Scandal in the Courtroom: Found Guilty without Trial, Grant Langdon’s first book, is the story of a father struggling to clear his son’s name after a malicious arrest. When the sheriff was asked if he had ever arrested someone he knew was innocent, he replied, “No, but it is done sometimes.” When asked what happens when such cases come to trial, he said, “You just screw everything up, you don't do anything right.” Then, he added, “When the district attorney figures out what happened, he just drops everything and doesn't go any further.” He concluded, “The person is never cleared of the crime. That is what makes the damages so high.”

Grant Langdon grew up in Copake, New York, in the house that was built in 1687 by one of his ancestors who settled an 80 acre farm under a feudal lease given by Lord Robert Livingston on his 160,000 acre manor. Livingston provided the livestock for the livestock share lease and bound a young slave to the farm to help with the construction of the house, clearing and working the land and constructing the road to the manor. After Grant graduated from Iowa State University he came home to operate a 380 acre dairy farm that included part of the original farm.

Grant’s second book, Rebels of the North: How Land Policy Caused the Civil War, traces the origin of Livingston Manor through the conflict over land ownership that started in the 1750’s. The hard–won conflict of the rebellious New York farmers gave a legacy to the new generation moving west. They battled the plantation South over how the West would be developed. They wanted small individual farms, while the Southern aristocrats wanted plantation agriculture. Lincoln, a man of the northern frontier, won the Northern farm vote by proposing a Homestead Act. He signed the Homestead Act in 1862. Slavery was not the cause of the Civil War, but ended because of the Civil War.which is now available. His new work traces the origin of Livingston Manor through the conflict over land ownership that started in the 1750’s. The hard–won conflict of rebellious farmers was legacy for a new generation, ready to do battle with the plantation south over development of the Western Land.