As a young boy who had learned to read, I was impressed each week by the masthead of the local newspaper. Directly below Greensburg Record-Herald, it said: Home of the Oldest Courthouse West of the Allegany Mountains.
I didn’t know where the Allegany Mountains were, but I did know about that old courthouse in the middle of my Greensburg, Kentucky hometown. To me, that statement seemed mighty important!
Fondly referred to as our “Old Courthouse,” the two-story limestone building was built in 1804, and remains in excellent condition. Also, it turns out the Old Courthouse really is the oldest West of the Alleghanies!
So began my love of history.
Eventually this interest led me to write nine historical plays featuring past events of local significance. Seven of the plays were actually performed in the Old Courthouse!
Storylines and characters ranged from 1809, when Dr. Ephraim McDowell of Danville performed the world’s first successful ovariotomy on Jane Todd Crawford of Green County to the 1914 demise of local legend George Al Edwards, shot dead by United States Marshals in the hallway of the County Clerk’s office.
In 2007, my curiosity of olden times resulted in the book History Among Us, Green County in Photos, Interviews, and Stories. A few years later, the book Osceola, the Town the River Claimed told of a long-ago Green County River town lost to the flood waters of Little Barren River.
The discovery of additional historical information the last decade led to History of Green County, Kentucky, on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle.
Another story learned which was of particular interest was the tale of Big Harp and Little Harp, the country’s first known serial killers. They embarked on a 1799 rampage which resulted in at least thirty murders Their route took them through Green County, where they killed a young boy.
My first thought was to develop this story into a play. But instead, I chose to write a book of historical fiction, or more accurately, historical horror.
Harp’s Head was the outcome. On Amazon in paperback and Kindle, the book has Big Harp roaming the streets of my hometown in the middle of the Civil War.
But wasn’t Big Harp executed and decapitated in 1799? How can Harp be doing the same thing more than sixty years later?
Why did I come to write a book of horror anyway? Blame it on Friday Night Frights. During my pre-teen years, a nearby television station aired horror films at 10:30 p.m. each Friday night. I lost a lot of sleep and got scared out of the few preteen wits I had watching those classic horror movies, along with some which weren’t classics.
And what happens when you sit down at the keyboard but just can’t get started? Put on a CD, of course. “Sloop John B” by the Beach Boys, gets me going every time.
Recommended Article: Lanny D. Tucker – Historical Fiction Novelist
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