WALNUT CREEK — It may forever remain a mystery that Robert Morris, one of America’s Founding Fathers, spent his fortune on European gunpowder and other Revolutionary War supplies — largely financing the operation — then lost it all in land purchases and died a poor man in 1806, five years after he was released from debtor’s prison.
But the puzzling trajectory hasn’t stopped author Jon Foyt from exploring the possible motivations and mindset of the 18th century Pennsylvania state senator in his new self-published, historical fiction novel, “The Mind of an American Revolutionary.”
The Walnut Creek writer has worked in radio, real estate, commercial banking and published a number of novels co-authored with his late wife, Lois Foyt. With a degree in journalism from Stanford University and a masters in historic preservation from the University of Georgia, it’s easy to imagine Foyt spending his days holed up in a library or history museum.
“I’ve run 60 marathons, starting when my youngest son got me into running,” the trim, 83-year-old says. “I’d been in the military and I realized I was overweight.”
Foyt’s last marathon was run in Boston about 15 years ago, and he continues to run or “seriously hike” daily.
“I don’t do the six marathons a year that I used to do. It’s roughly 10 miles a week. I like to run the hills.”
Foyt says that running the hills near his home in Rossmoor is an activity that complements fiction writing.
“The exercise stimulates the creative juices,” he says. “If I go several days and don’t exercise, I get lethargic.”
His childhood in Indianapolis, Ind., set him up for a lifetime of writing and reading. His parents followed politics and Foyt was instinctively fascinated.
“We listened to the radio. I grew up during World War II, you know,” he says. “American history, how this country was financed, it always interested me.”
Today, a reader of two daily newspapers, Foyt follows politics “assiduously.” He says it lends insight into how people are thinking.
“Life is being curious and I guess that’s what I am, curious.”
Foyt was first intrigued by Morris decades ago. Picking up the trail in 2011, he allowed himself to wonder once again why Morris was known as “the patron saint of banks” but ended up in financial ruins.
Knowing that there were no banks before Morris, and that the man who’d signed the Constitution had financed the Revolution largely out of his own pocket, Foyt began to research. Eventually, he discovered “the hook,” the idea that would attract a reader with less appetite than he has for straight history.
“Much of history is just ‘this happened, that happened.’ Not much gets into people’s minds and how that creates history,” he says. “I thought if we could get talk therapy with a Founding Father, it would be interesting reading.”
Aside from chronicling a period in the nation’s history, Foyt’s 12th novel has Morris interacting with a (fictional) Hessian mercenary Army surgeon who has crossed the Atlantic to assist the British and seeks to understand the mind of a revolutionary.
Foyt traveled to Philadelphia for primary sources and wrote much of the book in four-hour stints at the Lafayette Library. Comments from an editor he consulted led to a yearlong rewrite. Working without the stringent editing of his late wife was difficult, he says, but Helen Munch, a close friend, provided valuable input.
Rewriting, Foyt says, is time-consuming. Exhilaration came from small discoveries that grew into larger themes.
“There were 40 different currencies the colonists were using. Trade was based on keeping your word,” he explains. “Morris gave his word to foreign governments and traders for them to supply Washington’s army. Trade based on trust is no longer so true, and I was pleased to find it.”
Surprisingly, the avid reader skirts most historical fiction to avoid mirroring another writer’s approach. His favorite author is D.H. Lawrence, who he says “packs a lot of punch into every paragraph” and is “perceptive, profound, and a great observer of characters and culture.”
The rise and fall of a historical figure’s fortune are perhaps the perfect platform for a man prone to run hills and exercise his curiosity.
