The Chaffee saga is a long and enduring story; and a romantic one, beginning with the marriage of a King and a Queen -- King Ethelred "The Unready" of England, and Queen Emma of Normandy. Actually, marriage plays a significant role in more than one change in fortune in our direct line from France to North Dakota. We also trace family connections to Charlemagne, the Mayflower, the Revolutionary and Civil Wars in America, the great bonanza farms of the Great Plains and the organization of the statehood of North Dakota, and of course the great disaster of the RMS Titanic. We have been manor lords, mayors, selectmen, justices of the peace, surveyors, farmers, fishermen, shoesmiths, charcoalers, pioneers, engineers, businessmen, entrepreneurs, and academic professionals. Today, we are spread far and wide across this American continent, and I suppose around the world. Perhaps what makes the entire Eben W. Chaffee story so intriguing is its volume and accessibility. Thanks to a few who took care to research, document and archive, we have the names, the stories, the letters, the photographs to pass along to another generation. We can be especially grateful to William H. Chaffee who, in 1909, published the great tome The Chaffee Genealogy 1635-1909. Also to Herbert Laurance Chaffee and Carter G. Chaffee, who continued Wm. Chaffee's genealogies, and kept the family stories alive. Also, H.L. (Herbert Laurance) donated the family and company records of the Amenia and Sharon Land Company to the Library Archives at the Institute of Regional Studies, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, where they are available to the public. In 1964, Hiram Drache relied on these records to write his history of the Red River Bonanza farms, The Day of the Bonanza. Drawing from these sources, and from family letters and photos, we are able to tell the CHAFFEE story. Your story.