When a party of four women, five men, and a ten-year-old boy leave their comfortable homes in eastern New York and faced westward on a cold February morning in the year 1807, they knew they would need a full measure of endurance and courage, but they were far from knowing the challenges and adventures that lay ahead in the newly opened Iroquois lands around the Finger Lakes. In this carefully researched historical novel, E. R. Eastman tells the story of the pioneers who settled "Genesee Country" of frontier New York in the early nineteenth century.
The Settlers brings to life men and women of pioneer times and shows their reactions, their work, their play, their hopes and their ideals, their joys and sorrows, their loves and their antipathies as they emigrated over the westward trail, carved homes--and a living out--of the wilderness, and defended those homes against aggression and invasion. In addition to its being an exciting and moving tale of human adventure, The Settlers gives a vivid account of pioneer travel, describing in colorful detail how the woods were cleared, crops raised, cabins built and furnished.