From bestselling historian and storyteller David O. Stewart, The New
Land brings the reader back in time to tell uniquely American
stories--full of adventure, excitement, heartbreak, and a tapestry of
richly developed characters.
Lose yourself in the challenges and emotions of eighteenth-century
Maine.
In 1753, Johann Oberstrasse's wife, Christianne, announces that their
infant sons will never soldier for the Landgraf of Hesse like their
father, hired out to serve King George of England. In search of a new
life, Johann and the family join an expedition to the New World, lured
by the promise of land on the Maine coast. A grinding voyage deposits
them on the edge of a continent filled with dangers and disease.
Expecting to till the soil, Johann finds that opportunity on the rocky
coast comes from the forest, not land, so he learns carpentry and
trapping. To advance in an English world, Johann adapts their name to
Overstreet.
But war follows them. The French and their Indian allies mount attacks
on the English settlements of New England. To protect their growing
family and Broad Bay neighbors, Johann accepts the captaincy of the
settlement's militia and leads the company through the British assault
on the citadel of Louisbourg in Nova Scotia. Left behind in Broad Bay,
Christianne, their small children, and the old and young stave off
Indian attacks, hunger, and cruel privations.
Peace brings Johann success as a carpenter, but also searing personal
losses. When the fever for American independence reaches Broad Bay in
1774, Johann is torn, then resolves to kill no more...unlike his son,
Franklin, who leaves to stand with the Americans on Bunker Hill. At the
same time, Johann faces old demons and a new crisis when an escaped
prisoner--a hired Hessian soldier, just as he had been--arrives at his
door.
