Transcription contributed by Arne H Trelvik 1 June 2003

PART III.
HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY
By JOSIAH MORROW

Page
214

The writer of the following county history, fifteen years ago, while a law student and engaged in editorial work, began the collection and preservation of materials for the history of his native county. At that time he had no intention of publishing a county history, but he was impressed with the importance of authentic local histories, and was aware that the materials he collected would increase in interest and value with the advance of time. Without the aid of the historic data thus collected and preserved, the following sketch, imperfect as it is, would not have been written. There has never been any historical society or pioneer association engaged in the collection of the historic data of Warren County, and, before the writer began this work, much of the pioneer history of the county was irrevocably lost.

So numerous are the sources from which the author has drawn the following work that no attempt has been made to indicate them in foot-notes. He has faithfully aimed at accuracy, both in dates and narratives, but doubtless errors will be found. The materials for the local historian are found in sources widely scattered – in books, pamphlets, periodicals and newspaper files; in manuscripts, church records, court records and Justices’ dockets; in local laws, the charters, manuals and minutes of societies; in private letters, journals and diaries, especially of intelligent observers; in funeral sermons, obituary notices and inscriptions of tombstones; in the memory of living persons, of what they have themselves witnessed, and, last and least valuable of all, tradition. Where they could not be supported by some record or cotemporaneous document, the writer has received traditional accounts with the utmost caution.

Interest in local annals has greatly increased in recent years. In several of the New England States statutes now authorize a tax for the publication of local histories and records. The joint resolution of Congress in 1876, recommending the preparation of a sketch of the history of each town and county to be preserved in the Library of Congress, gave an impetus to local historical studies. A praiseworthy enthusiasm has become widespread to cherish the memory of the pioneers and to collect all the incidents and narratives connected with the early settlements, but it would be better that all should sink into oblivion than that there should be recorded as truthful history the fabulous stories handed down by tradition, or the statements having a basis of fact, but distorted and exaggerated by that greatest enemy of authenticity – the love of the marvelous. In matters of doubtful authenticity, the writer has assumed as a guiding principle that the record of a false statement as the truth will be a greater evil than the loss of a true statement.

Josiah Morrow.