Excerpt from History of Royalton, Vermont: With Family Genealogies 1769-1911

It is a trite saying, that there is no road so long but that it ends somewhere. To some who have been expectantly waiting for the publi cation Of the History of Royalton, it may have seemed that the work of preparing the matter for the printer has occupied an unnecessary amount of time. A careful examination of the contents of the book, and a fair judgment of the amount of labor required in gathering, arranging, and preparing the matter for these pages and more will, I am sure, disabuse all minds of such an impression.

The time required for the work has been greater than it would have been twenty-five or more years ago, when there were living those who could recall the events of the early days, as related by their fathers, all of whom have passed away, leaving little that is authentic. The condensed history of the town prepared at one time by the late Judge William H. Bliss for the Hemenway Gazetteer was destroyed by fire, and no copy was preserved. NO other effort is known to have been made toward a connected history of the town, except the material which the lamented Dr. Drake is said to have gathered. Unfortunately, that appears to have been lost or destroyed. This necessitated delving in the original records of this and other towns for nearly all the informa tion obtained relating to purely local matters.

In the prosecution of my task, I have visited and examined the records of all the neighboring towns, searched the probate and county court records of Orange and Windsor counties, spent considerable time in the large libraries of Concord, N. H Montpelier, Vt Albany, N. Y., and Boston, Mass, and examined manuscript records in the offices of the Secretary of State in Montpelier, and in Albany, N. Y. Hundreds of genealogies, town histories, and State papers have been examined. It is not worth while to mention more in detail the labor performed, though this covers less than half the time occupied.

That there are errors in the book is very probable. The copying of thousands of dates and names, and the conflicting records as found in town records, on tombstones, and in family Bibles makes absolute ao curacy impossible, but it is hoped that there are as few mistakes as are usually found in such a work, and that there is none of vital importance. Wherever there has been a conflict in dates, the town clerk's record has generally been accepted, especially after 1860. If errors are found, please refer to the Errata at the end of the volume to see if they have not been corrected. Credit must be given to the proof-reader of the Free Press Printing Company for calling attention to several mis takes that had not been detected.

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