The Chicken Trilogy

About the Book

Three books comprise The Chicken Trilogy. The first volume in this collection is George Chicken, Carolina Man of the Ages; the second book is George Chicken Jr., Son of Carolina; and the third is Little Mistress Chicken, A Veritable Happening of Colonial Carolina. These three books examine the challenges, successes, and failures of the principals in each of the three generations of the George Chicken family as they engaged the dynamically evolving eighteenth-century Carolina frontier. The first book examines Colonel George Chicken, Indian Commissioner, backwoods trader, planter, and a bold political leader during the era of the Goose Creek Men. That fierce cadre of frontiersmen in the Goose Creek community near Charleston dominated South Carolina leadership for fifty years and led the first political revolution in Carolina. The Berkeley County South Carolina Chamber of Commerce published a brief edition of the first book of this trilogy in 2011. That exposed the need to expand that work, as well as unravel the mysteries of the two subsequent generations of Chicken personalities during the formative frontier decades. The second exposé divulges the story of Captain George Chicken Jr., son of Colonel George Chicken, and an Indian trader, militia captain, parish commissioner, and formative personality in his own right. He mightily contributed to improved relations with distant Native American tribes that hardened the British hold on colonial Carolina. That research knitted the sagas of Colonel George Chicken with his son, George Chicken Jr., and begged to tell the tale of Catharine Chicken, heroine of the third generation. The third book divulges a sorrowful episode in the life of Catharine Chicken, daughter and granddaughter of the principal personalities of the earlier epochs. This final work of the trilogy vividly describes a colonial-era community; tells of the exploits, challenges, and transgressions of colorful townspeople of that place; and grimly recalls the trials and narrow survival of a tortured seven-year-old heroine, Catharine Chicken. The Chicken Trilogy vividly and dramatically illuminates bold personalities from each of three generations of the Chicken family and recounts their trials and tribulations as they persistently engaged the challenges of the evolving Carolina frontier.

About the Author

Michael James Heitzler earned a Doctor of Education Degree from the University of South Carolina. He is a Fulbright Scholar and a retired school administrator of the Berkeley School District, South Carolina. He has served as Mayor of the City of Goose Creek, Berkeley County, South Carolina since 1978. He is the author of Historic Goose Creek, South Carolina, 1670-1980, published in 1983 by Southern Historical Press, Easley, South Carolina. He also wrote Goose Creek, a Definitive History, volume I published in 2005 and volume II published in 2006, by the History Press, Charleston, South Carolina. More recently he penned The Goose Creek Bridge, Gateway to Sacred Places, published by Author House in 2013. The Berkeley Chamber of Commerce, the City of Goose Creek and the South Carolina Historical Society published a growing number of his articles and booklets featuring the St. James, Goose Creek Parish and the City of Goose Creek. Jennie Haskell Rose (Mrs. Arthur Gordon Rose), a South Carolina school teacher, penned the eerily charming tale of Little Mistress Chicken, near the dawn of the twentieth century. Alice Barber Stevens provided the detailed illustrations for the intriguing tale when Little Mistress Chicken first appeared in serial form in, “The Youth's Companion,” a children's magazine. There is no copyright protection for this work. It is reprinted exactly in this trilogy, in devoted deference to the author and illustrator.