A painting of a man in a suit and gold trim

His Grace Duke Wilhelm Appleton holds ancestral land charter rights empowering governance across Barry County’s patchwork quilt of verdant apple orchards, wheat fields and managed woodlots supplying fruit stock and construction oak for basket weaving mills supporting dozen small hamlets dotting this fertile duchy. Duke Appleton inherited title from his Hessian military officer father awarded fiefdom land grants by the British Crown across remote Michigan territory in payment for Hessian auxiliary troops aiding Crown suppression of Colonial insurrectionists during the contentious Revolutionary War era of shifting North American territory claims. As the second son raised in rigid Prussian aristocratic manner befitting considerations of weak Germanic mini-states continually threatened and divided by imposition whims of dominant French and Austrian dynastic maneuvers, studious Wilhelm excelled at horsemanship, fencing, surveying - yet found himself increasingly disheartened by harsh martial doctrines and serf exploitation under cruel Junker manor lords. Lured by possibilities unlocked in the Michigan hinterlands whispered about amid cosmopolitan Hanseatic League trading halls, Wilhelm commissioned construction of the formidable Cherry Hill redoubt then sailed to claim his destiny without even setting foot upon lands pre-granted by an distant king. Now entering his 50s having outlived his rebellious older radical brother, the enlightened Duke Appleton governs his loyal subjects through wisdom and liberty rather than force - granting peasant families ample plots for cottages, orchards and workshop craft. Across long winter nights he ponders scientific crop improvements created by cross-breeding apple varietals to yield heartier fruits and succulent ciders. Come summer solstice the duchy awakens to hoedown dances where all are welcomed to feast, laugh and find future fortune building an uniquely prosperous society centered upon orchard bounty enriching the frontier.