The Douglas Town Chronicles

*First in the Douglas Town Chronicles is "Under the Tracks" - Inspired by true events involving the tragedy of an ancestor left to die in the New York Catholic Protectory in the 1890s, the horrific stories of the Orphan Trains, and the dark history of Washington Park in NW Portland, Oregon. Set in the fictional town of Douglas, Oregon, summer of 1982, the day long adventure circles around a group of young teens led by Gwen Evans, who is motivated to find an answer to a possible ghost sighting. The answer she hopes will be found in the abandoned Victorian House high on the hilltop of Douglas Park.  It's a day that changes their lives forever, with discoveries that were more than anyone bargained for. ------------------------------------------------------- *Second in the series , "Beneath the Stairs" , picks up on the group's first day of high school, and all the anxiety riddled angst that being a freshman can bring. There are school events, first dances, and...

It's here! Start your cozy autumnal reading adventure now with the Douglas Town Chronicles,  by author, Ginger G. Howard.       The journey begins in the late summer with Book One ~ Under the Tracks ~        Into the Halloween season with Book 2  ~ Beneath the Stairs ~ Ending on the Winter Solstice with Book 3 ~ Across the Dark Stream ~    

In the sleepy Scottish town of Douglas, Oregon, there is a dark past. One that fourteen-year-old Gwen Evans and her friends are unaware. So, when they set out, in the summer of 1982, on an adventure to find a ghost in the forest, they were ill prepared. What they confronted altered their perception of reality forever. For Gwen, that day was more than just uncovering terrifying secrets hidden in the depths of an abandoned Victorian House, or the encountering of supernatural forces; it was the discovery of psychic powers within her. When she and her friends began high school, they hoped to put that summer day behind them. Unfortunately, in their attempts to close one door, they inadvertently opened another! And then the group, beset by nightmares, is pulled back into the belly of the beast – the house, not done with them yet. High school drama, love interests, paranormal allies, unveiling shocking town secrets, ever-growing psychic powers, a world of the occult, and a fight...

As autumn wanes, darkness grows. The days loom long and cold for Gwen Evans, when a bizarre psychic connection ensnares her in a disturbing mystery surrounding missing high school girls. Gwen’s visions increase in ferocity, each more disturbing than the last, while suspicion and paranoia run rampant through the halls of Carmichael High. Around town their are rumors of Witchcraft and Satanic cults! Is there a connection? 1982 has already proven to be the most eventful year in Gwen’s young life, but nothing has prepared her for this dangerous entanglement. Literally a battle of life or death, she must confront the sinister forces at work, as well as her own destiny...   Hardcover and Paperback available at: Barnes&Noble ,  Amazon , and Walmart Kindle

The old house isn't done with them yet! It's hard enough navigating the anxiety-inducing horrors of high school as a teenager in 1982, but Gwen Evans has it worse! Bullied by day, terrible dreams by night, and increasingly powerful psychic visions... freshman year isn't shaping up the way it was supposed to. That previous summer, Gwen and her friends thought they'd solved the mystery of the abandoned Victorian house. How could they have known that by closing one door, they would be opening another? Now they must return to set things right... and all before the full moon on Halloween.  1982 Mix tape from the book       Available in Hardcover and Paperback: Barnes&Noble  ,  AMAZON , and Walmart Kindle Available through other online retailers: CLICK HERE

 

A ghost story, inspired by true events. What do you do when nobody believes you? How do you convince yourself what you saw wasn't a figment of your imagination? On her tenth birthday, Gwen sees what she believes is a lost boy in the forest below an old Victorian house - a child desperate for help. When the search comes up empty, and no child was ever reported missing, her parents and the authorities think it is just her imagination. Four years later, in the summer of 1982, she embarks upon a quest to find the answer to her only question: did she see a ghost? Gwen convinces five of her friends to join her for an adventurous day hiking up the forested hillside to explore the abandoned house. One day to try to solve the mystery, and prove to everyone that she'd told the truth. The day of youthful abandon tests the strength of their resolve, when what they encounter, within the crumbling walls, is more than they could have imagined. Their shocking discovery changes thei...

After a long trek across the plains, Eli Stewart and his wife, Ann, arrived in Oregon Territory in October of 1850. By April 1851, they had filed and settled a donation land claim for 632 acres. The Stewarts sold off parts of their claim over the years and, by 1868, Multnomah County acquired 160 acres of the original claim to establish the Hillside Farm, a “Poor Farm”. Located off Canyon Road in the Tualatin Hills, the Poor Farm and sanatorium housed indigent and sick residents of Portland and the surrounding areas. The inmates tended stock and took care of an extensive orchard. This 160 acre section is located in a portion of Washington Park currently occupied by the Oregon Zoo, Hoyt Arboretum and the World Forestry Center. The Hillside Farm closed after members of Portland charities inspected it in 1910. It revealed atrocious living conditions, and they dubbed the crumbling building deplorable.  Their report spurred county commissioners to speed up work on the Multnomah Coun...

In the 1850’s a minister named Charles Loring Brace founded the Children’s Aid Society of New York. In 1854 the first trainload of ‘wild Irish kids’ left New York for a small town in Michigan, on what would become known as “The Orphan Train”. It was assumed that the farms of the Midwest would reform them, by offering them fresh air and hard work, because most of the kids were too much to handle and had grown up without structure or moral values. This was especially true by the end of the Civil War, when lots of children found themselves abandoned, neglected, and begging in the slums of the New York City streets. In 1861 the Roman Catholic Church started the Society for the Protection of Destitute Roman Catholic Children of New York City, aka the Catholic Protectory. They were so overcrowded that they outgrew their lower east side location and moved up to the country and farmland of Van Nest, Westchester County – now known as ‘The Bronx’.  In April of 1863 they set up a school and d...