Catherine Northrup
On a warm July night, after answering a knock at her cabin door, Washington State homesteader, Catherine Northrup was shot at close range.
During the Civil War, she survived outlaw guerrilla warfare near her childhood home. After crossing the Oregon Trail, Catherine lived through a particularly brutal last assault on her home by the Nez Perce as they attempted to push settlers back during the Nez Perce War. At the end of the brutality, she married. The new couple in letters to family calling their newly settled homestead, “Paradise”. The just planted orchard was productive. The railroad was being built nearby, so, produce would easily get to market. Each of them had family that settled not a mile from their new cabin. So why was Catherine in danger? Who was the armed man standing in front of her as she opened the door?
A Tree Missing from the Orchard (a working book title) is an historical nonfiction account about Catherine Northrup researched by Arlene.