Gate in the Fence of Time

A car skids on a wet highway to Williamsburg. John Sinclair, a former special-forces fighter, his wife Susan, a teacher, and their grown children, feel suspended for long moments as the car comes to rest without a crash. With altered perceptions, they time travel to Virginia in 1775. John befriends a colorful Scottish veteran of 18th century campaigns. Susan finds a Quaker woman with a tragic past and learns secrets of leading families. Their college senior son Peter is enthralled by a slave named Evie and his quest to help free her before the Underground Railroad, leads him to a spiritual and magical free African woman named Annie. His sister Megan helps Mark, an indentured blacksmith and his friend, Standing Elk, a Native American holy man.


The family is conflicted by many surprising things they learn about our history:


• "No taxation without representation" did not trigger war. The Stamp Tax & Townshend Duties were repealed many years before revolution broke out.


• The Quebec Act created an appointed rather than elected government there and extended Quebec's boundaries to include the land west of the 1763 Proclamation Line along the Appalachian Mountains. Prominent people in the Colonies were secret investors in land development companies working illegally west of the line. They were determined to defy the Quebec Act.


• The Massachusetts Government Act revoked the charter of that colony and declared that government positions would be appointed by the Crown. When an appointed council was installed similar to the system in Quebec, leaders throughout the colonies cried "Tyranny."


• The British freed as many slaves during the Revolution as during the many years of the Underground Railroad, but few of them made it to a life in freedom.


• The young George Washington worked with and was mentored by a distant cousin who was heir and namesake of Thomas, Baron Cameron, the 3rd Earl of Fairfax who overthrew the King a century before. Did that influence our history?


As they seek a way back to their own time, the Sinclairs help their new friends and make profound discoveries about themselves and about how our country began.