 Good morning and welcome to Moments with Melinda. My guest today is Gene Proknow. Hey Gene, how you doing? Excellent Melinda, thank you very much. I'm looking forward to speaking with you today. Well I can't wait to hear all about you and your new book. Let me tell my viewers a little bit about you because you are a formidable human being and so let me share with them who you, Gene Proknow is. Gene was a former management consultant with one of the largest global consulting firms. He established a second career as a writer and a historian of the American Revolution. Since 2013, Gene has authored 20 scholarly articles for the prestigious peer-reviewed journal of the American Revolution. For seven consecutive years running, at least one of Gene's essays has been selected for the print edition of the annual volume of the journal of the American Revolution. Gene hosts and curates a website helping casual and professional researchers locate diaries and memoirs and other revolutionary war sources and that website is www.researchingtheamericanrevolution.com all spelled out. Is that about right Gene? Does that sort of cover? Well thank you. That's a very gracious introduction, Melinda. But I also want to add that you do live in Washington DC with your wife and your two sons. So share with my viewers, Gene, a little bit about your life growing up and your childhood. Well I was a son of a corporate vagabond so my father traveled all over the country for his work and he moved all over the country to the work. So I was born in the Midwest, lived several places of the Midwest and then moved to the South. At one time I had a thick southern accent, I believe it or not. And then I moved up to the Northeast and lived in the New York City area and from there we actually kind of fell in love with Vermont. So I never really lived in Vermont but I spent a lot of time in Vermont skiing on vacations and just roaming around the state. So kind of all over the place. So I don't really have a place I consider necessarily my home but my home is with my family. And you come to Vermont quite often. Tell us a little bit about what inspired your love of history and especially the Revolutionary War period. You know I actually come from a pretty historical family. My two sons have history degrees and so I feel like I'm kind of catching up to them and you learn from your children when I certainly did. But I lived for a time in Boston and if you live in Boston you can hardly help but know about history and get immersed in history and that's where I first really got interested in the American Revolution. And I'm actually most interested in the the battles are interesting but most interested in the kind of the social aspects of the Revolution and the people and what it was like to live there because I think we often neglect that. And so that's really what got me interested into the delve behind the battles to find out what was it really like to live back then. And you went from a sort of a corporate job where you just sort of left that and dove into being a very notable historian. What inspired you to become a writer and leave your your day job. Well a couple of things. One is as my my day job as you mentioned I spent 38 years as a business advisor helping companies. I work for profit nonprofit organizations public organizations. I work for states local hospitals and the federal government. But I help them with business problems and organizational problems. And what I really like is analyzing kind of what's happened why things happen. And that's really the core of a historian. You want to find out why things happen. And history always has some relevance. You want to make it you know it's you don't write history just to recite the facts because everybody knows the facts. You write history to make it relevant to today. And that's kind of what a a a business advisor or consultant does is make things relevant and how do you analyze something to make it better. And so that's what that's why I got interested in history. That's what got you into it now. But but you're you're also a beautiful writer. Yeah. Talk about that a little bit. Well you know it's writing to me is it's starting to be a little bit of a lost art. You know when I really enjoy it because it's it causes you to sharpen your thinking. You can get on and talk and talk and talk. And the the precision of that and the analytical of excellence of that is can be suspect. But when you write on paper it really you really have to support your facts. You really have to be able to document why you think something. It really sharpens your thinking. I believe that writing is a wonderful way to really understand what happened because you have to go you know step by step by step to to lay out why something happened. And it's it's it's actually a very powerful medium from that perspective. So it is it's it's hard. You know when I first started I wasn't very good at it but I got better and better. And it's it's been fun and I hope to even get better in the future. Well your research is phenomenal. So do you have anybody in your life who inspired you to do the work that you're doing to do any any particular either you know person from from the past or person in your life who inspired you to get into this work as a writer? Well I'll tell you someone that that that helps me and prods me is my my wife Mary. She's really good as a as a sounding board and advisor and sometimes she says you know that wasn't very good. Which is great and that's what you want as as a as a writer. It is definitely what is definitely what you want. You know I had a roommate in college that was a tremendous scholar and I learned a lot from him. He's a professor at the University of Colorado and I learned a lot from from him. And I have several friends that were that are have had second careers and and that kind of gave me the the the beacon the light to be able to move on to something different. I really think that if you keep doing the same old same old you'll be the same old same old and I want to be the young person. Well here here well I'm sure you and Mary you're well hats off to Mary for being your muse and for being the the power you know the person the power behind the man. So let's talk let's talk about your recent book William Hunter. Finding Free Speech. Now Will let me tell my viewers that William Hunter was a British soldier son who became an early influential American. Now you write in your book that William's life story is a remarkable example of embracing adventure overcoming challenges and taking prudent risks. He cleaned valuable life lessons from his varied non-traditional background. Now everyone might not get to grow up on two continents to reside in three national capitals and to learn multiple languages but William Hunter's experiences in adapting to and thriving in numerous cultures are a potent reminder and this is from your you actually wrote this a potent reminder that these skills are critical to succeeding in the increasingly tight knit 21st global community. So tell us a little bit about why you wrote this book about William Hunter and tell us. Okay well I love I love talking about the origin story of this book because it in a word it's just serendipity. I was invited my wife and I were invited to a dinner party in our neighborhood in Washington and as you know you go to a dinner party they never see you next to your wife right so you sit next to someone you don't know right and so I sat next to a very nice woman and you know as things go you ask what do you do and I said I was an historian of the American Revolution and she said we have a diary in our family possession we don't know much about it but I think it's about the American Revolution would you like to co look at that diary and boy I jumped at that chance and when I found was unbelievable document it's a one-of-a-kind it's written by a child of a British soldier during the American Revolution it's written in beautiful 18th century handwriting just gorgeous 18th century handwriting and it talks about the basically the first 25 years of this of this boy's life but the unique thing about it Melinda that was there was no name in the diary and so I had to figure out who was the author and I had to authenticate the diary because you don't know I mean you know fakes happen all the time so I had to authenticate the diary and find out who it was and so that was really got me started with this book because it was an intriguing it was an intriguing problem to solve which I ended up doing and I ended up establishing that the that the author was a William Hunter he he was actually born in the United States he was born in New Brunswick his father was a member of the 26th regiment of foot a sergeant in that British regiment his mother came over with a father in 1768 so before the war and he William was born while they were stationed in as a garrison in New Brunswick New Jersey and so he was here before the war so in many ways he was a British subject like most everybody was in the colonies but he was born American but his father was fought in the war against the Americans and so that really intrigued me fascinating um now did William now William Hunter lived a long 86 years from the war of independence to the American Civil War most people didn't live that long um and and so tell us a little bit about his long life um and I also want to ask you to have I'm sure this woman who you spoke to was thrilled that this book came out of that serendipitous dinner party that you had where you receded it next to this woman I mean that kind of stuff is really rare and it's so exciting when it happens that way tell us a little bit about a little bit more about William Hunter okay well I'll start with your second question then I'll fill in the story of William the family was it's really excited because I was able to put together a genealogy between William Hunter and and the family today and the family today is a very large family there's you know maybe 50 people that have some kind of interest in this family so it's a very large you know it's to kind of spread out so this William Hunter you know like it's like every other early colonialists the United States the family you know grows and so they're they're very excited and we uncovered some things about the family that they didn't know a lot of things they didn't know about the family and even some of William Hunter's descendants descendants have some unique interests which aren't in the book but the family really enjoyed so it was it's been a the family has really been wonderful to work with and I can't say no good things about that William Hunter's story is during the revolution his father was stationed in Montreal and when the Americans invaded Canada his father was stationed at Fort St John just north of the Vermont border and during that battle Richard Montgomery captured the fort and and William's father John Hunter was egregiously wounded just scalded it just a horrible wound he was near a keg of gunpowder so uh wearing all the British soldiers and their families basically there were 263 women and children with these soldiers so more more more family members than there were soldiers if you can believe that went into captivity and they were sent to Lancaster, Pennsylvania but William's father was too ill to to travel so they spent the winter in Fort Chambley here the masonry fort that the just a little further north of the Vermont border but then when his father got better they went to the Lancaster his father then fought in several more battles because it was exchanged they spent a year in captivity was exchanged fought in several more battles and then it's how they got what they called back then worn out which means that you you know you to be a soldier back then you have to be able to march 30 miles a day and you know and carry a 90 pound pack and fight battles and build build log structures and all he just lost that ability so he was sent back to Britain on a ship and a big convoy and then believe it or not a big storm came up blew the convoy apart and as William's ship approached the English Channel a French privateer captured him and so they spent another year in a prisoner war camp in in La Havre France in Brittany and so then again his father was exchanged and then William traveled to London he then he went to hold the all several other places where his father was moved around in a recruiting mission to recruit soldiers to come to the United States and then it came time for William to strike out on his own and his father wanted him to become a soldier his mother said no no more soldiers this is a heart too harsh of a life so he became a printer he printed himself as a printer and back then England had a real a lot of disruption between religious factions and the french revolution a lot of issues with free speech and so William became a disciple of a follower of Joseph Priestley you know the guy that invented or discovered oxygen and did the you know club soda but and when he became oppressed William says I want to find free speech so he moved to the United States and so it's kind of interesting he kind of came back to America but he was a British soldier a son of a British soldier and in the United States USA was an immigrant he received a lot of of discrimination because of his background so which we wouldn't think today of any English person being discriminated in the United States but he was back then of course yeah I would think so back then that that might happen so I'm talking to Gene Proknow about his new novel his new book William Hunter finding free speech um a British soldier's son who became an early American so Gene um there are no paintings or physical descriptions of William Hunter he was as you say an ardent 19th century American in every sense can you explain that well you know and it's um and I really had to get people's mind to go back into the 19th century and not in our 21st century perspective um because he he he was he fought for free speech he was a he was a follower a supporter of Thomas Jefferson um Andrew Jackson and he helped Andrew Jackson get elected president and served Andrew Jackson presidency um he he was a business person uh he uh built businesses he went out business uh with the various panics and and depressions that happened but recessions that happened back then um but he also had social views which reflect that the society of that time um he published very very stridently anti slavery editorials in his paper you know while at the same time employing slave people in his businesses so he had these conundrums back then so it's you know you if you look at one part of it and say boy this guy was a really an early abolitionist then you look at him as being a slave owner and so you know this judgmental thing is hard you can't really do you have to put it in the context of their of their time it was the people were wrestling with this and I think he was wrestling with this how do you deal with this how do you end this this horrible institution but if you're going to operate a business back then you almost had no choice because your competitor competitors were slave owners used slaves so if you're going to compete that's the only way you can compete he he operated businesses um after he got rid of his newspapers uh to wear hemp businesses which is a godawful smelly dirty business not like today but it is a horrible business they made rope they made bagging to help the cotton in it and um employed uh sometimes up to 50 enslaved people in those in those in those businesses but at the same time wrote anti-slavery um uh editorials in his paper it's so interesting you also had little regard for Native Americans as well and and that I mean that was seemed to be a common theme with the with during that time it was horrible yeah he moved to Kentucky pretty much after the Indian wars had just finished within a year or two of the Indian wars of finishing there um and they really had basically nothing good to say about Native Americans it was it was really it was really kind of a a genocide it was a genocidal type view here that that they they wanted to either kill them or push them west and that's what is that what they did and it was really a land grab you know they you know William Hunter didn't speculate in land but most of his compatriots speculated land they bought and sold land that was the biggest the biggest advertiser in his paper was um uh was was land sales and land speculators so that's really what funded the newspaper in his um uh advertisements that's what made him his money so you have a section in your book on chapter 22 where you say where it's why is William Hunter's life relevant today so can you share with my viewers why and what would he say about these times in the 21st century global community and do you see some similarities from that period to our American political scene today well that's a I appreciate you bringing that up because one of the things that we always think about American history we call it American history and it really isn't American history it is really a global we're part of a global history I mean he he he competed uh his business is competed with manufacturers all over the world his newspapers while you read those newspapers there's no local news in those newspapers it's all international news these people knew what was going around the world it was a global community just like it is today we're a global community and they would they'd actually send ships down the Kentucky River to the Ohio River to the to the Mississippi River over to Europe and back that trade route so it was a global economy just like it is today um the other thing that that to me that it's important is that um immigration is hugely important to us today and this is a story of an immigrant doing well and and this is a story of an immigrant making a making a huge contribution he was a community leader he established schools for both men and women which was very unique back then he he established dams and buildings and and roads and he worked on commissions to do all those kinds of things so the idea of people investing in their communities is a is something in helping our the communities grow and develop that's a that's something that resonates really well today um and I also think the he was in the newspaper business and if you think the newspapers are biased today they were really biased back then he was he he supported Jefferson Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson and he was against the federalists like John Quincy Adams um and John Marshall and you cannot be go down the middle just like today you have one on one side one on the other side it was even worse I think back then um so so so William Hunter you say finding free speech was that through his his um his newspaper work his newspaper yes um yeah and and to me that's yeah I'm sorry that's really one of the fascinating parts of his story you know he came the United States because he didn't think he could get free speech he was being discriminated against in Britain he could not say what he wanted to say in Britain he wanted a republic former government Britain had at that time a constitutional monarchy um and um and so he he came the United States for that um and then when he gets here in 1798 just after he he um emigrated to the United States uh John Adams passes the Alien and Sedition Acts which is probably one of the most egregious um interferences with free speech we've ever had in the United States it basically outlawed criticizing the government I mean we would put half of our country in jail we had that law today um because it was very egregious um and he published the block was passed and enacted in June 1798 and a couple weeks later he passed the he wrote the first editorial which opposed those acts and that editorial when he wrote it he knew he could have been prosecuted under the under the act for opposing those acts and in fact um Adams's administration several of the um people uh actually recommended to John Adams that they prosecute Hunter for those before writing that article so he was he faced he faced you know think about the courage that takes he faced the loss of his paper and loss of his livelihood going to jail and you know what that would do to his family well his life yeah his life and so I mean it's just horrible and he did that courageously now fortunately for him and this is this is another Vermont connection fortunately for him um the government decided that they couldn't get a good jury uh in in Kentucky but so they prosecuted Matthew Lyons in Vermont and because they thought they could get a jury in Vermont to convict Matthew Lyons which they did and Matthew Lyons went to jail for for under the aliens edition act and not William Hunter uh so it's it's it's it's and then actually Matthew Lyons um emigrated from Vermont to Kentucky after he got out of jail so it's it's really interesting to the interconnections here how fascinating to my viewers I'm speaking with Gene Prok now about his new book William Hunter finding free speech and I'm sure that they can find this in their local uh Phoenix bookstore any local bookstore right Gene well you have to go to your bookstore to ask for it but it's on Amazon it's uh or through Sunbury Press the my publisher which is a phenomenal publisher Sunbury Press or Amazon you can get it um it's a if you order it today you'll you can get it within two days it's an extraordinary book and I just want to say that the your bibliography and your appendix I mean it's like your it's like 40 pages I mean the research you put into this book is phenomenal so I just want to want to ask you um about William Hunter when he was seven years old that he may have met Ethan Allen in Canada after he after Ethan Allen was captured and marched through the streets of Montreal and I'm wondering what impression that must have made on young William Hunter oh yes uh yes there is a Ethan Allen connection um you know the I've really gone through the I've gone through the his diary in detail and it's amazingly how accurate it is and there are but when I found kind of two embellishments uh here um and this is one of the embellishments which is I think one of the embellishments um Ethan Allen was uh captured uh when uh when he was attempted to uh assault um Montreal the town of Montreal before the main American army he kind of went out there uh way out in the vanguard for you know and was really risky and ridiculous what he did so he was captured about five or seven miles outside of the city so I don't believe a seven year old boy would be wandering the woods five to seven miles from the from the um from the town center all by himself uh and he could see the running battle was a running battle took place over several miles so I don't really think he saw the battle but I do believe he that that Ethan Allen was paraded through the streets like a trophy uh it this is the streets of Montreal and I bet you that he saw Ethan Allen then because that's why I'd gotten the diary um so I that's what I you know so he saw Ethan um you know our uh our most famous Vermonter I guess but uh uh it's he's uh he was proud of that I mean he was I'm sure it made a big impression on young William Hunter now as a historian Jean can you share with my viewers where you see our democracy in 20 years oh boy that's a tough question you know I will uh I will say that is as much as the things uh changed they say the same I mean if I look back on William Hunter's life um you know they had if I use the word fake news they had worse fake news than we had because what they would do is within two weeks of the election they would print the most outrageous thing about their opponent because it took two weeks to debunk that because of the speed of of information flow back then so I I think that's I think that we have to continue to invest and grow our democracy just like they did back then and I believe that in back then they did look for truth and just I do believe that William Hunter tried to print the truth I don't believe I believe he was a supporter of Jefferson he was not a supporter of Adams I believe he was very fervent but I do believe that he he never got sued for libel that's one of the few most newspaper editors got sued for libel back then he never got sued his whole life for for reliable so I think he was searching the truth and I think that that to me I I think that we can see that today and so I think as we invest in our democracy and invest in going forward um I don't want to be pollyannish about this but I think our problems if we look back in the past we see our problems in the past and I think 20 years from now your question are aren't the next generation will look at our problems today and see some of their problems and I think that if we invest those problems will be solvable they will be more solvable I mean like today with the internet we know how to debunk fake news real easy you know it gets debunked real quickly in our business and I think it'll be even more debunked in the future thank you for that Jean so what's your next project oh it's fun I I I'm I have an edgy one um I I'm working on a um a revolutionary award general by name of Charles Lee and everybody today kind of believes he was a scoundrel um he was a near-dwell he was a a trader to the United States and I'm taking the contrary point of view and that's one of the fun things about history is I'm taking a contrary contrary point of view and my belief is that his start shone brighter in the first year of the revolution than George Washington George Washington had a very slow start now where he finished was a tremendous place obviously in our history but during that first year Charles Lee was a much better general much better leader and probably contributed more to our our independence than Washington so it's an edgy kind of a different story so it's it's going to be kind of fun you know the traditional thing is that they said John Adams said that Charles Lee like dogs better than people and I'm thinking man he fits in really well today our society because everybody loves dogs so you know I mean so I I think you know it's it's kind of he I think he's been misunderstood and I think there's a different perspective I'm not going to say he was better than George Washington or he should have been revered as much as George Washington or he had as much impact I'm just saying that he wasn't the scoundrel and the horrible person that the historians have made them out to be today. Well I cannot wait to read your next book and to my viewers we've had a wonderful half an hour with Gene Prok now talking about his newest book William Hunter Finding Free Speech your local bookstore ordered on Amazon and Gene thank you so much for your time today and for sharing with my viewers a little bit about your life and about your extraordinary historian career and the books you've written and sharing with us a little bit about William Hunter what a cool guy right. Yeah well thank you Melinda I really appreciate the opportunity I mean for folks who shy away from history Gene's books are like novels they're beautifully written there's there it's beautiful stories you get captivated and carried away into this time and you're a beautiful writer Gene and thank you for this wonderful half hour and to my viewers thank you for being with me