Gc 974.701 W52s 1142755

GENEALOGY

COLLECTION

ALLEN COUNTY

PUBLIC LIBRARY

3 1833 01150 1514

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H IS T O R Y

Westchester County

YORK

From Its Earliest Settlement to the Year 1900

13 Y

FREDERIC

SHONNAED

W. W. SPOONER

ARMS

YORK

JONAS

HISTORY

114 FIFTH

BRONCK

AVENUE YORK

COMPANY

Copyright The New York History Company

114275 EDITOR'S PREFACE HE preparatory work for this History was begun by the editor several years ago along the Hues of research and of the collection and systematizing of materials. The identification of Mr. Spooner with the enterprise dates from a later period, but in its relative importance is not to be estimated by its duration. To him the credit of the authorship of the History is undividedly due. The editor's personal share in the joint undertaking -- apart from the selection of the plan of the work and the procurement and arrangement of materials -- has been mostly that of supervision; or, more properly expressed, of such co-operation with Mr. Spooner as personal knowledge of the subject and zealous interest in the project have enabled him to render in the particulars specially of recommendation, contribution, and criticism. This History is therefore not a work of collaboration, except in the sense here precisely indicated. As a literary work it is the exclusive production of Mr. Spooner; and whatever satisfaction the editor may reasonably -- without an excess of complacency -- take to himself in view of his own association in the enterprise, rests in a peculiar manner upon his appreciation of the conscientious devotion and accomplished ability with which Mr. Spooner has brought it to its practical issue. Although the previous histories of Westchester County, Bolton's and Scharfs, are works of great volume and information, they are works of reference strictly, and as such belong rather to the department of historical miscellany than to that of books adapted for popular reading.