Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary

Gilbert Gaunt, who later changed his name to Gant, traveled from England to America (Baltimore) in 1837, settling eventually in Pennsylvania, where he married a Dutch woman. Oliver, his second son, is enchanted by a stone angel he sees in a shop window in Baltimore and becomes an apprentice to a stonecutter for five years. He is a large man, six feet, four inches. After his five-year apprenticeship, he roams the country, at last settling in Sydney. Here he sets up a shop and marries a woman ten years older than himself. Within 18 months, he is drinking, his wife dies, and his business is gone. Only a little past thirty, he looks much older because of his drinking. Gant wanders again, heading toward the mountains and eventually settles in Altamont, a summer resort for the wealthy and a sanitarium for tuberculars.

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