1858: Jesse Swinson, the young son of an Irishman forced off his land by poverty and starvation, comes to America through willpower, fortune and piracy, determined to regain his father's lost inheritance. Here, he meets his match in every sense: his wife, Colista Anita, has the strength and courage to give up a life of easy wealth and privilege to carve out a difficult but exciting new life in the raw new world.Spanning four generations and two centuries, this powerful story vividly describes the lifestyle and spirit of America's pioneers in one family's determination to create itself anew, agaist the backdrop of the coming age of America itself.