Voyage 1 : 1583 -- The river -- Voyage 2 : 1608 -- The island -- Voyage 3 : 1636 -- The marsh -- Voyage 4 : 1661 -- The cliff -- Voyage 5 : 1701 -- Rosalind's revenge -- Voyage 6 : 1773 -- Three patriots -- Voyage 7 : 1811 -- The duel -- Voyage 8 : 1822 -- Widow's walk -- Voyage 9 : 1832 -- The slave-breaker -- Voyage 10 : 1837 -- The railroad -- Voyage 11 : 1886 -- The watermen -- Voyage 12 : 1938 -- Ordeal by fire -- Voyage 13 : 1976 -- Refuge -- Voyage 14 : 1978. The four-hundred-year saga of America's Eastern Shore, from its Native American roots to the present. The central scene of Michener's historical novel is that section of Maryland's Eastern shore, hardly more than 10 miles square. To this point come the founders of families that will dominate the story. A panoramic narrative of human and animal life on Maryland's Eastern Shore focuses on a ten-square-mile area at the mouth of the Choptank River and the families that settle there, from 1583 to the present.