Book in Progress

Made to Last Forever

The tiny ship lists in the gale as it escaped the protective channel of an oppressive England in 1633. The intuitive, introspective Jonathan Fairbanks, sitting on his family’s only possessions, looked back through the porthole as the land dwarfed into a strip of gray across the beryl waters. Fairbanks uprooted his family of eight to provide them a better future.

Jonathan beaconed to John Prescott, his restless blacksmith friend, to follow his young family to the new world. Both men sought the promised religious freedom, peace, and property that was not available in England. The trips were perilous. They felt it in the uncertainty of the small craft on the expansive sea. There was no way of knowing that it would be the beginning of sacrifices toward security for themselves and their heirs.

In traditional fashion, Jonathan settled in Dedham, Massachusetts Bay Colony, among like-minded families who established an exemplary town through common minds and goals.

We watch as Jonathan, struggles first with perceived rejection by his own father, becomes the father he felt he never had, provides for all of his children during his life and after he was gone. One son, Jonas, having a mind of his own, didn’t mold into his father’s perception of the family which caused continual struggles after their life in the New World seemed to be settling.

Lives were lost in Dedham and new lives were brought into the Fairbanks family. Freedom and prosperity came at a price. Was theirs a story of life, loss, or both?

The book is based on documented facts about the Fairbanks and Prescott families, the early history of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Dedham and Lancaster, and the friends that followed them. In 1637, Jonathan Fairbanks built the oldest frame house still standing in North America. John Prescott became known as the “Father of Lancaster.” These two families came together through the love and offspring of their children, Jonas Fairbanks and Lydia (Prescott) Fairbanks. Jonas and Lydia’s family continued the Fairbanks story of settling this nation.

This is the first book in a Made to Last Forever series that will take the Fairbanks family and their wives across North America. As early settlers in Dedham and Lancaster, Massachusetts, Vermont, Ohio, and Kansas, they opened this country. They fought the country’s wars: the French and Indian Wars, King Philip’s War, Revolutionary War, Civil War, WW I, and WW II. They were significant in shaping and protecting our nation as common people doing uncommon things. 

Made to Last Forever is in it’s final stages of the long process of publishing. From now November 2024 until it is published you will receive glimpses of the book which will help you understand the 1600s Massachusetts Bay Colony, Dedham, the village of the Fairbanks, the family, and will increase your enjoyment as you read their story. Sign up for monthly notifications of blogs so you’ll be among the first to know when the book is available.