Quest for Liberty

New Hampshire's revolutionary fervor begins early in 1774 when citizens of the province establish a people's government of royal authority. Then on December 14, 1774, the first American attack on a British fort takes place in New Castle, New Hampshire, when local militiamen storm Fort William and Mary and remove the weapons and powder stored there. News of the New Castle raid spreads quickly throughout the province. In the village of Amherst, the audacious event has an unexpected impact on two of the town's leading citizens, farmer and soldier Thompson Maxwell and lawyer and pacifist Joshua Atherton.
Based on historical fact, Quest for Liberty contrasts the impact of the Revolution on these two men and their families. Through Maxwell and Atherton, the story of the beginning of the Revolution unfolds with military battles in Concord and Lexington and Bunker Hill, and through legal and political battles in the courtroom, at citizens inquisitions, and jail. Here is a story rarely told, that of the impact of the war for independence on the residents of a small New Hampshire town, far from the front lines of the larger military and political conflict sweeping the embattled thirteen colonies.
Among the many illustrations are maps and photographs of some of the Amherst buildings where many of the events took place.