The revolutionary patriot known as Henry Free had come to America as the boy Henner Dellicker—his new life as different as his name and the childhood he left behind in Germany. He had traveled to colonial Philadelphia in a ship crowded with starving emigrants, only to discover that it was indentured servitude, not freedom, to which he sailed.

Conrad Richter's 1943 novel, now restored to print, tells the rousing story of Free's journey, of his time in service, and of his struggle for freedom—his own, and that of the young nation of which he becomes a part. In the process of telling this story, Richter reveals many details about everyday life in eighteenth-century Philadelphia and highlights the little-known part played by the founding fathers of the Pennsylvania Dutch in America's growth to nationhood.