Hometown Redemption - Book Three of the Western Girls Trilogy

Chapter 8

Mr. Archer had been traveling by train, stage coach and horse for the past nine months. He had backtracked several times after receiving new the information about Ms. Desmond, and found that her previous job had been at an orphanage in Ross's Landing, Tennessee. A close look at the books during her time there, showed that she had cleaned out the bank account before she left, but she had also sold at least five girls as mail order brides.

Leaving Tennessee and heading south, he followed the clues to Montgomery, Alabama. He found the exact same thing. Bank account emptied. Girls missing. From there, it led him to Atlanta, Georgia and lastly Manchester, New Hampshire. All with similar findings.

While in New Hampshire, it was as if the trail just ended. He knew, from speaking with the old Sheriff, that this was the town where she had been married to an older gentleman and he made a point to check into the marriage licenses from 1824. If Desmond was her married name, as it appeared to be, he would need to pick up her trail using her maiden name from there on.

It had been three days of sifting through court records from around the time Ms. Desmond likely came to be living in New Hampshire. He had looked at every marriage license issued in the town since 1805 and there was nothing with the last name of Desmond. Perhaps he wasn't looking for a maiden name after all. He was just putting the files back when he saw a small drawer marked 'death certificates'. Since he was already there, he decided to take a look just in case.

Knowing she had gone to live in Atlanta, Georgia in 1824, he was able to skip quite a few of the death certificates. Not knowing when she had arrived in New Hampshire, he decided to just work his way backwards until he reached 1800. He knew enough about her that she wasn't incredibly old. Morgan had estimated her to be between forty and fifty years. Any further back than 1800 and she would have likely been a child.

Then he found it.

Holding the death certificate, he knew it had to be important. He wasn't sure how, yet. But there had to be a definite connection between the two. In his hand was a death certificate for a man named Bertram Desmond, and his date of death was July 14, 1824. The same year Ms. Desmond had left town for Georgia. His date of birth, however, was 1748 which would have made him seventy-six years old.

"That's odd." he muttered. First of all, Ms. Desmond was only just now forty or fifty years old. This would have been nearly twenty years ago when she was only twenty or possibly thirty years old. Had she married a man nearly fifty years her senior? "I need to find this marriage license!"

Then it occurred to him. He had been sifting through marriage licenses, only glancing at the name of the woman listed and not the man. He copied down all the information from the death certificate and went back to the marriage licenses. This time, he looked for the groom's name and found a Mr. Bertram Desmond. The bride's name was listed as Gina Drahow, born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1802.

"There we have it!" he copied down every bit of information on the marriage  certificate and put all the files back. With a great sigh of relief, he headed to the hotel room he'd rented for the night and after a quick supper in the dining room, he went to bed and slept until nearly nine o'clock the next morning.

Enjoying a hearty breakfast in the morning, just before the dining room closed to get ready for lunch, Mr. Archer perused through his file. His next step was to travel to Charleston, South Carolina and find out more about this Gina Drahow.

The next morning, Mr. Archer climbed aboard yet another train and traveled to South Carolina. Charleston was a beautiful city but he didn't have time to enjoy the sites. He went straight to the courthouse and began searching through the 1802 birth certificates for one with the name Gina Drahow. Her birth date was specifically October 19th, but after searching the year before and the year after, he didn't find one with that name.