the book’s publication in September lined up with America’s semiquincentennial year. Books are available for sale at the DCHA and by publisher Purple Mountain Press.
“I brought several copies to the Green Toad Bookstore on Main Street in Oneonta,” Duerden said.
To learn more about the book, visit tinyurl.com/2r3y5tzh.