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Dear Reader,

A year before the Revolutionary War would result in American victory, a young Henry Prior, then twenty-two, founded the town of Prior’s End. He was the youngest of his family to survive, having lost his older brothers in battle and his younger brother in a swimming accident.

Failing to save his beloved brother from the tragedy of drowning was, perhaps, Henry Prior’s earliest regret.

History may have forgotten this young man, the last living Prior, had it not been for his discovery of a mysterious staircase made of ancient stone.

These steps are believed by some to be a gateway to a forgotten place long lost to time, where dwindling traces of magic still reside.

Others theorize that they’re remnants of an ancient, mythical civilization more creature than human.

Yet others claim they are an invitation from the spirits of the forest to come seek a hidden treasure…

Whatever their origin, the stairs did indeed lead Prior and the company he traveled with to a treasure. His journal reveals the stone stood as high as a grown man’s shoulder and was untouched by the passing of time. Curiously, the markings on the stone were in English.

Prior’s journal reveals them as a warning disguised as a riddle:

For the well to undo

Prior woe for you

A gift you must bring

A coin offering

For only one will you get

To prevent your regret

These woods are the bridge

To all that you wish

Your hurts we will stitch

But should you break faith

Beware the wraiths

Until you are ready for me

To diminish

Fearing unchecked human greed and exploitation, Prior felt called to protect the miracle from misuse at some point after its discovery in 1782. By the time the war ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1783, town founder Henry Prior had defaced his own notes to obscure the location of the wishing well.

Modern historians take a less noble view of his actions. Eyewitness accounts are subject to memory bias and differ widely among the co-witnesses who accompanied Prior on his journey, with some allegations of threats against those who spoke about what they had seen.

Prior’s hand of fate changed swiftly afterward.

The woman to whom he once gave offense and who had later rejected his suit in marriage became so lovesick for him that her intended jilted her at the altar in shame.

Prior then set aside his own betrothed in order to marry her.

Debts he incurred to build the town of Prior’s End were mysteriously forgiven.

Most strange of all is that none who were present at the discovery of the wishing well survived the decade.

In his later years, letters exchanged between his wife and her family expressed that Prior was tormented by the death of his brother, which he felt was at his hands. It is baffling, then, that he never used the power of the wishing well to undo this regret.

His wife later disappeared, allegedly with a lover, though historical records are unclear on the circumstances. Letters to her brother gave us a glimpse at an unhappy marriage, but they are hearsay only, as the evidence was lost in a fire that killed his wife’s brother and his family.

After the mourning period, he married the woman he had once set aside. There was constant enmity between the children from his first and second marriages.

Over the years, Prior was accused of coercion, bribery, intimidation, and murder. He never went to trial and lived to see future generations of his many children and grandchildren. These allegations petered out by the end of the nineteenth century.

Later generations of Priors fought for the Union Army during the American Civil War, became governors of Tennessee, and were inducted in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Today, they are teachers, doctors, and small business owners raising their families in the small but thriving town of Prior’s End.

One thing is clear: never has there been a Prior so revered or so reviled as Henry Prior.

History regards both the man and the myth with skepticism. To some he is an adventurer, to others merely an opportunist.

We will, perhaps, never know the truth. This is humanity’s eternal quarrel with history.

—The Rose family