A New World - A New Beginning. In 1750 Heinrich Mueller, an immigrant German, jumps ship in New London, Connecticut after an altercation with the English captain. He is taken in by two locals, one of whom has a fetching daughter. The other is an educated freed slave who teaches him to read and write English. Both experiences change his life, even as he acquires a stern-visaged wife and travels west to carve out a farm in the Pennsylvania wilderness. When the Revolutionary War intervenes and his gentle son enlists, Heinrich, a pacifist, is furious. And for many years young Henry is lost to him. Journey to a Land Called Hope is the first in a series of novels that tell the nation's story through 160 years of a family's American experiences.