For the better part of two centuries people from all over the world have been drawn to the American dream. In the late 1860’s, arguably the most transformational decade in American history, Europeans flooded into New York Harbor with the hope of finding freedom, opportunity, and land - all forbidden the common man enslaved by European aristocrats rushing reckless and unrepentant into the industrial revolution.
To escape this debased human bondage, desperate men, women, and children from all over Europe came to America. In the late 19th and early 20th century, they came in greater numbers than at any other time before, leaving behind starvation and industrial slavery. And though they brought with them differing cultures and prejudices, they came with a common belief that anything was possible in America. These poor, wretched, huddled masses hungering to breathe free passed through that golden door in quest of a common goal – to be stakeholders in the promised land founded on the principal, “. . .that all people were created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights to life, liberty, religious freedom, and the pursuit of individual happiness." They came with the hope of equality for all, for land and gold in the streams of California. Not just for themselves, but for their children and the generations yet unborn.
After a heart-stopping voyage across the Atlantic, WHERE EAGLES FLY FREE’s Tom Wright succinctly describes his vision of America to his young wife Annie as they stand at the railing of the soggy-timbered brigantine Colorado looking out at Manhattan. “Annie, I may be a poor coal miner and you a butcher’s helper, but in America, where anything is possible, someday our children can become wealthy engineers or builders in a city like this one. So, our grandchildren can become . . . sculptors, painters, or musicians.”
Indeed, America was and still is the land of opportunity, but not necessarily the land of milk and honey these immigrants had so hoped for. Tom and Annie were real people, deeply enmeshed in historical events. Their lives were intertwined with the likes of the heroic Black Eagle, Brigham Young, the brilliant General Grenville Dodge and the spirit of Abraham Lincoln. Both were self-educated immigrants, both strong, morally conflicted, gritty survivors, complicated in many of their views and failings, as most people are. Like all of us, they were products of their times with flaws, prejudices, and shortcomings that Americans of today might find entirely unacceptable.
They believed, like most all immigrants at the time, in America’s Divine Providence and the American Covenant. Both strived to improve their lives and relationship with each other, their fellow man, and their God, growing and changing on their journey. They were determined, heroically devoted, capable of tremendous sacrifice, not untypical of the American immigrant of that time. These rugged individualists hacked out lives of their own choosing in a hostile and lawless western frontier. Their story is intended to shine a light on the lives of our forefathers drawn to America to escape the tyranny of Europe’s aristocratic overlords and oppressive governments.
I made every effort to portray the American west as it was, without judgement. Not to apply 21st century ethos to these 19th century characters living under harsh conditions during the most transformational decade in American history. Both books in the Courageous Series dig deep into powerful themes—including ambition, resilience, faith, courage, hope, love, and unbreakable spirit. But also, do not shy away from the dark underbelly of America's growing pains at this critical juncture in its history—bigotry, racism, prejudice, the disenfranchisement of Native Americans brutally driven off their lands to open up the west to millions of settlers like Tom and Annie Wright. I did not judge the Indians who slaughtered settlers while trying to preserve their heritage. Nor the Missouri Governor who before the war, issued an extermination order on all Mormons because of their abolitionist and pro-Indian values. Or the mobs who assassinated the Mormon leader running for President of the United States, then drove tens of thousands, mostly women and children, into the Rocky Mountains where they embraced polygamy. I did not judge the lawless chaos of the Hell-on-Wheels towns or the President of Union Pacific caught bribing Senators and stealing from his workers to make himself one of the richest Robber Barons of the 19th century. For it was also he who helped catapult America a hundred years into the future with the greatest technological and sociological accomplishment in American history, linking the entire country together east to west with his railroad.
Echoing sentiments of many thoughtful media reviewers, the Independent Book Review said of WHERE EAGLES FLY FREE: “This novel is both a homage to the American immigrant experience and an unflinching examination of the hardships and prejudices that built a nation. Unhurried and thorough, like a mule carefully watching its step while hauling dangerous supplies, WHERE EAGLES FLY FREE offers an impeccably detailed and exhaustive look at the period.”
The Courageous
A Novel
WHERE EAGLES FLY FREE is based on the true story of Thomas Wright and his young wife Annie who are driven from their home in England to the shores of America. They arrive just as the country is pulling itself up out of the ashes of civil war and entering the greatest economic boom in American history. Thomas, a brilliant engineer and leader of men is thrown into America’s rush west with the construction of the transcontinental railroad from New York to San Francisco that will help bind America together into the greatest country the world had ever known.
We follow Tom and Annie chasing their American dream across the Atlantic, up rivers, over plains and mountains, through Indian uprisings, western disasters and their crucial involvement in the greatest technological feat of the nineteenth century, tying the frontiers of America’s wild west to the gilded age of New York City.
This is a masterfully told story of the great sweep of human desire for freedom, liberty and western expansion for land at a time when Abraham Lincoln described America as, “the last best hope on earth.” It is a fast-moving story of adventure, romance, greed, sacrifice, faith, family and the courage of these immigrants to push aside fear in a life and death confrontation with arguably the most despicable robber-baron of 19th century America
Historical [Independently Published, On Sale: May 6, 2025, Hardcover , ISBN: 9798218497736 / ]
David Jacinto was born into a family living on the wrong side of the tracks and has been a storyteller ever since. He was the first in his extended family to attend college, and as a student athlete at one of the most prestigious universities in the country, he received his degree in civil engineering. He went on to serve as a president of SM Engineering Company, held leadership roles in multiple national and international companies along the west coast of California, and was on the board of directors for a few more. He was also commandeered by the State of California on special assignment as chief engineer to help rescue California’s three major utilities on the verge of bankruptcy during the highly publicized, 300-billion-dollar energy crisis in 2001.David has had numerous speaking engagements over his successful career, frequently interjecting colorful, fascinating, and humorous stories of his life experiences. Some of these stories are drawn from his ill-spent youth, some from his many business successes, and some from family experiences. But all delivered with the greatest respect for the opportunities America has afforded him and a thankfulness to those fallen leaves from the family tree of immigrants who made it all possible. Despite his business successes, he supposes his greatest achievements have been to convince the fetching Anne Gray to become his wife, the good fortune to be a part of the lives of his four wonderful children, their wives and husband, and the blessing to be Papa J to thirteen near-perfect grandchildren.
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