Excerpt from History of Scranton and Its People, Vol. 1

The production of this work is not of my initiation. I had no ambition in that direction. For more than two years I had at different times been approached with the idea, but not until friends in whose judgment 1 was bound to have confidence, who believed-the time fully ripe for such an undertaking, and that in virtue of the fact that m-y residence here reached back nearly to the beginning, persuaded me that it was my duty to entertain the suggestion, did I consider the matter.

Without experience, I did not size up the task, either in its importance or the work involved. However, I have done my best, and do not care to apologize. It has been said that a man needs to build three houses before he can think of satisfying himself. I know a man who built two houses and forgot a very important stairway in. The third; so there is perhaps little hope of much improvement in another effort, if that were possible.

True history is not amere dry narrative of events, but out of them we try to bring into perspective the rounded picture of things done, the marshalling of achievements, with their heroisms and sacrifices, which make up the ever continuing tragedy of that, we call - for want of an adequate name - the life of a community.

Here one's powers fail. What mere narrative can do justice to the romance, the heroism, the tragedy, of the first decade of Scranton's exist ence? The stalwart leader of that intrepid coterie of pioneers went to an early and untimely grave from that ten years of blood sweating, and his coadjutors, every one, fell by the wayside long before men of their stamina should have succumbed. To appreciate in any measure their work, one needs to go back to those pioneer days and conditions, get into that atmosphere and put oneself into their place. To enable the reader to do this has been my effort, and I hope not without some success. As one enters this field he will be more and more impressed with the courage and ability of the men of those early days, as well as of many who came after them.

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