Richard "Dick" Dudgeon (Kirk Douglas) is apostasy and outcast from his family in Colonial history of the United States Websterbridge, New Hampshire, who returns their hatred with scorn. After the death of his father by mistakenly being hanged by the British as a rebel in nearby Springtown, Dick rescues his body from the gallows, where it had been left as an example to others, and has it buried in the parish graveyard in Websterbridge. He then returns to his childhood home to hear the reading of his father's will, much to his family's dismay.