Melanie grew from a young girl into a beautiful young woman and became drawn to several suitors who planned to take her far away from Thunder Mesa, much to the dismay of Henry. Henry did everything he could to stop this, with the first four being subjected to various cruel fates. Sawyer Bottom was sawed in half by a saw blade, Captain Rowan D. Falls fell off of a waterfall, Ignatius "Iggy" Knight was blown up by dynamite and Barry Claude was mauled to death by a bear. With Bottom, Falls, Knight and Claude all dead, Henry's attempts became useless in order to stop Melanie in the midst of being engaged to a train engineer named Jake when a terrible earthquake killed him and Martha in 1860. It seemed the Thunder Bird had been awakened and the family was never heard of again. After several years, the story of what really happened came out from underneath the rubble: