The Project Gutenberg EBook of Round Anvil Rock, by Nancy Huston Banks

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Title: Round Anvil Rock
A Romance

Author: Nancy Huston Banks

Release Date: February 29, 2004 [EBook #11379]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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ROUND ANVIL ROCK

_A ROMANCE_

BY

NANCY HUSTON BANKS

AUTHOR OF "OLDFIELD"

1903

[Illustration: "The Angelus was pealing from the bell of the little
log chapel."]

TO MY FATHER

A PREFACE

In weaving a romance round a real rock and through actual events, this
tale has taken no great liberty with fact. It has, indeed, claimed the
freedom of fiction only in drawing certain localities and incidents
somewhat closer together than they were in reality. And it has done this
notably in but three instances: by allowing the Wilderness Road to seem
nearer the Ohio River than it really was; by anticipating the
establishment of the Sisters of Charity; and by disregarding the
tradition that Philip Alston had gone from the region of Cedar House
before the time of the story, and that he died elsewhere. These
deviations are all rather slight, yet they are, nevertheless, essential
to any faithful description of the country, the time, and the people,
which this tale tries to describe. The Wilderness Road--everywhere--came
so close to the life of the whole country that no true story of the time
can ever be told apart from it. The Sisters of Charity were established
so early and did so much in the making of Kentucky, that a few months
earlier in coming to one locality or a few years later in reaching
another, cannot make their noble work any less vitally a part of every
tale of the wilderness. The influence of Philip Alston over the country
in which he lived, lasted so much longer than his life, and the precise
date and manner of his death are go uncertain, that his romantic career
must always remain inseparably interwoven with all the romance of
southern Kentucky. And it is for these reasons that this story of nearly
a hundred years ago, has thus claimed a few of the many privileges of