"It is astonishing when we come to think of it, how little we know of the history of people, events and customs of the community in which we live.

The greatest source of knowledge is the wisdom accumulated and preserved to us of the experiences of our predecessors....knowledge was first preserved only by oral tradition, which soon became unreliable and incapable of verification; and later by writing, which on account of the tediousness of its production was limited in its scope and available to but a small part of the people, so that in a large measure each generation had to learn for itself, and much of what was learned passed away with it.

But, of the people and more intimate events of the local community, comparitively little has been preserved to us; and in looking backward for information concerning our own locality, our vision is often circumscribed by the haze that does not extend far beyond the memory of people now living".