Award winning author Troy D. Smith presents five stories of the Blackwell family, originally from Tennessee, plus another short story that features a Blackwell as a major supporting character. These volumes of short stories will follow a set of brothers and their descendents on their adventures (or misadventures, in some cases) from the California Gold Rush in 1849 into the Twentieth Century.The first story in Volume 1, The Blackwell Claim, introduces the four Blackwell brothers: Max, Duke, Caleb and Jake. After that, my tales about the family jump around in time – Blackwell's Run occurs in 1864 with Max in the US Calvary fighting Indians. Next, The Stealing Moon takes place in 1855 and tells of Jake, a Texas Ranger, meeting a boy struggling to become a man. Blackwell's Stand is set in 1864 where Caleb has an unfortunate meeting with a grizzly and The Windigo is about Max's son Billy, and takes place during the Klondike gold rush.