Alvin Fernald's Incredible Buried Treasure

by Clifford B. Hicks

  AFTERWORD

  Any novelist who mixes fictional characters and events with real ones owes it to his readers to clearly define the real and the imaginary.

  Abraham Lincoln, of course, had a transforming effect on American history. I have made the man himself a character in this book. I have invented some of his activities in the White House, especially all of those involving Caleb. In doing this, I have tried my best to portray our sixteenth president in his genuine personality and his real characteristics. I hope I have succeeded.

  John G. Nicolay and John Hay were real men who served Lincoln as his secretaries.

  William Slade, Lincoln’s black manservant, really lived. I have imagined him assigned to help Caleb after Caleb was taken into the White House.

  Caleb Getme is a total product of my imagination. He never lived, and therefore there is no statue of him in the Indiana section of Gettysburg National Cemetery. Any search for it is a waste of time. However, I have recently learned (after writing this manuscript) that Paul Jennings, a 10-year-old slave boy, lived in the White House and worked for President Madison, starting in 1809. He served Madison as a footman and a valet.

  Ol’Nan is likewise an imaginary character, though it seems reasonable to assume that slaves on each plantation would have a natural leader-figure, man or woman, who would have considerable say in their daily activities.

  All the soldiers of Aimee Gun, 16th Battery, Indiana Light Artillery, are fictional, including Jim Hightower and Major John Demarest.

  Hannah Hightower and Lil’Nan are imaginary characters.

  Earl Sampson and son Dustin, Henry Henderson, Hap, Dr. Scruggs and Miz Grovesner are fictional, but they must have had real counterparts who devoted their lives to the Underground Railway, and sometimes gave those lives.

  Professor O’Harra lives vividly in my imagination, but never lived anywhere else.

  Published by

  Purple House Press

  PO Box 787, Cynthiana, KY 41031

  All rights reserved.

  Text copyright © 2009 by Clifford B. Hicks

  Illustrations copyright © 2009 by Purple House Press

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Hicks, Clifford B.

  Alvin fernald’s incredible buried treasure / by Clifford B. Hicks;

  illustrated by Roger Bradfield.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Alvin, Shoie, and Daphne help a professor figure out a coded message in hopes of finding a copy of the Gettysburg Address written by Abraham Lincoln himself, and hidden by Caleb, a former slave who later lived in the White House.

  [1. Buried treasure—Fiction. 2. Slavery—Fiction 3. African Americans—

  Fiction

  4. Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 Gettysburg address—Fiction

  5. Mystery and detective stories.]

  I. Bradfield, Roger, ill. II. Title.

  PZ7.H5316Akw 2009 [Fic]—dc22 2009029660

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