2/2/07- New And Improved

Hello, everyone. I would like to welcome everyone to the new and improved "Chester and Grace" blog site. I apologize for the fact that it took me so long to get everything ready, but there was a reason for that and I would now like to share that with you.

During my down time, I was finally able to teach myself a new trick: How to set up links. As you can see on the link bar on the right side of the blog, I have added a whole bunch of links that relate to both the Gillette case and me in general. I am sure that you will like them.

The first link I added are all the blogs I have posted on my primary blog site, "Ultimate Blackcatloner," on Yahoo 360 that is exclusively devoted to Chester and Grace. The second link is a link to my entire blog site, the above-mentioned "Ultimate Blackcatloner" on Yahoo. I put that link there so that way, viewers of this site can see my other written work on other subjects that relate more to me. Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of the day that I officially opened that site and became an Internet blogger.

Another link I have set up is a link to my Chester and Grace photo page on Yahoo Photos. Most of those photos are photos that I took while others are either submitted by various sources or uploaded off the Internet. That is followed by my blog, "A Valentine to Grace," my "ghost-written response" to her love letters that I wrote last year on the Yahoo site about a month after I received a copy of the final letter.

I also have a link to a transcription of Grace's diary that was provided by her grand-nephew Robert Williams, who has been of significant help to me while I am writing my book on the case as well as a link to the other official site devoted to the Gillette case: Craig Brandon's "Murder in the Adirondacks" site and the Utica Observer-Dispatch Gillette feature site entitled "The Murder That Will Never Die: An American tragedy." That site contains some written articles about the case, as well as a slideshow containing photos of the case and an audio reading of Grace's final letter.

And while I am on the topic of my book on Grace, I just want to say that things are going pretty well. I am writing the book at the Herkimer County Historical Society on a non-Internet connected computer. I am usually there about four days a week at an average of four hours a day. I have received a couple of recommendations as to where I can get the book published, but I am going to wait until I have a full manuscript before I submit it. I am keeping my fingers crossed in high hopes that I will make my target date of 2008 for when I get the book published.

And as far as this site goes, I am planning to keep it open at least until I get the book published. I may not be on here as much being that the Gillette Centennial year is over with, but that doesn't mean that I don't have anything else on tap for this site. I still have to tell the aftermath story and how the case became Theodore Dreiser's novel, "An American Tragedy." I may also provide updates from time to time on any new developments in both the case and on my upcoming book.

4/6/06- Chester and Grace

On July 11, 1906, nearly 100 years ago, two young lovers on vacation at Big Moose Lake in the Adirondacks went out for a rowboat ride. Only one of them would return from that fateful trip, not realizing the impact of what happened that day would have on the world 100 years later. The events of that day spawned a classic novel by Theodore Dreiser called "An American Tragedy." It also spawned two movies, including the classic 1951 film "A Place in the Sun", the novel "A Northern Light" by Jennifer Donnelly, and most recently an opera in New York City. It also has kept people guessing as to what really happened that fateful day. And the names of the two lovers would forever be etched into New York Adirondack history.

The young man's name was Chester Gillette. The girl's name was Grace Brown. The girl would be the one who would never return, a victim of a tragic murder. She was survived by a series of heart-rendering love letters that she wrote to Chester because she was at least three months pregnant and she wanted him to marry her, but he would not. Grace assumed that she was in the Adirondacks on a wedding trip, but instead Chester had planned to kill her there. Later on, her letters were used to convict Chester at his trial and sent him to the electric chair in 1908. Even to this day, those letters still fascinate and touch the world.

This blog is dedicated to Grace's memory and since 2006 is the centennial year of that tragic day, I decided that it would be a good idea to start a blog site exclusively devoted to this immortal murder case an the events that are being planned to commemorate that fateful day. It will also focus my attempts to make sense of what may have happened on that July day in 1906, a day no one will ever forget.