Excerpt from A History of Old Kinderhook: From Aboriginal Days to the Present Time; Including the Story of the Early Settlers, Their Homesteads, Their Traditions, and Their Descendants; With an Account of Their Civic, Social, Political, Educational, and Religious Life The suggestion of this history came from Mr. William Wait, as we met in our cemetery one Sunday afternoon nearly seven years ago. An immediate reference of the plan to the same quiet resting-place might possibly have proved to be the wiser course. Certainly if a tithe of the magnitude and difficulty of the work had been realized, it would never have been undertaken. And yet a task that ought to have been completed before so many of our elder citizens had passed away, should be undertaken. Kinderhook, one of the oldest towns in the State, and one whose contribution of eminent men to public life cannot readily be paralleled, should have its story told more fully and accurately than is possible in a county history. Nearly fifty years ago, indeed, a small beginning was made in the gathering of material for a proposed history; but the exactions of service which had a prior and superior claim, and the announcement that two other writers, natives of the town, had a similar work in hand, led to the now regretted abandonment of the project. Seven years ago, however, relief from an active pastorate, continued for forty-three years, a realization of the unwisdom of having those "idle hands" of which Watts wrote wamingly, a degree of familiarity with place and people as great perhaps as that of any who had time for the work, and the expressed wish of many, led to the undertaking of what must be largely a labor of love. 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.