{"id":25025,"date":"2025-09-16T03:06:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T03:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/25025\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T03:06:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T03:06:08","slug":"jeffery-charles-larsh-brings-18th-century-frontier-to-life-in-his-new-book-1787","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/25025\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeffery Charles Larsh Brings 18th-Century Frontier to Life in His New Book \u201c1787\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

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History came alive for attendees at the Franklin Area Historical Society,<\/a> on Saturday September 13, 2025. Local author and historian Jeffery Charles Larsh<\/a> gave a talk about his newest book 1787<\/a> and traced his family\u2019s remarkable journey from French Canada to the Ohio frontier. Larsh, a military veteran and retired law enforcement officer, has written three historical novels inspired by his ancestor Paul Larsh (originally Larshvik), a French-Canadian fur trader whose adventures spanned thousands of miles and multiple wars.<\/p>\n

Larsh explained that his passion for history began as a boy at family reunions, where an older relative, World War I correspondent Harvey Larsh, shared research into the family\u2019s past. Those stories, paired with the discovery of his fifth great-grandfather\u2019s last will and testament, eventually sparked a writing career.<\/p>\n

Paul Larsh left Montreal in 1753 at just 18 years old, determined to become a coureur de bois, or independent fur trader. His route carried him by canoe up the St. Lawrence River, across Lake Ontario, around Niagara Falls, through the Maumee and Wabash rivers, and finally down the Ohio to the Mississippi. His trek of more than 1,200 miles ended at Fort de Chartres, a French stronghold south of present-day St. Louis.<\/p>\n

\u201cThink about that for a minute,\u201d Larsh told the audience. \u201cEighteen years old, by himself in a canoe \u2014 how he made it is a miracle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul\u2019s life soon intertwined with the great conflicts of the era. He served as a scout during the French and Indian War, partnered with a Shawnee trader, and rescued his future wife, Alice Kincaid, after she was captured in a raid. After the war, the couple settled in a Huguenot community in Pennsylvania, where their son Charles \u2014 Larsh\u2019s direct ancestor \u2014 was born.<\/p>\n

The author highlighted the cultural dislocation of French settlers after Britain\u2019s victory in 1763. \u201cAll of a sudden, New France was gone,\u201d he said. \u201cYou have no country anymore.\u201d That sense of abandonment shaped the family\u2019s decision to move into frontier communities sympathetic to the American Revolution.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Larsh\u2019s presentation also touched on artifacts linking him to this past. He displayed an antique Pennsylvania-made rifle<\/a>, handed down through generations and referenced in Paul Larsh\u2019s 1794 will. Modified over the centuries from flintlock to percussion, the weapon was carried in the Revolutionary War, the Northwest Indian Wars, and the War of 1812.<\/p>\n

His newest book, 1787<\/a>, places the Larsh family against the backdrop of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia<\/a> and the Northwest Ordinance,<\/a> which opened present-day Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin to American settlement. The novel depicts the family\u2019s migration to Cabin Creek, Kentucky, along ancient buffalo traces once carved by mastodons and later used by Native nations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI try to make these books about people,\u201d Larsh said. \u201cYes, there\u2019s history in the background, but it\u2019s about how they lived \u2014 how they got their food, how they endured, and the choices they faced.\u201d<\/p>\n

Audience members praised Larsh\u2019s ability to blend gritty details of frontier life with broader themes of loyalty, identity, and survival. His next projects will focus on the Northwest Indian Wars and the War of 1812, continuing the saga of a family that straddled cultures and helped shape the American frontier.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Jeffrey Charles Larsh \u2013 Historical Novels Timeline<\/p>\n

Paul Larsh An Original Frontiersmen
French & Indian War era (1750s\u20131763)
\nFrontier Warriors
Revolutionary War era (1763\u20131783)
\n1787
Post-Revolution, settlement & Northwest expansion (1780s\u20131790s)<\/p>\n

Click a book to view on amazon.com
\n<\/a>
\n<\/a>
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

A special thanks to Amy Bridge,\u00a0 our host at the Franklin Area Historical Society,<\/a> for moderating the event and dressing in frontier attire for the occasion!<\/p>\n


\nMore News from Franklin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"History came alive for attendees at the Franklin Area Historical Society, on Saturday September 13, 2025. Local author…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25026,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[489,156,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-25025","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}