They Were Dead Before I Got Here: The Life and Times of the Ancestors of John and Harriet Hyde of New York

What was it like to live in a cavalry fort? What were the Apaches like? How do you make hard tack? How did you equip your wagon for a trip across the prairies? What might your life be like if you lived back then? This book will answer those questions and more. Family history is human history. Each one of us has a tale to tell, and those who come before us and after us add their stories to our family inheritance, and to the collective human inheritance. Here are the Gilletts, the Boutons, the Hydes, the Hickocks, and more. This is their story and the story of their times. They serve Kings of England, they are founders of towns, they are whipped for transgressions by their Puritan neighbors, they make Supreme Court rulings, they testify at witch trials, they become drunks and abandon their families, they are governors, soldiers, patriots, and the silent many whose names and faces would be lost to history. They are my family, and in a grander sense, they are yours too. Take a walk with