Getting Your Book Published

book publishing class

Last weekend the St. Louis Publishers Association again offered the class "Getting Your Book Published: What You Need to Know" at the Meramec campus of St. Louis Community College. This is the fourth or fifth time we have done this, and the student reviews are quite positive. My role is pretty simple: I coordinate with the community college and moderate the four hour class, keeping things moving and offering comments as appropriate. After first having the students introduce themselves and tell what they are writing about, the following topics are covered: traditional publishing versus self-publishing, getting a book into print, book design, ebooks, and getting a book into the marketplace.

It is a lot of material to cover in four hours, but our goal is to get writers thinking about what they will do with their books once they are finished writing. We also offer resources on where they can find more information about publishing, including how to evaluate legitimate services versus the companies who are out to take advantage of new authors. As always, we had an interesting group of students who asked great questions, and it was a joy to take part in the class again this year. Hopefully a few of them will come to an upcoming St. Louis Publishers Association meeting, where they can find many people who are willing to share their own experiences in publishing or working with authors. If there is a similar organization in your town, I highly recommend checking them out.

Family History Writing Challenge Day 28

Today is the final day of the Family History Writing Challenge, so it seems appropriate to do a recap about the life of John Murdoch. I titled this series John J. Murdoch: The Man Behind the Myth" because several misconceptions follow him to this day. Among the most prevalent are the following:

- "John Murdoch was a General in the Civil War."
 Murdoch never served in the military in any capacity.

- "Farm property was acquired by General John Murdoch in 1778 when the large Spanish colonial grants were being broken up."
Murdoch wasn't born until 1814, and he didn't move to St. Louis until 1838.

- "John Murdoch named his farm Shrewsbury Park after a place of the same name in England."
Murdoch's property was called Murdoch Farm. Farrar & Tate, who developed the land in the 1890's long after Murdoch's death, named it Shrewsbury Park after a town in England.

- "By 1890 Gregorie Sarpy's land was divided into farms. One of these farms was owned by John Murdoch."
Murdoch bought his farm land in the 1850's, and there were other farmers in the area at that time. He died in 1880.

At first glance, it might not seem as though John Murdoch left much of a legacy behind after he died, especially since it appears that he had no surviving heirs. But I would beg to differ. It is pretty remarkable that a twenty-four year old man would leave his mom, dad, and siblings behind to travel nearly 1,000 miles to a place that was still pretty much a frontier town. Yet that is what John Murdoch did in 1838. He developed the successful firm of Murdoch & Dickson, expanded into other business endeavors with his partner, Charles K. Dickson, and built a life that included marrying Dickson's niece and starting a family. The two families were so close in life that in death they are all buried in the same plot. Many parts of St. Louis history were touched by the two men, including subdivisions, banks, insurance companies, railroads, Eads Bridge, and the Mercantile Library.

When he established Murdoch Farm in "the country" following his marriage in 1855, he must have felt like he was living the American dream. For the first time, he owned a home and the surrounding land (lots of it). The farm was a microcosm of America at the time, with servants and slaves to keep the farm functional. And yet Murdoch freed his slaves before the Civil War ended, and set them up with land and the means to sustain it.

But as sometimes happens, Murdoch's dream turned into a nightmare. Whether through poor management, bad real estate investments, a declining economy - or maybe a combination of all those things - John Murdoch forfeited the business when his friend and partner, Charles Dickson, died. And then he lost his home and farm, literally on the court house steps. For all intents and purposes, he was destitute when he died in 1880, leaving his wife Julia to continue raising their six children on her own.

Murdoch Farm, however, took on a life of its own. The property which once provided solace to a single family began to offer city dwellers an opportunity to live in a country environment filled with fresh, clean air, quiet streets, local dairy products and produce. It presented a sanctuary for German immigrants seeking a place to worship in their native tongue. A building once home to the sounds of the Murdoch family was occupied with voices raised in prayer. From its start as Shrewsbury Park in the late 1890s, home to a few dozen families, the community of Shrewsbury is now filled with many churches, schools, businesses and over 6,000 residents. John Murdoch, as a businessman engaged in many real estate transactions, would be impressed with the development that has occurred on the land he once cultivated. There may no longer be any crops, but a strong sense of community has grown in the area.

I'll leave you with the poem written about Shrewsbury Park in 1890. I think John Murdoch would have appreciated the sentiment.

Shrewsbury Poem

Family History Writing Challenge Day 27

Shrewsbury Park 1909

By 1909, the First, Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth Subdivisions of Shrewsbury Park had been platted. They are outlined in blue on the 1909 map to the left.

On March 21, 1913 a petition signed by 116 residents of Shrewsbury Park was filed with St. Louis County, asking that Shrewsbury be incorporated as a city of the fourth class. It is possible that Shrewsbury Park had previously incorporated as the village of Shrewsbury. If that was the case, then an incorporated village in the State of Missouri was required to have at least 200 residents in order to file for incorporation. If the town had not incorporated as a village first, a minimum of 500 residents was required before filing to become a city. There needed to be at least 3,000 residents in order for it to file as a Third Class city. The population of Shrewsbury did not reach 3,000 until the 1950 census. Signatures of two-thirds of the adult population were required for incorporation. Those favoring incorporation believed that the town was not getting sufficient fire and police protection, and that they would not get better streets, if they were only served by St. Louis County.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that a formal protest containing the signatures of 38 residents was filed on April 14th in opposition to the signed petition. Those opposing incorporation felt that St. Louis County could do more for the citizens than they could do on their own. It is interesting to note that 116 (the number of citizens who signed the petition to incorporate) is not two-thirds of 200, assuming that Shrewsbury was a village and had a minimum of 200 residents in 1913. Because it was not yet incorporated, the town does not appear in the 1910 census so there is no good indicator of the population in 1913. Protest notwithstanding, Shrewsbury was incorporated in 1913. By 1920, its population had reached 845.

Shrewsbury incorporation

For all of his glowing remarks about the beauty, convenience, and health benefits of living in Shrewsbury, Charles Farrar, one of the founders of Shrewsbury Park, never moved out of the City of St. Louis. He died in 1947 at the age of 90.