While the gathering and writing of local history is an imminent matter, and to the man of tastes suited to the work, an interesting and pleasant task—yet, after all, it is a tedious, laborious and difficult business. The patient care and research, necessary to reconcile the thousand and one contradictory and conflicting statements given by men equally honest and apparently well qualified to give truthful and correct accounts of incidents of early times, the fixing of dates, etc., can scarcely imagined by those who have thought but little on the subject, fact, years, instead of months, might be well spent in coming, perfecting and bringing into symmetry and systematic shape, all the details of a history of this kind.  Works of this are never perfect, and we don’t expect that ours will be an exception.
     We have had additional difficulties to encounter.
1st. We have not had the opportunity to read the proof we might correct verbal errors, should they occur.
2d. Instead of completing our work and then revising and aging it in systematic order as a whole, we have had to send _ manuscript to the printer, in detached portions, as fast as
prepared.
     History should be preserved and studied, because it is the only light we have to guide us in the future. By its light we can trace and understand the measures by which nations have grown to prosperity and power, and their people been made happy and prosperous, or we can trace the causes that have led to the downfall of governments and Empires, and reduced their inhabitants to poverty, degradation and misery.

     It was from the history of the nations of the past, that we gained the knowledge that has enabled us to form the best system of Government the world has ever known.  Without the light thrown on our pathway by the history of gone by ages, the world would be left to grope its way in darkness, without a ray of light to guide it through the flight of future years.
     The importance of preserving the local and early history of Nations, States and communities can hardly be estimated. The
facts thus preserved will enable the future historian to account for many things that might otherwise appear obscure. The origin of the character of Nations, States or communities may often he explained by tracing hack their history, to the influence exerted upon them by some one or more individuals, who have
imparted this character to them in their commencement.
     Besides this, it is n duty we owe our forefathers who have borne the toil and hardships of clearing away the forests and
established institutions that have given us the best government ever known to man, to preserve and keep their names and deeds
in everlasting remembrance. Their bones are mouldering to dust, but their memories should live. The man with a soul so small or a mind so uncultivated or indifferent as not to desire to perpetrate or preserve the names and works of these forefathers, who have left him such a priceless heritage, hardly deserves to
enjoy the blessings bequeathed to him.
     To the man of cultivated taste or appreciative mind, there is no purer, better pleasure, than to recall to mind the early scenes

that transpired in his neighborhood, perhaps on the very ground he occupies. In his imagination he sees how the forests can see
the old pioneers at their work, clearing up their farms, and see how their cabins looked. He can visibly view the actual localities made memorial by the deadly assault of the Indian, or the capture of some early settler by the wily savages. Local history, if preserved, would point out the localities of nil the adventures and incidents of the early pioneers, bringing before the cultured mind a vivid panorama of the scenes of other days.
     We hope, with nil our imperfections, that we may have been the means of gathering up and saving from annihilation some of the many incidents in the history of the country, which were fast fading into the night of oblivion. If we shall have partially succeeded in this, we will feel content.
     In conclusion we beg to tender our Kindest thanks and acknowledgements
to the good people of Adams county, for their generous kindness and hospitality, and for the aid they have so uniformly extended to ns in the prosecution of our work. We
would be glad to mention by name those who have taken so deep an interest in our work, hut the number is so great it would
occupy too much space to mention all their names. We hope, therefore, they will accept this general acknowledgement which is none the less sincere.
     To the county officers about the Court-house, one and all, we specially desire to return our thanks for their courtesy and kindness, and their aid in giving us access to the public records.