The pioneers / David McCullough
McCullough tells the story through five major characters: A Massachusetts minister named Manasseh Cutler and General Rufus Putnam; Cutler’s son Ephraim; and two other men, one a carpenter turned architect, and the other a physician who became
a prominent pioneer in American science. They and their families created a town in a primeval wilderness, while coping with such frontier realities as floods, fires, wolves and bears, no roads or bridges, no guarantees of any sort, all the while negotiating a contentious and sometimes hostile relationshipwith the native people.