Excerpt from History of Southbridge
If anything of an adverse nature could be supposed to mingle with the gratification I have experienced in witnessing the unusual interest which has been manifested by the inhabitants of the town, in attending the lectures of the past winter, it is a consciousness of my inability to discharge in a proper manner the obligation, into which I inadvertently entered. Feeling and acknowledging this, I make no other apology.
It will probably be expected, that, in compliance with the custom established by those who have preceded me, I should announce the subject to which I propose to invite your attention. In doing this, I must take the liberty to say that, if I had succeeded agreeably to my wishes, I would venture to call it a History of Southbridge, but having found it extremely difficult to obtain materials, documents, etc ., in relation to that part which would be most interesting to all, I mean the first settlement and early progress of this place towards the state in which we now find it, I prefer that what I may offer this evening should be considered as a historical sketch of the early settlement of our country, with the growth and progress of towns in Massachusetts, intending at the same time to present you with the best result I have, as yet, been able to obtain by inquiries and researches for the history of this town.
It is probably well known to most of those who are present, that the first existence of Southbridge, as a town, is of recent date. It was incorporated in 1816. The territory of which it is composed was taken from the towns of Sturbridge, Charlton and Dudley and, of course, it is now bounded on the east by the latter town, north by Charlton, west by Sturbridge, and south by Connecticut line, or Woodstock. Considerably more than half of the territory, and of the population was taken from Sturbridge.
It will be seen at once, that so far as ancient history is our object we can refer only to the history of our three parent towns; that is, in relation to all those facts concerning their municipal and other affairs of which they have public records. From these we can get but little information which will apply very definitely to those parts which now compose this town. The greatest difficulty, however, is not here. The public records of any town do not contain those facts and details, those apparently trifling matters, which are suffered to pass unnoticed at the time, but which truly exhibit and illustrate the character, manners and customs of the times, and the state of society, and to which posterity will always look back with the most lively interest.
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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. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге History of Southbridge (Classic Reprint) (Moses Plimpton)