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When Mark Kingsbury was a baby, his father died of smallpox and his mother a little later, probably from over-work and worry over trying to raise her tiny son in the wilderness. Mark was taken in by Wash Higgins and his kind wife and was raised as their son in a clearing known as the Seneca Basin, a little settlement on the Seneca River somewhere between Utica and Rochester. Mark was about fourteen, full of high spirits and a longing for adventure when talk began about the coming of the Big Ditch, as the proposed Erie Canal was called. The Ditch, it was rumored, would come straight through Seneca Basin, in fact would pass the Higgins's door. Mark's one driving ambition was to establish his true identity, to find his grandfather whom he was sure he would like, provided they could meet. Perhaps this meeting would happen at the water parade for the grand opening of the Erie Canal...