Introduction
WHILE it may seem to the uninitiated a task involving but little difficulty to prepare for publication a work no more comprehensive in character than this volume, and containing the history merely of a single county, still it is not out of place here to assure all such readers that the work is one demanding a vast amount of labor and research, watchful care, untiring patience, and great discrimination. This need not be said to any person who has had experience in similar work. In attempting the production of a creditable history of Jefferson county, the publishers and the editor did not under-estimate the difficulties of their task, and came to it fully imbued with a clear idea of its magnitude, and a determination to execute it in such a manner that it should receive the commendation of all into whose hands it should fall. It is believed that this purpose has been substantially carried out, and that, while a perfect historical work has never yet been published, this one will be found to contain so few imperfections that the most critical reader will be satisfied.
It has been a part of the plans of the editor in the production of this history to secure, as far as possible, assistance from parties resident in various parts of the county, either as writers, or in the revision of all manuscripts; the consequence being that the work bears a local character which could not otherwise be secured. In carrying out this plan, the editor has been tendered such generous co-operation and assistance of various kinds, that to merely mention all who have thus aided is impossible; the satisfaction of having assisted in the production of a commendable public enterprise must be their present reward.
Those who have aided and encouraged in this work have been almost "legion;" and to all such the writer extends her grateful thanks, and hopes her efforts to present a truthful history will not prove fruitless, but that it may be a mile-stone of events reared upon our country’s century course, and read by our youth and posterity with such profit that they, by their true patriotism, industry and frugality, may be enabled to add as worthy a record of their day and generation as the fathers of the county have here transcribed.Source: History of Jefferson County by Kate M. Scott. Syracuse, N.Y., D. Mason & Co., 1888.
Contributed by Nathan Zipfel for use by the Jefferson County Genealogy Project (http://www.pa-roots.com/jefferson/)
Jefferson County Genealogy Project Notice:These electronic pages cannot be reproduced in any format, for any presentation, without prior written permission.