PREFACE

** For enquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and prepare thyself to the
search of their fathers."—Job viii., 8.

It is a duty not to be lightly considered, to preserve from
obscurity and oblivion family records; and it should be done
before the memory grows dim or the deaths of aged relatives
cause details to be lost. The value of family records is
fully realized by historians in preserving pride of country
and promoting patriotism, and all the States are now making
an effort to print at public expense, because of their public
value, family records, church records, graveyard inscrip¬
tions, and those showing the services of citizens to the
State.

The ancestors mentioned in this book were, without
known exception, men and women who lived honest, diligent,
Christian lives, and it fills our hearts with pride when we
think of the hardships they underwent when as pioneers
they established homesteads; the bravery they showed in
battles with the Indians and in the Colonial and Revolu¬
tionary wars.

Notwithstanding the limited opportunities at hand they
seem to have surrounded themselves with all that goes to
make refinement and culture. They educated their chil¬
dren and they went forth into the world to do their share
in making a great nation.

The families recorded in this book were of gentle birth,
and in many instances they were of the nobility. Bishop
Warburton is reported to have said that "high birth was a
thing which he never knew any one to disparage except