By the 1830's the state of Ohio had been completely settled except for one very inhospitable area in northwest Ohio known as the Great Black Swamp. In Tracy's Chevalier's latest historical novel "At the Edge of the Orchard" we encounter the Goodenough family. They have moved to Ohio from Connecticut and settled in the only place available to them, the mosquito infested muck of those swamps.
This is the tale of the hardships they endured and the toll that it took on the family. This is also a story about apples. The Goodenoughs tried to grow an orchard and they got some help doing that from the itinerant apple tree planting wanderer known as Johnny Appleseed.
"At the Edge of the Orchard" is another wonderful book by Tracy Chevalier. She takes readers through the swamps of Ohio to the towering redwoods of California. This is the saga of a family that was riven by hardship then reunited in a small way by luck, coincidence, and curious circumstance.
