Early in the spring of 1850, an aspiring young farmer, Steven S. Pike, and his burgeoning family had just acquired a prime parcel of land in the vicinity of the thriving community of Ramer, Tennessee. As commerce began budding and the engines of progress moved forward that spring, the executives from an enterprising new railroad line had their eye on the property owned by Mr. Pike.
Unwilling to yield to the paltry offers from the railroad barons, Mr. Pike stood firmly, securing his rich farmland from the avarice of the ever-advancing rail line. Mr. Pike could see the greed in the eyes of the railroad agents each time they made a meager proposal for his land. Additionally, he knew the farm held the key for the survival of his family. With seven children under the age of ten, twins to be born any day, and his wife growing weaker daily from some mysterious malady, he could not part with the home and land he now owned.
Increasing fears, frustrations, and worries began to bombard Steven Pike. A once gentle man was growing increasingly troubled. With mounting worries about caring for his family and ever intensifying pressures from the railroad men, tensions were about to break Mr. Pike. Having grown up as the "black sheep" of his family, Steven had been constantly compared to his older brothers by their overbearing widowed mother. Finally, he thought he had escaped into a new life in Ramer with his wife and children, desperately holding on to his home and land.
Then, in a strange twist of fate, Mr. Pike was swindled out of his property. Railroad agents had hired a lookalike impostor to feign his presence and forge Mr. Steven S. Pike's signature on a bill of sale, thus transferring to his nemesis the deed to the Pike home and property. The Pike family was left destitute as the new steel rails and massive steam engines invaded what had been Pike's cherished property. Pike determined he must fight to survive.
