As is the habit of authors, I’ve taken some liberties with history for the purposes of my story.

Danford Balch was indeed the first man legally hanged in the new state of Oregon, on October 17, 1859, for the murder of his son-in-law, Mortimer Stump. Accounts of the crime include Cuthbert Stump’s insulting remarks about his new daughter-in-law, and Danford’s subsequent incarceration, escape, and recapture.

While it’s a matter of public record that Anna Balch Stump married Eli Morrel of Hillsboro about a year after her first husband’s death, there’s no evidence that she and Mortimer conceived a child in their week-long marriage.

Personalities and motivations are strictly my own invention and are not intended to be a reflection on the nature of historical persons.