INTRODUCTION.
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anxiety. They only aimed at a pure religion and an independent church. This was their hope by day, their dream by night, and the goal of their continual prayer and effort.
Dr. Johnson said that "he who describes what he never saw, draws from fancy." History should rather be truth in its simplicity. As Horace says, "He hath gained every point, who hath mixed the useful with the agreeable, by delighting and equally improving the reader."1
The design of Local History is to preserve the memory of local events and enterprise; to record the manners and customs, the character and services, the sacrifices, the toils and the sufferings of our fathers ; to glean from old records and family traditions, material which has been passed over by the historians of the State and country. Until within a comparatively brief period, but little attention has been given to the preparation of local histories, or to the preservation of the materials of which they must be composed. Probably not more than one-half of the towns of New England have any well-authenticated history on their early settlement. A few scattering documents, brief and unsatisfactory letters, and family traditions colored and enlarged as such statements are apt to be, embrace all that can be obtained. A writer has said, that an octavo pamphlet of ten pages, containing well-authenticated facts concerning the year, month, and clay in which the first man pitched his tent on the ground where the city of London now stands, his name, his origin, whence he
1 Omne tulit puncum qui miscuit utile dulci,
Lectorem delectando pariterque monendo. De Art. Poet., 343.
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came, the circumstances in which he came, the object of his coming, and, withal, a minute description of the place as it then was-such a pamphlet would be worth millions sterling to the author or proprietor. How unhappy is the reflection that the early settlements of our towns should be permitted to be forever lost through the apathy or indifference of their inhabitants.
Upwards of two hundred years ago, Thomas Fuller, D. D., of whom Coleridge said that he was "incomparably the most sensible and least prejudiced great man of an age that boasted of a galaxy of great men," wrote as follows:
"History is a velvet study, and recreation work. What a pitie it is to see a proper gentleman to have such a crick in his neck that he cannot look backward! Yet no better is he who cannot see behind him the actions which long since were performed. History maketh a young man to be old, without either wrinkles or grey hairs; priviledging him with the experience of age, without either the infirmities or inconveniences thereof. Yea, it not only maketh things past, present; but enableth one to make a rationall conjecture of things to come."
No one of the present nations of Europe can tell us a word of their earliest ancestors; the oldest annals of Rome were compiled more than a century and a half after the records were destroyed by the Gauls, and more than three hundred and sixty years after the date ordinarily assigned for the foundation of the city. It is sufficient to read Thucydides' introduction to his history of the Peloponnesian war to perceive how little correct information could be obtained by that diligent inquirer into the antiquities of his country. But it is far different with our early history as a nation. We owe a
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lasting debt of gratitude to our ancestors for their fidelity in recording the incipient steps taken by them in settling" this new world; but their descendants soon began to relax their fidelity in this respect. Men were so much occupied with the business of the present hour, that they were forgetful of the past and careless of the future. They possessed neither the ability nor inclination to contemplate their public transactions in the impartial light of history, far less to treasure and to record them , they were a people humble in their beginnings, unambitious in their aims; "content with the moral grandeur that alone attends the discharge of their duty, and in silent unconsciousness building up a political structure more sublime in its beauty than the towered palaces of kings."
I know how difficult it will be to make a local history interesting if I confine myself merely to transcripts from old records and dry details. The historian is not obliged to look abroad like the poet for illustrations; his images are ready; his field of combat is inclosed. He wants only so much vivacity as will supply color and life to the description. Tacitus informs us that songs were the only memorials of the past which the ancient Germans possessed. We know that the early history of England is a mass of fiction and fable; but owing to the modern severity of historical research, legends of beauty continually disappear, and the rents in history become plainer as the ivy is torn away. In the exquisite image of Lan-dor, it is like breaking off a crystal from the vault of a twilight cavern, out of mere curiosity to see where the accretion ends and where the rock begins. If, in writing this work, I can turn the attention of the descendants of the Connecticut emigrants from the present to the glo-
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rious past-if I can instill into their minds a love for the noble men who left the luxuries of the old world for a life of privation and dangers in a wild and unknown country, I shall consider myself well repaid.
In 1858 I commenced gathering materials for this work, by looking over old files of deeds and papers, searching family, church, town and probate records, the State archives, and interviewing the oldest inhabitants, until I had accumulated a large quantity of interesting information of a local nature. In 1867 I returned to Meriden after an absence of seven years; and the time that could be devoted from my other duties was given to the collecting of genealogical records, and the completion of the history. While thus engaged in 1869, I received a letter from Mr. ELIHU YALE of New Haven, in which he informed me that he had been engaged for nearly fifteen years in compiling genealogies of the Wallingford families. We met and compared notes, and the result was, that I placed my genealogical records in his hands for completion. To these records I have made a few alterations and additions, bringing a few families clown to the present generation, and adding notes, principally from Durrie, showing where further information can be obtained of each family.
It is not possible that a work of this description, containing such a mass of facts and abounding in names and dates, should be free from error. A writer has said that when the mind is attentively employed in such researches as tend to illustrate any obscure passages in history or antiquity, every hint, every ray of light that illustrates the subject, gives high satisfaction to the student, and tends to the great entertainment of the
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readers of his work.1 I am also indebted to Mr. YALE, for much valuable information, especially in the biographical notices.
I would here return thanks to all who have assisted me in my researches, and who have taken an interest in the work. I am under great obligations to the librarians of the New England Historical and Genealogical Society, New York Historical Society, Yale College, and Massachusetts and Connecticut State libraries, for favors shown.
"I have together gathered and commanded to be written many of those things that our forefathers held."2 But "I know that the Argument.... required the pen of some excellent Artizan; but fearing that none would attempt and finish it.... I chose rather (among other my labors), to handle it after my plain fashion, than to leave it unperformed." John Stowe, 1598.
CHARLES H. S. DAVIS.
MERIDEN, CONN., SEPTEMBER, 1870.
1 Remains of Japhet, p. 184, London, 1767.
2 Ic thaes togaederee gegoderrd and awritan het manega thaera the ura foregengan heoldon. Pref. Leg. Aelfred.