"A thrilling celebration of a forgotten early American renegade, Not Your Founding Father reconsiders just how radical the American experiment could have been. Early in the morning of October 9, 1776 - in the small farming community of Cumberland, Rhode Island, in a house surrounded by cherry trees - twenty-three-year-old Jemima Wilkinson died, and the Public Universal Friend was born. Old Cherry Wilkinsons children had already gained a reputation for scandal. Two of his boys had been dismissed from the local Quaker meeting for joining the colonial militia, and one of the girls was expelled for having a baby out of wedlock. Now, here was another Wilkinson child, riding about the countryside, claiming to be a genderless messenger of God. Yet something about the Public Universal Friend set war-ravaged New England ablaze. The young minister seemed to embody the possibilities offered by the new nation they were fighting for, especially the right to total self-determination. To others, however, the minister was "the devil in petticoats," a threat to the men who sought to keep Americas power for themselves.

And so the Public Universal Friend ventured West to create an Eden on the frontier, a place where everyone would have the right to not only life, liberty, and the pursuit happiness, but also peace and shared prosperity. But into every Eden comes a snake. And soon, financial scams, contested wills, adultery, plagiarism, allegations of murder, and murmurs of another war with England would threaten to destroy this new American utopia"-- Provided by publisher.