Excerpt from The Homes of Our Forefathers: Being a Selection of the Oldest and Most Interesting Historical Houses and Noted Places in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont; From Original Drawings Taken on the Spot

All' who are interested in this collection of the ancestral homes of New England will, I trust, read the following: After innumerable trials and difficulties, the full history of which would fill fifty of these pages, I have at length completed the third volume of Homes of Our Forefathers. Nearly Seven years have passed away since I commenced the work.

Very few persons can have any adequate idea of the time, labor and expense required to collect the materials and superintend the getting up of these books. The many weary miles I have travelled to ascertain the correct dates or the names of those who built these houses; hunting up old wills in the Probate Court; examining old deeds in the Registrar's Office; visit ing graveyards, to decipher, if possible, the date of some person's death; calling on Mr. A, B, and C, and trying to reconcile the different and often contradictory st0ries they would tell me, etc., etc., are a few of the labors incident to this undertaking.

That in spite of all my efforts to be absolutely correct, there may be found some trifling errors; that some of the drawings may be slightly inaccurate in unimportant details, I am quite willing to admit, but this will surely be pardoned, for, perhaps when I was making the sketches, rain or snow was falling on my paper, or the wind was blowing a gale, and making it extremely difficult to sketch at all.

And this reminds me of a question I have often been asked, and that is, why I did not take photographs of these houses. I answer that very seldom would this process have been desirable, because in very many cases, alterations and additions have been made at various times to these buildings, which I have left out, and shown them as they were originally. Then again, frequently trees hid important features of course in sketching I could leave these trees out partially or wholly.

I will now say a few words in regard to the financial part of this undertaking. From first to last I have been obliged to bear the whole expense, as I could not induce any society or individual to invest money in the enterprise. That this has been a pretty heavy burden will be evident from the following statement.

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