Kevin Siepel set himself the difficult task of transforming the journal entries into a biography and setting that personal story, in context, within the larger regional history of the Niagara Frontier. He succeeded well. In doing so, Siepel brings out the full significance of the journal entries, a remarkable set of primary documents that have, until now, been known to only a few scholars. Some of the events and images penned by Bennett are dramatic in the highest degree. Joseph Bennett was a stalwart, self-reliant, resourceful man of integrity; his voice, long dead, is vividly brought to life by Kevin Siepel to tell a thoroughly engaging story.