Summary

The novel opens with an abrupt declaration of lost history: “By now these events are forgotten” (3). As the narrator explains, most of the residents of Bakerton, Pennsylvania, are too young to remember the small minings town’s inception in the eighteenth century. Too much time has passed for most of the residents to have second-hand account, memories of the town’s early days passed down by their parents or grandparents.The exception is Ada Thibodeaoux.

Ada is the only resident of Saxon Manor, the local home for the elderly, who is more than 100 years old. When she was a child, her grandmother shared stories about the founding of Bakerton. The small town “had a flimsy, provincial look” before Colonel Drake came and started industrializing the city and its lucrative resource (3). The Colonel, who had noticeably traveled from Pittsburgh, the nearest city, unearthed rock oil...