History presents complete examples. Experience is doubly defective; we are born too late to see
the beginning, and we die too soon to see the end of many things. History supplies both of these
defects: modern history shows the causes, when experience presents the effects alone: and ancient
history enables us to guess at the effects, when experience presents the causes alone."-BOLINGBROKE.

VOLUME I.

NEW YORK:

PUBLISHED BY GOULD, BANKS & Co.
NO. 144 NASSAU STREET.

113838

US15442.65

u 5 1 5 4 7 2.8.16

2 vols. $1.75

Entered according to act of Congress, in the year eighteen hundred and forty-three, by

ALEXANDER S. GOULD,

in the Office of the Clerk of the Southern District of New York.

ALEXANDER

S. GOULD, PRINTEK,

No. 144 Nassau Street, New York.

24.74

43.2

DEDICATION

OF THE FIRST EDITION.

то

THE HONORABLE SILAS WOOD,

LATE REPRESENTATIVE IN THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES,

FROM LONG ISLAND.

SIR:

The idea of dedicating this volume to you was co-existent with the resolution to enter upon the compilation of it; and surely to no individual could it be so justly or appropriately inscribed, as to one, to whose talents, information, and indefatigable industry, the public are deeply indebted for the first attempt to perpetuate the civil and political history of Long Island. That publication has received, as it deserved, universal approbation; and it is therefore much to be regretted that your inclination for repose should have prevented you from preparing a new and enlarged edition of the "Sketch of the FIRST SETTLEMENT OF THE SEVERAL TOWNS UPON LONG ISLAND," in which event the present compilation would not have been undertaken. The materials of your work have been so fully incorporated into the present, as to give it a particular claim to your favor.

With sentiments of esteem and respect, I remain, Sir,

January 1, 1839.

Your obedient Servant,

BENJ. F. THOMPSON.