Papa's Portrait: An 1820 Stephenson House Short Story

Seven year old Benjamin Van Stephenson overhears his parents arguing one night over things his young mind can’t quite comprehend. His father, Colonel Benjamin Stephenson, Sr, wrestles with precarious banking practices, land speculating and an ambitious family friend, Governor Ninian Edwards. Over the course of the next few years, young Ben realizes just how precarious his father’s position is in the new frontier river town of Edwardsville, Illinois. Changes are ahead for himself, his father and their entire family. Changes that will bring them to the brink of poverty, scandal and loss but ultimately Ben will come to understand a very different view of his father’s portrait.