Tesla's Time Travelers Series

American history teacher Nathan Greene looked at his bulletin board. How did Benedict Arnold become the second president of the United States? And who the heck was Shippen Jefferson? Where were John Adams and John Quincy Adams? Shaken, Greene pulled down his map of the United States. He scanned the map: no major changes. “Mr. Greene,” Victor Bridges called out. “Tennessee is missing!’ Greene’s jaw dropped. Where Tennessee had once proudly been, there was now “Franklin.” Had Greene and his high school students inadvertently changed history with their field trip to the Philadelphia of 1776? There had been no such repercussions the previous spring when Greene took his class to Ford’s Theater for the fateful performance of “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theater on the evening of April 14, 1865. That spring trip had been such a success that his students fell in love with history and begged for another trip for their junior year. But somehow the Philadelphia field trip had caused a “butterfly effect” in the historical timeline evicting John Adams and John Quincy from the White House and erasing the prominence of the Adams family from American history. The ghost of Harvard Historian Henry Brooks Adams, great-grandson of John Adams, was pitching a fit and now Greene was facing an inquiry by a panel of dead historians led by Thucydides himself. Greene was beginning to rue the day he purchased a strange box at a rummage sale at the Cassadaga Hotel, the cosmic center of Cassadaga, Florida, “The Psychic Capital of the World,” and home to scores of psychics and mediums and a plethora of phantasms, including an overabundance of the ghosts of forgotten historians from Henry Adams to Howard Zinn. How was Greene to know that the box he bought was a duplicate of Pandora’s? How was he to know that the box contained Nikola Tesla’s prototype for a time travel device that jealous rival Thomas Alva Edison had stolen from the Serbian-born inventor and hidden in the basement of the Cassadaga Hotel shortly after “The Wizard of Menlo Park” received an honorary degree from nearby Rollins College in February of 1930? Tesla’s assembly instructions were a snap to follow, and the initial field trip had gone so well that Greene decided to try a fall field trip to colonial Philadelphia. But something had gone wrong; what had they done? Therein lies the tale.

History teacher Nathan Greene’s plans for his students to hear Abraham Lincoln present his Gettysburg Address go awry when two ghostly historians secretly change the plans. Instead, the time-traveling classroom portable lands just before dawn on July 1, 1863, the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg. Greene and his students, Victor, Minerva and Bette, find themselves marooned in the tiny Pennsylvania town at the beginning of the pivotal battle of the Civil War. The intrepid group of time travelers must survive the battle and its aftermath until the classroom portable returns to rescue them. In the ensuing weeks, as they witness historic events, they also work as nurses, grave-diggers, and more—and find themselves in the midst of a war that doesn’t just divide the country, but also their team. Victor soon encounters legendary notables such as Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and Confederate General George Pickett, while Bette and Minerva cross paths with Union General George Meade, Minerva meets noted Gettysburg diarist Sarah Broadhead, and Mr. Greene overhears a conversation between General Lee and General Longstreet regarding battle tactics. Can the teacher and his students make it through one of the most dangerous times in U.S. history to hear Lincoln’s famous speech? And, more importantly…can they make it safely home to their own time?

With Nikola Tesla at the controls, teacher Nathan Greene and the time-traveling teens journey back to 17th century Virginia to witness the founding of Jamestowne. As the famed Serbian-American scientist brings the classroom portable in for a landing, two young Native Americans witness the portable’s descent from the sky. The boy and girl quickly return to their village and the girl tells her father, Chief Powhatan, that People of the Sky have landed. Called “playful one,” Powhatan’s daughter, Pocahontas, is known to tell imaginative stories of her own creation. Still, as a precaution, Powhatan sends his brother and a group of warriors to investigate his daughter’s claims. As Greene and his students trek across a grassland in the direction of the English settlers’ landing site, Chief Opechancanough and his warriors surround the time travelers and take them hostage, leading them to Powhatan’s village where Mr. Greene faces execution. So begins the third adventure of the students of Cassadaga Area High School, whose latest trip includes meeting the famed adventurer John Smith and witnessing the beginning of the first English colony in North America, all while being chased through time by the most dangerous Native of the 17 century.

"Just because you graduate doesn’t mean the adventures are over… It’s a semester break from college, and the graduates of Mr. Greene’s time-traveling history class are home for vacation. However, where other freshmen may find themselves at the beach or parties, Mr. Greene convinces his alumni to make one more trip and help his current senior class learn the origins of the anti-slavery movement in the United States. With Nikola Tesla once again at the controls, Mr. Greene and his troop of students, past and present, soon find themselves caught up in the abolition movement. Samuel attempts to assist Harriet Tubman with a rescue mission in Maryland while the others cross paths with the likes of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederik Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison. Not to mention one extremely familiar young man destined for stovepipe hats…and the presidency. Abolitionists, slavery and a country turned upside down. Can the students make it home safely without altering history, or is this one last trip a step too far?"