Twenty years after the end of the American Civil War, Jesse Bentley becomes famous in Ohio for modernizing his farmlands with new methods and technologies.

The Bentleys first arrive in Ohio many years prior to the events of the story. They settle in the Midwest to live on cheap forestland, which they convert into farmland. Several generations later, Jesse is born the youngest of five boys, who work on the farmland using their elders’ original methods. All four of Jesse’s brothers, as well as their mother, die during the Civil War. Jesse returns home to take charge of the farm and care for his elderly father.

Though Jesse is better suited to work as a minister than as a farmer, he quickly becomes a strict master of the estate, forcing everyone to do his bidding so that the farm will thrive. He aspires to make his farm the best in the state, convinced that this is how he will live a life of “great importance,” emulating of the Biblical figure of Jesse. Jesse’s ambition makes him pitiless toward everyone on the estate, including his father and his pregnant wife, Katherine, who later dies during labor.

The Industrial Revolution has made it hard for Jesse to fit into an increasingly urbanized and mechanized world.