Synopsis William McMasters of Ireland inherited a small farm when his father, Shawn McMasters, passed away. He met and married Bertha Regan, had one child, a son, Kit, and then decided to immigrate to the Colonies in America with a friend and neighbor. They intended to come to the new world to farm what they heard were the rich soils. Instead they started a distillery to make whiskey, which wasnt acceptable in Colonial Massachusetts. William made a fortune, after his partner met with an untimely death, by exporting most of what he produced.
His family grew with the business and after some undesirable incidents with the British army they relocated to Pennsylvania. The whiskey business declined because of export embargoes enacted by the British so they sold their distilling and exporting businesses and invested in the manufacture of paper. They gain control of the entire business about the time the Revolutionary War broke out.
Peter, the new patriarch of the family after his Grandfathers death he was drafted into the Continental Army at the rank of General. He led a Regiment of Pennsylvanians for five years of the war. When he returned home he found he had lost his place running the business. He managed with the help of a well-known statesman to gain enough influence to purchase land northwest of Philadelphia where he built a town named after his grandfather, William. He lost his first wife to influenza; a man seeking revenge shot his second wife, and then he sought solace by living among an Indian tribe.
He then married an Indian woman; bore two children, one daughter who died of smallpox and a son. He was always regarded as the head of the dynasty but upon his death he left the family trying to choose who would be the new leader of the dynasty. He left many problems for his son, one of which was the fact that the boy was half Indian and became an outcast. But Smokey was a survivor, even more a fighter than his father and twice as ruthless a businessman.
The story unfolds with honor, integrity, and service to country to deceit, murder, and infidelity.
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