England, 1763. After being convicted of a crime, the young and beautiful Abigail Hale agrees, to escape the gallows, to serve fourteen years as a slave in the colony of Virginia, whose inhabitants begin to hear and fear the sinister song of the threatening drums of war that resound in the wild Ohio valley.

Daniel Pardway, starting with almost nothing after the great Chicago fire, builds the biggest department store in town. He wants to pass on the business to his three sons and daughter, but has to deal with their lack of interest or aptitude.