Excerpt from The History of the Town of Amherst, Massachusetts, 1731-1896: Published in Two Parts, Part I. General History of the Town, Part II. Town Meeting Records Amherst is child of Hadley, grandchild of Hartford and Wethers field, great-grandchild of the settlements that, clustering around Boston Harbor, united to form the Province of the Massachusetts Bay. Never was there more honored lineage, never a more honorable descendant. The life-story of those strong men and true-hearted women who braved the perils of the North Atlantic and dared the dangers of a wilderness unknown that, in a stranger land, they might find the freedom which a jealous and imperfect civilization denied, who built their rude cabins in Roxbury and Cambridge and Charlestown, surrounding primitive meeting houses wherein they found freedom to worship God, their story, rich in heroism, in devotion to principle, in glorious self-sacrifice, has been written and rewritten, in poetry and prose, in song and legend, in history and romance, until it has become a classic. Nor has the historian slighted the doings of that goodly company who sailed from Boston Harbor, rounded Cape Cod, traversed the waters of Long Island Sound and ascended far up New England's fairest stream, the broad Connecticut, until they reached the fertile meadows where they planted the first inland settlement and called it Hartford. Hadley's history has been written by a master hand, a noble history, bravely written, a wealth of information secured to generations yet to come. What of Amherst? A settlement in 1731, a district in 1759, a town in 1776, its history has, up to this time, remained unwritten save in the pages of old record books, with naught else to preserve it save the memory of succeeding generations. The history of Amherst should have been written long time ago; each passing year destroys or renders less available historic matter of interest and value; each year removes from the scene of life's activities men and women whose memories are treasure houses of historic fact. These facts borne in mind furnished a leading motive to those who have compiled and published this History of the Town of Amherst. Claiming no special fitness for the work, realizing that others might, if they would, achieve greater success in such an undertaking, they believed that the time for action had come, that a history of Amherst should be written, and written now. Realizing fully the magnitude of the work involved, they entered upon it with the determination that no effort should be spared to make the history worthy of the town. In what they have succeeded, in how much they have failed, time must bear witness.lntroductlon. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com 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.