The scene opens before Major Fraser is born, in old England where religious restrictions sent people to the new, budding colonies. A house is built at 201 Prince Street in Bordentown, New Jersey where Quakers settled, living in the peace they never knew in England. These members of the Friends Society cement a firm foundation of their beliefs for others to follow beginning with their warm relationship with the Native Americans. They encourage the positive by their daily practices.
The owners at 201 Prince Street change as they watch the history being recorded around them. They prepare as the Revolutionary War looms on the horizon. Passions burst into the fierce fighting of this rebellion against the Mother Country as each individual takes a side in a conflict that made heroes of ordinary people.
With the newly immigrated Scot, Thomas Fraser, we travel to South Carolina to experience the British side of the war. (Yes, he fought with fierce aggression for the Brits.) We peek into the lives of both sides battling to preserve their way of life. The Brits lose the war. But the Major has fallen in love with a southern belle. He stays in the newly formed country building a family and an empire, dividing his time between Charleston and Bordentown. His children live to experience their own unsettled history. One becomes a pioneer settling in the territory of Texas, some go on into the France of Napoleon III. Rebellion visits France, too. Everyday people lived intensely; standing firmly behind the personal beliefs they were willing to fight and die for.
Reading Major Fraser’s is like finding an old trunk full of personal letters unfolding the lives of long forgotten relatives. A thread connects multi-generations, neighbors, patriots and antagonists. The house standing at 201 Prince Street witnesses it all. It comforts the families living there as they go through the loves, the friendships, the losses and the gains of life. The house expands and grows as its families do, always there to welcome, to comfort and to send off into the world.
