L'Amour's Sackett family originates in The Fens of Cambridgeshire in East Anglia. The patriarch of the family, Barnabas Sackett, becomes a merchant captain and eventually settles with his wife Abigail (née Tempany) in what will become the borderlands of North Carolina and Tennessee. The family quickly divides into three clans, sired by several of their sons: the "Smoky Mountain Sacketts", "Cumberland Gap Sacketts", and "Clinch Mountain Sacketts". There are also Flatland Sacketts that are rarely touched upon in the novels. It is the Smoky Mountain Sacketts that produce some of L'Amour's most memorable and beloved characters including William Tell "Tell" Sackett and his brothers, Tyrel and Orrin, of the novel "Sackett" (see below) and others. Orrin was a Sheriff, legislator and eventually senator. Tyrel became a respected rancher and lawman often simply known as the "Mora Gunfighter" after the town he settled in.