Am I going to answer my own question? Sure, why not. And my answer may seem odd, because the character that most resonates with me is probably the actual town of Fort Hunter that is central to the book.
Fort Hunter NY is a real location along the very real Schoharie Creek where the very real Schoharie Bridge collapse took place. But this story is fiction. I borrowed a lot from the actual events surrounding the collapse. I grew up within 20 miles of where it happened. But the fictional town of Fort Hunter is a far cry from the real one. The fictional one is a hodgepodge of the villages and towns surrounding it and more accurate to the village where I grew up.
