Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from 1687; History of Livingston County, New York: With Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers
N the preparation of the history of the county treated of in this volume the authors have endeavored to confine themselves to a concise and truthful statement of facts, leaving deductions and moralisms, except where such were necessary to a proper elucidation of the subject, to the individual reader and in gleaming these facts they have laid under contribution every available source of information in the effort to arrive at correct data. This, however, has not always been possible, for much is given that rests for its authority entirely upon verbal statements, which, even among the best informed, are subject to the lapses of memory. When con?icting statements have been observed, as was to be expected there would be in so broad a field of inquiry, an honest effort has been made to reconcile them and make them con form to the probable fact; for while each individual expects the record of a. Fact to conform to his remembrance, it is notorious that all do not retain precisely the same recollection of it. To this end also, records have been consulted where such existed and were accessible, both to supplement and establish a verbal fact, and as an original source of information. These, however, were often fragment ary, sometimes entirely wanting, and while their incompleteness was perplexing, their frequent indefinite ness was even more so, so that it Was often necessary to supplement them by verbal information.
The materials for such a work were widely scattered. They laid mainly in the imperfect town, county, church, school, society and private records, and in the vague and faded memories of individuals. Much time, labor, diligent research and patient inquiry have been required to gather these materials and collate them into systematic order. Every town has been visited, and its records and well-informed citizens have been consulted. In addition to these, the files of local and other papers have been scrutinized, and the works of numerous authors laid under contribution but as the latter have generally been referred to in the text, especially when quoted, we do not deem it necessary to enumerate them here. A few local gleaners, of acknowledged ability, in this field of historic inquiry, had rescued from oblivion much that has served to embellish the annals of Livingston. The fruit of their labors was kindly placed at our disposal.
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