I had to learn a lot of things about life in the late 19th century in order to get into the mindset of the real-life people who populate The Haweaters. But the one thing I didn't have to learn was how land was farmed in those long ago days before tractors had been invented, industrializing the landscape and becoming so ubiquitous it's hard now to imagine a rural landscape in which those roaring metal beasts don't churn away all day and most of the night during the harvests.

leanor Boyce Bryan was born in Iowa in 1832 and moved to Upper Canada with her family as a child. Somewhere around 1849, when Eleanor would have been roughly 17, she became the second wife of William Bryan (a fact not mentioned in The Haweaters for a variety of reasons) and soon gave birth to her first child, Harriet (Hattie). Hattie was promptly followed by several more children, including Charles (Charlie), Caroline (Carrie), William Bryan Jr., Abel, Clara Ann (Annie), and Arthur.

Above is a copy of the subpoena ordering Eleanor Bryan, her son Arthur, and her son-in-law William Skippen to appear in court in Sault Ste. Marie. Although the subpoena appears to suggest that all three would be required to testify, only one of them actually does, and in doing so, Arthur Bryan gives some of the most damning testimony of the trial.

This real-life wanted poster was printed in Sault Ste. Marie shortly after the murders of William Bryan and Charles Bryan when a local constable who had been tasked with arresting George Amer and his son Laban informed the crown attorney for Algoma that Laban Amer was nowhere to be found. The young man didn't stay missing for long. By June 30th, just four days following the murders, he would be spotted by two neighbours hiding in the woods north of the Amer homestead and would turn himself in.

Why did George Amer kill William and Charles Bryan and what made him think he could get away with it? It seemed like an important question to answer and the more I studied the trial transcripts, the more I came to believe that the violence that exploded on that hot June night in 1877 was premeditated and that Amer's actions in the hours, days, and weeks following the murders were part of a calculated effort to shape reality into what he needed it to be in order to get away with the cold blooded murders of his neighbours.