author

Charles Martin Scanlan

1854–1940

A Wisconsin-born writer remembered for vivid historical storytelling and practical legal writing, his books move from frontier tragedy to everyday questions of church law. His work preserves regional history while keeping a clear eye on the people caught inside it.

2 Audiobooks

Indian Creek Massacre and Captivity of Hall Girls Complete history of the massacre of sixteen whites on Indian creek, near Ottawa, Ill., and Sylvia Hall and Rachel Hall as captives in Illinois and Wisconsin during the Black Hawk war, 1832

Indian Creek Massacre and Captivity of Hall Girls Complete history of the massacre of sixteen whites on Indian creek, near Ottawa, Ill., and Sylvia Hall and Rachel Hall as captives in Illinois and Wisconsin during the Black Hawk war, 1832

by Charles Martin Scanlan

The Clergyman's Hand-book of Law: The Law of Church and Grave

The Clergyman's Hand-book of Law: The Law of Church and Grave

by Charles Martin Scanlan

About the author

Born in 1854 and dying in 1940, Charles Martin Scanlan was an American author associated with Wisconsin. Surviving catalog and library records identify him as the writer of works including Indian Creek Massacre and Captivity of Hall Girls, The Lady Elgin Disaster, September 8, 1860, and The Clergyman's Hand-book of Law, showing a range that stretched from dramatic local history to practical legal guidance for clergy.

His historical books focused on specific events from Midwestern and Great Lakes history, especially episodes of violence, disaster, and survival. That gives his work a strong documentary feel: he was interested in preserving particular stories and places rather than writing broad, abstract history.

Reliable biographical detail beyond his birth and death years is limited in the sources I could confirm here, so it is safest to remember him as a regional nonfiction writer whose books helped keep nineteenth-century American frontier and lake-history stories in print.