A History Not Past

By Nan Harvey

Beginning with the harrowing death by plague of his mother in Leith, Scotland 1645, the young narrator Robbie dispassionately describes the events that render him almost mute from what now would be called post traumatic stress syndrome.

His half uncle, Reverend David Lindsay, widowed by the death of his young wife in childbirth and living at his Fife ancestral home, takes Robbie under his wing. They are surrounded by the horror of the English Civil War, and the Puritans control the church, limiting David's options. When the death of Robbie's father is reported, David and his charges are cast out. David's older brother James inherits the estate and drives David to royalist Bristol with his daughter, Ellie, Robbie, and their "governess," Susanna, leaving Robbie's brothers behind.

In Bristol, David is offered the rector position of small Wicomico Church, at the edge of Indian territory in the Virginia colony, but first must have a months long trip. Because of the danger of the trip and the new land, David reluctantly decides to leave his daughter Ellie with his friend Marie Opie in Bristol. Unbeknownst to David, the trip is made more dangerous because they are traveling with a Parliamentary contingent sent to convince the colonies to change allegiance from the crown to Cromwell. They barely escape with their lives in Barbados before almost drowning in the treacherous Atlantic crossing. One ship in the fleet is lost.

Enchanting Susanna turns David's head, and they marry. David hopes to start anew and get a male heir. The Virginia colony is wild, demanding and captivating. David struggles to build a new life, travels back to Bristol to gather indentures which will "pay" him with headrights, land, for what he imagines will be a Virginia version of the ancestral home he's lost. He returns to find his wife in a very public scandalous affair with a leading figure in the colony and he is embroiled in a fight for his very soul as the county turns an ugly tide against him. Robbie learns more than he wants to about the hardships of the cash crop, tobacco, meets the newest residents, African slaves, and befriends a native who gives him unexpected succor.

Using excerpts from two of the greatest English works of all time, both written immediately prior to the time period covered, The Tempest by William Shakespeare and the King James version of the Bible, and based on actual Northumberland County court records, A History Not Past chronicles the colonial experience of the common man's "New World." Robbie tells of learning to sail, wrest a building from virgin forest, the heartbreak of young love and always the requirements of the demanding crop. Susanna's secret is made public just before she falls to her death. David dies of grief and an historical hurricane wipes out almost all he had built. At the end, Robbie realizes that although he's lost nearly everything he's ever loved, he still has his new home and his trials have made him strong. And an underlying mystery still exists!

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0997984694
• ISBN13: 9780997984699
• Release Date: July 2021
• Publisher: Northumberland Historical Press
• Length: 276 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"