Bird, Robert Montgomery: Nick of the Woods. V1. 9 Jul 2011
 

Bird was born in New Castle, Delaware on February 5, 1806. After attending the New Castle Academy and Germantown Academy, he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1824.He began to write fiction during his time in medical school and by 1827 had published in the Philadelphia Monthly Magazine. After graduating from medical school, Bird attempted to begin a medical practice but became discouraged after one year and left medicine to pursue a literary career.

Excerpt
THE sun of an August afternoon, 1782, was yet blazing upon the rude palisades and equally rude cabins of one of the principal stations in Lincoln county, when a long train of emigrants, issuing from the southern forest, wound its way over the clearings, and among the waving maize-fields that surrounded the settlement, and approached the chief gate of its enclosure.