"They haunt your breezy hillsides, green vales and thundering floods, They linger by your gliding streams and mid your moss-draped woods, They sit beside your green old graves in shadow and in sheen, And move among your household gods though voiceless and unseen. Then ye who make your happy homes where once their homes have been, Deem also this your heritage, to keep their memories green, To shield within your heart of hearts, the glorious trust ye hold, And bear unstained the names they bofe, those brave, proud men of old." --Cornelia Huntington.

An address was delivered in 1849, at the celebration of the two hundredth anniversary of the settlement of the Town of East-Hampton. Introductions were printed with the four volumes of the Town Records. That address forms the first two and the introductions the next four chapters of this book. The writer was advised to revise and re-cast all these. But the address is by age almost historic. That and the Introductions are existing unities hard to transform. The writer is in his eightieth year, with limited activities, and unable to do this work. It must be in this shape and now or never. The last six chapters comprise results of years of thought and study, as the pressure of business and the practice of an arduous profession permitted. The appendix contains material historically invaluable. The genealogy is compiled with care and an aim for exactness more than quantity. The years of toil and historic labor embodied in this book, the experienced alone can know. That it is not more symmetric none more than the writer regrets. It is far below his ideal. For the reasons stated perhaps its criticism should be gentle. To the many friends aiding in this work, whose number prevents special mention, thanks! The history of this town is worthy of the most unremitting toil and the loftiest genius. The memory of our forefathers demands the best their sons can give. Back, far back in the early English settlements of this fair land are found the springs from whence its rich blessings flowed. But for the virtue, the piety, the self denial, the wisdom, the genius of the fathers, this Nation in the largeness of its freedom, the breadth of its education, the universality of its equal rights, the solidity of its unbroken union, the grandeur of its territorial greatness, the march of its beneficent mission, could not have been. As a guiding constellation in the heavens, such thoughts have cheered the labors, softened the cares, dispersed the gloom, inspired the gratitude of the writer in compiling this work. May it inspire like thoughts in the hearts of the living and of coming generations. With that hope it was written. To that high purpose it is dedicated.