"This is a work of fiction based on historical records, public documents, and family accounts"--Title page verso

"For 250 years, the United States has celebrated its founders. This is the story of the ones history forgot. Long before the Revolution, before the nation had a name, two families crossed oceans, borders, and frontiers in search of land, work, and a place to stand. From the battlefields of Marston Moor to the plantations of Ulster, from the shipyards of Pennsylvania to the red clay of Orange County, and finally to the quiet rise above the Saluda River, the Hornaday and Patterson lines helped build the country in the only way most Americans ever have--through steady labor, small decisions, and the unremarkable courage of ordinary days. Drawing on petitions, muster rolls, pay vouchers, and the stories passed down through generations, The Quiet Founders follows the long arc of a name as it takes shape across three centuries. It is a chronicle of stowaways and soldiers, farmers and dissenters, families who cleared ground, raised houses, and moved on when the land could no longer hold them. In the end, the documents remain: a signature on the 1768 Regulator Petition, the names of brothers in Captain Harper's Company, a pay voucher issued in the last year of the war. Together they reveal a truth the descendants themselves never fully saw--that the making of an American name is also the making of the nation"--Page 4 of cover

Hornaday family -- Fiction

Patterson family -- Fiction

Frontier and pioneer life -- United States -- Fiction

United States -- History -- Fiction

Historical fiction.

Epic fiction.

Biographical fiction.

Domestic fiction.

Fiction.

Added--202609 afic

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