In 1800, Mr. and Mrs. Sheldon and their seven children journey in a covered wagon to the town of Aurora, Ohio. They are stopped short by a bone-rattling thunderstorm. Lightning brings down trees which block the wagon track, and the family is stranded.
After a night spent with the family huddled beneath their wagon, Mr. Sheldon sets off to fetch help in Aurora. A land-company map had advertised Aurora as a settled village, but it turns out to be nothing more than a surveyor's post. Mr. Sheldon is finally able to find help in the town of Hudson. With heroic efforts of eight men from Hudson and the members of the Sheldon family, the Sheldons make it to Aurora where they begin their new life as the town's first settlers.
