Ethan had planned to follow his brother to North Carolina as soon as Henry was settled. However, their father was ill when Henry arrived in Hillsborough, and Ethan felt obligated to work full-time just to take care of the shop. Though Mr. Pratt recovered well enough to walk around the city and visit with friends, he still seemed to be reluctant to resume his duties at the shoemaker’s bench. Ethan and Epsey soon began to suspect that this was a pretense to prevent their leaving home, and insisted that Samuel Pratt take on a young apprentice, who proved to be ambitious and competent. While he was being trained, the young couple delayed their departure and contented themselves with studying the increasingly eloquent and descriptive letters from Henry’s new wife, who seemed eager to share information about their lives.

On occasion, Epsey responded to Sophie’s letters, telling little about their humdrum life in Philadelphia. Instead, she mostly asked questions that she and Ethan wanted answered about their future home, which was obviously a rapidly changing community. They learned that the population of the settlement had increased greatly, just seven years after the first permanent merchants and tradesmen had opened their stores on the site. Farmers who lived in more remote areas, where Ethan planned to settle, could exchange produce for basic necessities in small hamlets near their homes or isolated general stores owned by some of the larger landowners. But Hillsborough was the major center of commerce and trade and also the county seat of Orange County, and all legal affairs had to be conducted in the courthouse.

There was little ongoing relationship between most families in this frontier area and those who had occupied the coastal areas for more than a century. The backcountry was in the foothills, and the upper reaches of the fast-flowing streams were not navigable: only logs could go through the numerous rapids and falls, or small cargo that could be portaged around the difficult places. Farmers had to depend on packhorses to move their goods to the nearest barge sites, and development of road transportation was slow and spasmodic. There was a natural difference of interest and in wealth between the coastal plain and the hill country.