Are you aware Susan Van Kirk’s first book-length published work was a memoir? Yup: The Education of a Teacher (Including Dirty Books and Pointed Looks). It’s out of print now, but rumor has it that may change in 2026. Given that, I’d forgive you if you think this blog is polishing the teacher’s apple to stay in her graces. That Susan used that experience to segue into becoming a best-selling mystery writer would be reason enough to praise memoirs.

But–to put some extra shine on that apple–Susan graduated with a history degree, and it is that aspect of memoirs I choose to praise with a personal story. And no, I haven’t written any memoirs. I write “justice-driven thrillers with brains and bite.” (You can find the pitch for my latest novel at the end of this piece.)

My father and mother both wrote memoirs for family consumption. It’s interesting to read about their lives before I knew them, and to read their take on events in which I participated. Those memoirs include many stories my children would never have heard, had it not been for their grandparents writing them down.

That’s a gift each of us can give to our family, and that is praiseworthy. The story I will relate today is about an older memoir, one written by my great-great-great-grandfather James Caleb Jackson. As the oldest of the living Jacksons (there are only five of us now: my two sisters, my daughter and son, and me)–and as the one with extra storage–I am the custodian of the family history, including James C. Jackson’s hand-written memoir.

Early this year I receive an unexpected email from the grant reviewer for the William G. Pomeroy Foundation. I looked them up online. The foundation has funded many of the historical signs found across the country. The individual who reached out to me hoped I might have primary-source material relating to the 1835 establishment of the New York State Anti-Slavery Society in Peterboro, New York. Here’s the story:

In 1835, 600 delegates, including James Caleb Jackson, met at a Presbyterian church in Utica New York to organize the New York State Anti-Slavery Society. (The City of Utica revoked its previously issued permit to meet at the City Hall, and members of the church arranged the changed venue.) A large group of anti-abolitionist protesters, led by Congressman Samuel Beardsley, threatened violence, including burning down the building, unless the meeting dispersed. (They cited the slavery provisions in the Constitution for their justification, ignoring the assembly and free speech provisions in the same constitution.)

Gerrit Smith invited the delegates to reconvene the following day in Peterboro, NY (about thirty miles away). Some had carriages or horses. Jackson did not, having walked to Utica from his farm in Mexico, NY. He, and a William M. Clark of Syracuse, convinced an Erie Canal packet boat to load up 104 men and take them to Canastota, the city closest to Peterboro.

Then the two of them led the group on foot for the 9.1 miles from the canal to Peterboro. They hired carriages in Canastota for four “older white-haired gentlemen,” leaving 100 to make the walk. As they got close, Jackson went on ahead (i.e. walked faster up the hills–Peterboro is about 900′ higher than Canastota) to arrange breakfast for 100 at a tavern. At the meeting, Jackson was one of the signers of the articles forming the NYS Anti-Slavery Society.

The Pomeroy Foundation had been asked to fund two signs. They planned to place one for the “Abolition Ride” at the spot in Canastota where the men would have disembarked from the packet boat. The second, honoring the “Abolition Walk,” as that 9.1-mile hike is known, they planned to erect in Clocksville, about 2.7 miles from Canastota. But they had a problem: while everyone “knew” the story of the march (the sign above had been in place for years), there were no known primary sources–unless I had access to a purported memoir written by James Caleb Jackson.

The 104 people who made this journey did not have access to horses or carriages. These were men of high conviction and few financial resources who relied on their feet for transportation. They were working men, not men of leisure. How many had written about the occasion? Hard to know, and even if they had, how many of those writings survived? To illustrate the problem, James C. Jackson’s papers from his time as an abolitionist burned in an 1850s fire of the health establishment Jackson co-owned in Glen Haven, NY. Had he not later written his memoir, history would have no primary source of this event.

I found the handwritten pages, took pictures, and sent them on. The foundation approved the signs, and the dedication ceremony took place in September. I saw them when I visited the area this October.

Petersboro is home to the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum. Some of those involved with the museum created an annual commemorative walk to remember these events. This being the 190th anniversary of the original Abolition Walk–and as a former actuary knowing the likelihood of my making it to celebrate the bicentennial of the event is not great–I convinced my children and one sister to join Jan (my life partner) and me on this year’s celebration.

The weather was cool and sunny, grfeat for walking the 5.4 miles (Up to Clocksville and back). During the day, I talked with many of the participants, organizers of the event, caretakers of the Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum, descendants of former slaves whose ancestors had taken the Underground Railroad to the area, and others, like us, keeping the memory alive, knowing there is still work to be done.

And I was there because of a memoir written nearly a century and a half ago. None of us can predict what will happen if we write a memoir, but you never know…

And because I promised to let you know about my latest novel, here’s the scoop for Niki
Unleashed (Niki Undercover Thriller #2), which can be read as a standalone.

When your name is a lie, every truth can kill.

Three months after cutting a secret deal with the FBI’s Deputy Director, ex-Special Agent Ashley Prescott gets her first off-the-books assignment: go back undercover as Niki and infiltrate Greenwar, a radical eco-cell executing executives of America’s biggest polluters. Her way in? A dangerous cover as special assistant to the head of a powerhouse D.C. energy. lobby. Access that could expose buried studies and dirty money–and paint a target on her back.

The assignment is already a death trap. But her real nightmare? The FBI surveillance team tracking her every move. Her former boss wants her silenced, buried, gone–and he’s sent agents to make that happen. Now Niki is racing against two countdowns: Greenwar’s net kill and the federal raid that will blow her cover wide open. One mistake, one moent of exposure, and she loses everything–her freedom, her mission, and the only life she wants.

The terrorists want justice. The agents who destroyed her career want her gone for good. And
Niki? She just wants to survive long enough to take them all down.

Book 2 in the Niki Undercover Series | New readers can start here

You’ll love this if you want: • Undercover ops with no safety net • Heroines who make you
question right and wrong • Intelligence agencies as dangerous as the criminals • Characters
who weaponize everything—including themselves.

Niki Unleashed launched on November 11. The ebook for Niki Unleashed will only be on
Amazon and free to read with Kindle Unlimited. The ebook can be found here:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FK1KFYP7

Find James M. Jackson’s website at https://jamesmjackson.com