The Premiere of The Kincade Chronicles

Introduction

This whole idea to do 100 years centered around a family known as Kincade, began over four months ago. This is now my second idea for a mass novel write, the other being, Survival (https://theprose.com/book/2939/survival), completed 15 months ago and like the Kincade Chronicles, will be reposted in one easy to find place. I will post three chapters per week. Whereas, with Survival, I posted each chapter day after day until reaching the end.

We have taken certain liberties with the timeline in history and historic fact. Many factual names you will recognize, and others, perhaps not so much.

But I am very pleased with how, not only how this turned out, but by the creativity of a group of talented writers who gave their all, to see this through to the end.

I want to thank them all here for their support and dedication, as well as perseverance and the time they invested in this project.

First, I want to thank the following three people who also assisted me to insure that we got things right.

Our Resident Historian: ValiantRaptor47.

Our Resident Genealogist: GLD,

And my Assistant Editor.

Where would I be without my second set of eyes

with nightscribbler; checking the double check.

To the rest of the crew who took part in this:

CalebPinnow

WhiteWolfe32

Chacko_Stephen

EstherFlowers1

Roses311Sublime

EvelynDawn

LiannaC

batmaninwuhan

Scratch77

I thank each and every one of you for taking this ride with me. It was an experience I shall not forget.

At the end of each chapter, the writer’s name will be listed so you know who wrote what.

And as I wrote so many months ago, I would ask you to turn the page but in this case, simply scroll down and enjoy the ride with the rest of us.

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Prologue

Like so many others that came across a vast and sometimes horrifying ocean, the ship he sailed with was captured by strong gale winds nearly capsizing the ship. He, like so many others, desperately wanted out from under the King’s wrath. Coming to a place many people called ‘The Americas,’ Randolph Kincade could feel a new world of possibilities opening before his eyes.

The year he arrived was 1783. He was fifty and six at the time. The Revolutionary War had just come to a halt when Great Britain formally recognized the independence of the United States in the Treaty of Paris. It was that signing that told Randolph he was finally free from tyranny. No longer would he have to fear the crazed mind of King George III.

By the spring of 1784, after much hard work and bartering with newly acquired neighbors, a sign proudly displayed above a single door, ‘Kincade’s Mercantile,’ had seen a good rush of customers and the coffers were filling nicely. Peace was the norm of the day in Shackleford, Vermont.

It had been some years later when two well dressed and imposing figures stepped inside his store, asking for pouches of tobacco. One would chew, while the other tamped the tobacco down in his pipe. They introduced themselves to Randolph, names he had never heard of before, but the one doing most of the talking really had a poor grasp of language, which was surprising as he, Thomas Jefferson, in all of his short frame, had written a valuable document. His friend, a rather rotund fellow, had a deep-throated laugh and found merriment from most anything he saw. James Madison was his name. Little did Randolph know he had met two men who would one day lead the Americas. At the time, though, it didn’t matter. Their money spent just as well as anyone else’s.

There had been some gossiping that Vermont might become a state. If that happened, it would mean more people moving to Vermont, and more money for him.

About twenty percent of his business came from the Mohican, Penacook, and the Pochote tribes. They were a friendly sort with their broken English, but the Pochote would frighten the women-folk with their appearance: tattooed markings across their faces, which for them is a badge of honor when in combat or on a great hunt. Still, the women around there stayed clear of them.

When the old year ended at a party hosted by Mayor Samuel Beckwourth, that was the night Randolph met Hope Duckworth, an attractive sort of girl not yet reaching full maturity—after all, she was barely sixteen—and fell blindly, madly, in love with her. He wasn’t alone in his thoughts. Hope saw Randolph as an upstanding, god-fearing businessman who took everyone’s interests to heart. By mid-spring of 1785, with her parents' blessing, Hope and Randolph were married at the Christian Trinity Church.

Within two years they had one son and three daughters. And the truth is, this is where history started being made. Chadwick and Diana (estimated ages: fifteen), were fraternal twins. Chadwick had his father’s unruly brown hair and piercing green eyes, and already nearing six foot and one-hundred-seventy pounds, for one so young, he had an imposing look about him. The following year, Roselyn and Flower, identical twins, (estimated ages: fourteen) would one day uproot themselves and go on their own adventures to see what the world outside of Shackleford, Vermont looked like. All three girls had pale skin like their mother and the brightest blue eyes and yellow-spun hair. Of the three, Diana was the tallest, right at five and six, and the other two stood at five and three. The four saw no future in Shackleford, and as their father had, they wanted to make their own way in the world. It was one trait they all had of their father’s—stubbornness.

Randolph at first refused to allow them departure, and had strong hopes Chadwick would take over the business, but then he was reminded that leaving Great Britain behind and coming to America is pretty much the same thing they were doing.

On the day each left, Hope packed them a sack filled with food, making sure their canvas drinking pouch was filled with fresh water. Randolph gave each of his children fifty dollars in silver coins.

“Spend the money on only what you need. You come by this easier than it was earned.”

With those words said, he made his children promise to write once a week so as not to make their mother too anxious, as he put it.

His closing words to all of them were, “Where you go, what you do, do the right thing and make the Kincade name something to remember.”

When the two oldest departed in 1801, the noise in the house diminished greatly. When the two youngest left six months later, the noise became a graveyard of silence.

Written By: Danceinsilence