Closing of the American frontier-A Time in Defending Jacob | Readify Wiki: A Better Way to Explore Books

Closing of the American frontier is the historical period that frames the scant known beginnings of James Burkett, Andrew Barber’s great-grandfather. In Andrew’s account, Burkett grew up on the Dakota High Plains in the years after Little Big Horn, as the frontier was closing; the period supplies a broad historical backdrop to a family history whose personal details are largely lost.

Historical Setting

Burkett was born near Minot, North Dakota, sometime around 1890. Andrew knows nothing of his great-grandfather’s parents, childhood circumstances, or education. What he can place is the landscape and era: the High Plains of Dakota after Little Big Horn, during the closing of the frontier. The reference establishes a setting, not a documented explanation for Burkett’s later conduct.

Departure and Reinvention

The family account, passed from Andrew’s mother through his paternal grandfather, held that Burkett left North Dakota to escape an armed-robbery charge. He reportedly spent time on Lake Superior’s southern shore, clamming and working on fishing boats, before reaching New York under a new name. The reason for the name change—and why he chose Barber—remains unknown. The only concrete record Andrew possesses is a photograph made in New York City on August 23, 1911, identifying him as James Barber. The historical passage from frontier Dakota to urban New York thus coincides with a change of identity, while the motive and details remain uncertain.

Narrative Significance

The frontier period matters as the distant starting point of a lineage Andrew understands through fragments rather than a continuous family record. He associates the family’s recurring violence with an inherited “red thread,” but the evidence about Burkett’s early life is explicitly sparse: a birthplace, a broad historical setting, a reported flight, and a photograph. That gap keeps the frontier from serving as a complete causal explanation. It instead marks the point from which Andrew’s effort to trace—and contain—the family history begins.