Our Family Dreams: The Fletchers’ Adventures in Nineteenth-Century America

Smith (An American Betrayal), a former professor of American history at the University of Kentucky, peers into the ways settler families survived in fledgling post-revolutionary America by following the fortunes of Vermonter Jesse Fletcher and his descendants. Beginning on Fletcher’s small Vermont farm, Smith traces the family’s dispersion across the land. Using family letters and diaries, Smith painstakingly frames the rugged patriarch’s drive and determination. These traits are also visible in the ambitions of his sons, Elijah and Calvin, who were eager to carve out their own destinies. Smith relays Elijah’s conflicting views about slavery upon relocating to Virginia, marrying into a slave-owning family, and coming to defend slavery as “rather a misfortune than a crime” while becoming one of the state’s largest slave owners. Calvin, one of the youngest Fletcher children, stands out as a respected lawyer and abolitionist in Indianapolis who later teamed with Elijah to pay their late father’s debts. Smith is able to show that Jesse Fletcher’s views of hard work, determination, and courage were passed down to his grandchildren. In following the family through two generations, Smith shows the conflicting nature of American democracy in the various paths chosen by the offspring of the Fletcher bloodline. Agent: Geri Thoma, Writers House. (Aug.)