LITMIR.BIZ

      Jess Duncan, was born in the colony of Virginia in the year 1758 to an Irish and Scottish family. He was the third son of a religious father and mother, he had five brothers and one sister.

      At seventeen, Jess joined the Army of northern Virginia and went to war with General George Washington. When the Revolutionary War ended in 1783, upon returning home, he married his boyhood sweetheart, a Pennsylvania born, Dutch girl named, Greta Miller.

      Jess took his new bride and moved to the Tennessee Valley to claim the land, one hundred and sixty acres, he received as a bonus for fighting in the war. On the claim, the two built a farm with their own bare hands and a mule. The work was hard. It was not easy for Greta to conceive or bear children. Jess couldn’t understand it, he wanted a big family. Finally a son was born in the year of 1788, he was named David, after David in the bible who became a king. It took four more years before another son was born, he was named Samuel, after the man who had God’s ear in the bible.

      In the years that followed, the farming was hard and they didn’t prosper too well. Jess took to drinking. When he had too much, he was mean and bad tempered, he took the bad times out on David and David in turn took it out on Sam.

      At fourteen young Sam had enough of his brother’s bad treatment. He told his Ma, “I’m gonna go west, I want-a be my own man.” His Ma understood how he felt. She told him, if that’s what he really wanted, he should go. He told his Ma how much he loved her and his Pa too but he had to go on his own. He was a big strapping boy. Almost six feet tall and weighing a hundred and sixty pounds. He told his Ma, “Don’t be a fret-en. I can take care of myself.” She wanted to stop him but she knew in her heart it would be best for him to go find what he was looking for.

      After midnight, on a spring morning, Sam took his leave. With only a burlap sack of food his Ma had fixed, a blanket, a knife and the clothes on his back, he started walking west. By walking and hitching rides, he reached the town of Memphis, a port town on the Mississippi River.

      There he found a job on the docks as a roustabout. He met lots of people that travel the river. He heard of places up north and of men going west to find their fortunes. He soon had an itch to see the places he was hearing about. Somehow the

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