Apparently the novel was based on the true story of murders which took place at Tomhannock, New York (a hamlet near Pittstown) in 1781. Mirroring the incidents of the later novel, one James Yates, under the influence of a religious delusion, killed his wife and four children, then attempted to kill his sister, and expressed no remorse for his conduct in court later.
Brown gave his tragic hero a pedigree related to that of the actual German author Christoph Martin Wieland, who is mentioned obliquely in the text:
My ancestor may be considered as the founder of the German Theatre. The modern poet of the same name is sprung from the same family, and, perhaps, surpasses but little, in the fruitfulness of his invention, or the soundness of his taste, the elder Wieland.
This and others of Charles Brockden Brown's novels were very influential in the later development of the Gothic genre by such writers as Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley, and most especially, George Lippard.