As the story unfolds, the reader finds that the real heroes of this fascinating 300-year history are the unsung everyday citizens of the city, who continually bounce back from overwhelming adversities. A modern day twist woven throughout the story, the reader follows ‘Jim and Marilyn’ as they purchase a c.1850 ‘carriage house’ in the city, and then encounter their own trials and tribulations as they ‘restore’ the two-century old home that has witnessed so much, and get it ready for its third century. All of this becomes, with some irony, a small microcosm of the travail the city’s citizens have endured for three centuries.