Ralph Nading Hill

"Here is a wonderful, rambunctious gallery of folk: the early "ornery" ones like Hetty Green, the "outsider" who came to Vermont contrary, and stayed to become more so; Russel Colvin, the alleged corpse, who turned out to be not so dead; Eleazer Wheelock's son, John, who became the second president of Dartmouth College -- right through Calvin Coolidge. Her are Vermont's weird religions, fights, sports and finaglings; her artists (including the adopted...

With his father's death, fifteen-year-old Brian becomes owner of a steamboat company suddenly beset with problems.