Jacob's Landing: The Allegheny West

Trouble, that's what folks buy into when they cross the mountains to settle near Jacob's Landing, because the Indians call this land home and they're tired of being pushed around. The French and Indian War set tribe against tribe that is until the settlers began arriving at Jacob's Landing in ever larger numbers. They clear the forests, kill the game, and allow no trespass. The Indians soon forget their promises to the French and English and concentrate their efforts against the settlers. Seth Bean shows up looking for work and finds two jobs. One, building rafts for Jacob, the other keeping the Indians off the backs of the settlers. Danse MacCaulley, after a month of fighting with his wife, Mary, who is terrified by the very thought of moving there, wishes he'd listened to her when the Indians tie him to a post and let their children make his life miserable. Emil Tisdale sold his farm in Maryland and built a new one at the Landing, much to his regret. Billy O'Toole, the son of a wealthy, Virginia plantation family, arrives at the head of a forty man militia unit. While scouting, he aids a family under attack by the Indians, and falls in love with their daughter Nancy. In time, he asks for her hand and they marry. But fate intervenes and he loses her to the Indians. As the British began to feel they were winning the war, they let it be known that those living west of the Allegheny Mountains were living there illegally and would be forced to retrace their steps east. However, those living at Jacob's Landing said, "The British be damned," and headed downriver.