Ralph Nading Hill (1917–1987)

This entertaining novel is presented in an older format, to be consistent with the style of the period in which it is set - the 1870's - with two columns of print on a page and lots (37) of well-drawn, full-page black and white illustrations that greatly add to the charm of the story.

Ralph Nading Hill worked for three years on the Ticonderoga, the last of the side-wheel steamers that ran between New York and Vermont on Lake Champlain. He was an accomplished nonfiction writer, Vermont show more historian and preservationist. I knew very little about this part of history and the story really brought to life, for me, the period, the area and the part the side-wheel steamboat played in this region.

The Voyages of Brian Seaworthy is Hill’s fictional story of a 15-year-old boy whose father’s death makes him the owner of a steamboat company beset with financial problems. It’s a great adventure – and it includes a tug of war between a steamboat and a locomotive, a fraudulent uncle, a crooked captain and a good friend. show less

At the stroke of noon on New Year's Day, 1899, the Spanish flag on the Governor-General's palace in Havana was lowered and the Stars and Stripes went up. Officially, the Spanish-American War was over. But for the soldiers of the medical corps in charge of the health of the American occupation forces, the "fighting" had just begun. For lurking on rooftops, in narrow alleyways, and in a thousand dark corners of the city was Yellow Jack, an enemy far mightier than Spain...

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1765-1815