Back in the 80s when the mortgage rates dropped to an all-time low, I trained and became a real estate appraiser, thanks to Ed MacNicoll owner of the business of that name. Architecture had long been of interest to me and that position fueled my passion for it. I often got the assignments for the big, old Victorians or farmhouses that took more work and time to appraise. I loved the challenge and still do love it .
Little did I know that what I learned in that profession would be called on when I wrote Major Fraser’s, but expanding in a different sense. Yes, the house is the basis for the story but Major Fraser and his family are the heart of it carrying the story from Bordentown to South Carolina and into France.
He came from Scotland in the 1700s, reason unknown to me but many families lost all they had after the Battle of Culloden in 1746. Even if they fought against England during that conflict, many that took the forced loyalty oath, adhered to it and fought for England during our Revolution. Thomas Fraser did, fighting his way up to the rank of Major.
During the War he married Southern belle Anne Loughton Smith. After the War they lived in Charleston and Philadelphia. They came to Bordentown during the dangerous summer seasons to get away from big city killing diseases.
Major Fraser’s, whose daughter married Napoleon Bonaparte’s nephew, is a dip into the past history of our country revealing the personal stories of people who lived before we were a country and on up until the present.