North Parish

An Ann Arborite, Professor Silas Douglas, became the first president of Michigan's Historical Society. He was a teenager who witnessed the 1818 Maumee River treaty signing by seven tribes for President Monroe's Erie Canal. The names of the tribes and the individual natives have been preserved in the Ann Arbor Public Library. North Parish follows the diplomats around the Great Lakes. * * * * * Parish North is the blonde adopted son of a Huron native, and with his manhood-quest completed in time for his father's trip with a Jesuit bishop, he's allowed to participate in the efforts to secure powwow agreements from seven tribes around the Great Lakes for the building of the Erie Canal. During the trip, Parish recognizes his vision temptress in Dorothy Evans. Hoping to join the delegation, Dorothy Evans dreams of escaping duties as her mother's cook-helper at Fort Detroit. Exciting windows to the wider world open for the girl in the Fort's Jesuit library. Two centuries worth of European books convince her everything good and pure comes from nature. And when Dorothy meets the blond native, Parish North, she feels her heart quicken when he smiles in her direction. She's positive Parish is half of her future. When a bishop assigned to the trip persuades Dorothy's mother to allow him to chaperon her intelligent daughter on the trip to facilitate her education, Dorothy's mother accepts his kind offer with the comforting knowledge that Dorothy is under the protection of a man of the Church. But the Bishop's intentions may not be as pure as they appear and Dorothy's virtue is in danger. Will the Bishop's unholy plan succeed?