PREFACE. This volume of Great Barrington History is the result of researches begun long ago, and continued at intervals of leisure through many years. These researches were undertaken, not with the original intention of gathering material for a town history, but for the gratification of my own personal tastes. My interest in the matter was heightened in searching the records of land titles and ancient boundary lines, for business purposes, and the desire to know more of the town and its early dwellers was thereby increased. In process of years, notes, memoranda, and old manuscripts accumulated to such an extent as to appear to me worthy of preservation; and these were, eventually, written out in some form of historic order. I then concluded to follow my examinations with greater thoroughness and to write, in part at least, the history of the town, which I did, as leisure permitted, and arranged my gatherings in chapters. The work had thus far progressed, when Clark W. Bryan, having purchased The Berkshire Courier, applied for permission to print, in that journal, what had then been written, and accordingly did print, in short weekly articles, most of the matter which was then prepared. The publications in The Courier, beginning |