Storms at Kendiamong: A frontier story from the Minisink Valley

Solomon Davids Jr. is eleven-years-old in 1719 when John Reading and his team of surveyors from the colonies of New Jersey and Pennsylvania ride into the Minisink Valley from the south through the water-gap in the mountains. It is a time of tall hardwood forests and clear clean rivers. The valley is peopled mostly with Shawnee and Munsi Indians but there are a few white families living here-farmers and Indian traders who have migrated south from Dutch settlements on the Hudson River to reside peacefully among the savages. The surveyors are here on the King's business. Others will soon arrive from the colony of New York. When these men ride out of the valley a month later things will never be quite the same. Otter is a Munsi boy of thirteen living in his village near Minsisnk Island when Readings crew ride in. Lea Decker is a young girl of four living on her father's farm twelve miles to the north on Mackhackemack Branch. As children they can not see how seeds of discontent being sown now will impact their lives forever.Storms at Kendiamong is historic fiction about the time (1719- 1756) leading up to the beginning years of French and Indian war. The Major events really happened. The main characters, now little remembered by history, actually lived. Facts are drawn from Journals, letters and other historic documents. This is a tale of romance and adventure when everyday men and women struggle to survive and prosper in a time of great conflict.Storms at Kendiamong is a story of friendship, family and community. It is also a story of prejudice, hatred and greed. Ultimately it is a tale of making life choices when the right decisions are anything but clear.About the AuthorThe author holds an Associate of Science Degree from Vincennes University, a Bachelor of Science Degree in Education from Indiana State University and a Masters Degree from Southern Illinois University. He is an amateur historian and genealogist. He is, or has been during his life, an avid hunter, fly fisherman, mountain back-packer, canoer of rivers, farmer, antique collector, poet, husband, father and grandfather. Mike Phegley's love of the personal stories, which en masse make up our collective history, was sparked first in John Hodges 1958, sixth grade history class, Busseron Township School, Oaktown, Indiana. The author lived for many years in the oldest continually inhabited European community in Indiana-Vincennes. The author traced his family roots in America, back to the eighteenth century Delaware River Valley described in this book. Phegelys (then spelled most often Fegely, Fegley, or Feagley) were always farmers. The author as genealogist was never satisfied with finding documents or cemetery markers. He had to locate parcels of land, stand upon those homesteads, and personally experience the natural surroundings his ancestors had so intimately known centuries before. That research, those deeply personal pilgrimages, and the subsequent questions sparked in the author's imagination, inspired and powered this story.The author now lives with his wife and two dogs in Evansville Indiana.