Travers Bend (The Newcome Family Saga Book 1)

A Legacy Built from the Land

In 1856, Sam Newcome leaves behind generations of farming tradition along the Ohio River, seeking a new beginning in the wilds of Wisconsin. What he finds is not just untamed land, but conflict, hardship, and the slow erosion of the legacy he’s trying to preserve.

Travers Bend follows one man’s determined pursuit of a future shaped by hard work, family, and the soil beneath his feet. As Sam battles nature, loss, and a squatter who threatens his claim, he remains driven by a singular purpose: to build a homestead his children will carry forward. But as time passes and his children begin to dream beyond the boundaries of the farm, Sam must confront a deeper question—what happens when the future you build isn’t the one that’s chosen?

Set against the raw beauty of the Wisconsin frontier, Travers Bend is a moving portrait of endurance, identity, and the changing shape of legacy.

Read Travers Bend and experience a powerful story of resilience, hope, and the quiet transformations that define a life.

Excerpt from the book

February 1855

Six weeks isn’t a long time in a man’s life. But when a man is waiting for a letter that could change the course of his life and that of his children, six weeks can seem like six years. That’s how Sam Newcome felt while he waited for a letter from his cousin Ned who lived in Wisconsin six hundred miles away. Ned had moved there five years earlier, drawn by the government’s offer of cheap land. He had urged Sam to join him, but Sam had no interest in leaving. He had a productive eighty-acre farm in rolling hills just a few miles west of the Ohio River, where he grew wheat, oats, and some corn. It provided him and his family a good living, and he saw no reason to consider moving.

But that was then. In the time since Ned moved out west, ugly coal mines had spread throughout eastern Ohio like an infectious disease, despoiling the countryside and threatening every farm in their wake. When Sam talked with his neighbors, they all agreed that things would only get worse. The once-rosy prospect of unending bumper harvests and happy times began to fade, and Sam decided the time had come to rethink his earlier decision to stay. One night, after the children were all in bed, Sam and his wife Kate sat at the kitchen table and talked about their future.

“I’m worried,” said Sam. “I look around and see what these coal companies are doin’ to the land. I always assumed I would pass this farm down to our boys, just like my father did for me, and like his father did for him. Now I’m not sure that’ll be possible.”

“You may be right,” said Kate. “The land doesn’t look the same as it did even two years ago. What do you think we should do? I heard some of our neighbors have leased some of their land to the coal companies. Maybe we ought to…”

Sam shook his head. “No. That’s no solution. The strip mines are polluting the streams and poisoning the ground. In a few years, we won’t be able to grow grass if things keep going the way they are. There’ll be nothin’ left to leave to Bert and Peter. I never…” His emotions overcame him, and he couldn’t finish his thought. He didn’t need to.

Kate reached across the table and held Sam’s hand. “I know. It’s hard to think of losing this land we’ve spent our lives building up. There must be some way we can fight them.”

“I don’t think so,” said Sam. “They’re too big. They’ll just keep squeezing us out. I never thought of up and leaving until now, but it may be the only way.”

Kate winced. “Where would we go?”

“I been thinking about Wisconsin. Remember when Ned went out there a few years ago and asked us to go with him?”

Kate nodded. “I remember. And you told him you’d never leave.”