Silas Bird
Silas is the protagonist and first-person narrator of the book. He is twelve years old at the beginning his narration. Two years earlier he unwisely tried to escape from the ravages of a thunderstorm by taking refuge beneath a tree only for lightning to immediately strike. The result seemingly left him relatively unaffected except for the quite unusual and unexpected development of a photographic image of the tree on his back. But that’s not the weirdest thing about Silas. To paraphrase one of the most overrated movies of all time, this kid sees dead people and with the Civil War just two years from breaking out, he’s going to be kept busy.
Pa
Martin Bird is the father of Silas, commonly referred to simply as Pa by his son. The experience with the lightning in the tree inspires the science-minded Martin to reconsider this view toward the photographic arts which he had dismissed as lacking money-making opportunities due to common folk never being able to afford daguerreotype portraits. The image of the tree on his son’s back, however, leads him to use that science and direct it to another direction, something called the collodion process which he names “irontypes” but which history would call tintypes.
Mittenwool
Mittenwool is the near-constant companion of Silas whom literally no one else can see or hear or touch. When Silas talks to him, it appears as if he is talking to himself. Mittenwool is one, but he does not like being called a ghost. Because he can’t be seen by others, his ghostly companion proves to be both a boon and a bane to Silas, but ultimately he proves to be far more valuable than troubling.
Roscoe Ollerenshaw
Roscoe Ollerenshaw is an infamous criminal known far and wide throughout the region. He and his men are the target of Enoch Farmer, a United States federal marshal charged with tracking down the biggest counterfeiting ring in the Midwest. Silas enters this tangle of criminal intrigue as a result of Ollenrenshaw having put together Martin’s talent for creating irontypes with the fact that he is Scottish and come up with conclusion that he is actually the legendary Mac Boat, one of the greatest counterfeiters of all time who just seemed to suddenly disappear off the planet years ago.
