Southeast Missouri's transformation from a largely unsettled wilderness to the modern era is chronicled in this book's history of three families: the Ramsays, the Lormiers and the Houcks. The Ramsay connection reaches back about 1000 years to the beginnings of the Ramsays of Dalhousie Castle - located near Edinburgh, Scotland. The book treats you to a tour of the still standing Dalhousie Castle and a 1795 log cabin. It also includes a pictorial tour, in color, of Elmwood Manor - a visual treat which has had only limited access by the public. Louis Lormier founded the Cape Girardeau settlement in 1793 and Andrew Ramsay and his sister Rebecca Ramsay Giboney followed to establish the first entrée of English speaking settlers in Southeast Missouri. Andrew Ramsay built a log cabin in 1795 which still stands today. Andrew was also instrumental in establishing the first English language school west of the Mississippi River. His sister Rebecca Ramsay, and her husband Alexander Giboney, obtained a large land grant in 1797 from the Spanish government and settled on a knoll just west of Cape Girardeau. Their land was titled El Bosque de los Olmas or Elmwood in English. Their son, Andrew Giboney, in addition to owning a large plantation, was a merchant of wide influence in the Mississippi River basin. Over the years, the wooden beginnings of Elmwood was transformed into a likeness of Dalhousie Castle. In 2002, part of the original plantation was converted into Dalhousie Golf Course. In 1872, Louis Houck, a lawyer with an anti-slavery background, married Mary Giboney of southern plantation gentry. Louis Houck became a mover and shaker in regional commerce, railroad development and also education; he was a founder of the Cape Girardeau Normal College which evolved into Southeast Missouri State University. If you like stories of frontier adventure and enjoy pictorial insights into the pioneering and social history of the times, this is the book for you.