The Brittle Thread of Life: Backcountry People Make a Place for Themselves in Early America

by Mark Carlson Williams

Book Overview

The colonists who settled the backcountry in eighteenth-century New England were recruited from the social fringe, people who were desperate for land, autonomy, and respectability and who were willing to make a hard living in a rugged environment.

Mark Williams' microhistorical approach gives voice to the settlers, proprietors, and officials of the small colonial settlements that became Granby, Connecticut, and Ashfield, Massachusetts...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0300139225
• ISBN13: 9780300139228
• Release Date: August 2009
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.4" x 9.3"