In 1849 eleven-year-old Luke leaves his family's farm home in Iowa, accepts his uncle's offer of a chance for an education, and travels with his relative to Boston.
In 1850, Luke and Toby set sail from Boston to California on a voyage featuring shady characters, a story of a lost gold mine, and a cabin boy with a secret.
Having lost their home when the Revolutionary War reached their part of rural Pennsylvania, Thomas and his family start a new life running an inn in Philadelphia, where Thomas finds new danger that takes him into captivity among the Iroquois.
In the early days of the Civil War, Joseph must decide whether to defend his stepfather's abolitionist and pro-Union beliefs or side with the slave owners and Southern rights supporters in his home town of Branson Mills, Kentucky.
After his stepfather becomes an abolitionist, ten-year-old Joseph struggles with his own thoughts about slavery as he sees its divisive power in his small Kentucky town.
In the early years of the Revolutionary War, eleven-year-old Thomas and his family escape a bloody massacre at Wyoming Valley and endure innumerable hardships as they try to make their way to Philadelphia.
