John Willard was making a name for himself.

Unlike most of the people in Salem Village, he hadn't been born there.

It was marriage that had brought him to the close knit community there west of Salem Town,

and that was his first smart decision.

He married into the Wilkins family, one of the prominent families in the area.

By no means were the Wilkins on par with the Putnams, but just like them, they chose to

live far from Salem Town in the western bread basket of the community.

Over the years, the Wilkins had built a micro village on a rise of land everyone called

Will's Hill, and they started to shrug off outsiders.

But not John Willard.

The leader of the clan was an old man named Bray Wilkins.

Maybe it was the loss of his timber business, or the government seizure of all his company

assets.

Whatever the nudge was, Bray had become closed off to the outside world over time.

When young Margaret Wilkins married someone from outside their community, she was the

first to do so.

But John Willard wasn't going to let that be a hindrance.

He had plans to win them over.

He bought property near the Wilkins clan, and started into a career in land speculation

by dividing it into smaller lots and selling those off.

He was trying to do right for his wife and new family, to make them proud and keep up with

their ambitions.

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