Book Description

Excerpt from The First Century of the History of Springfield, Vol. 1: The Official Records From 1636 to 1736; With an Historical Review and Biographical Mention of the Founders A people which takes no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors, will never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote descendants. - Macaulay. It is in the town records of Massachusetts that the American historical unit is to be sought. The political philosopher can there study the slow development of a system as it grew from the germ up. The details are trivial, monotonous, and not easy to clothe with interest; yet the volumes which contain them are the most precious archives. Upon their tattered pages the hardly legible letters of the ill-spelled words are written in ink grown pale with age, but they are all we have left to tell us of the first stages of a political growth which has ripened into the dominant influence of the new world; nor is it too much to imagine that when the idea of full human self-government, first slowly welded into practical form in New England towns, and as yet far from perfect, shall have permeated the civilized world and assumed final shape, then these town records will be accepted as second in historical importance to no other description of archives. - Charles Francis Adams. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.