Colonial US history fascinates me and this work was a great read as well as being very informative. It was a hard life moving to the new world, with back breaking work and very little time for anything else. Hawke touches on many aspects of life and shows the variations of not only where the immigrants came from but also on where they settled. I picked up on lots of interesting facts, such as ground hog's day is connected to the English celebration of Candlemas and that because of limited tools, girdling the trees was often used to clear the forest for planting.
This book is well written and research, easy to read and good for both the dedicated scholar and interested hobbyist. ( )

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