Excerpt from Contributions to the History of the Lackawanna Valley In presenting to the public these "Contributions," it seems proper to state that the collection of the embodied facts was more the result of the love possessed by the writer for such incidents and history, than the hope of either a pecuniary reward or a literary reputation. Becoming familiar with a few features in the history of the Lackawanna Valley, the writer was induced by the solicitation of his friends to put them into a shape whereby their publication might possibly awaken an interest, or perhaps elicit new and more connected material from a region where nothing yet had been done in the way of gathering its local history. From the absence of a proper and continued record - from indistinct and often conflicting memories - and from the death of all who were familiar with its earliest settlement, it is very probable that events narrated are sometimes given in an imperfect, and even in an inaccurate manner. 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.