PREFACE.

The labor of preparing and bringing out a new Gazetteer of the
United States has become great and difficult. A considerable number
of years have elapsed since any work of this kind has been given to
the public as the fruit of original research. These have embraced a
period of extraordinary progress and development in the whole economy
of the country; during which our new settlements have been multiplied
and extended with unexampled rapidity, and most of the districts, towns,
and cities of an earlier date have made advances in population,
wealth, and internal improvements, which have given to some of the
older states a character and an aspect almost entirely new. Numerous
flourishing places at the west, now the marts of an extensive trade,
and seats of civil jurisdiction, have sprung up within that period;
while great numbers of our maritime ports, and manufacturing towns
and cities, in the Atlantic States, have seen their population, and every
element of their prosperity, wonderfully augmented.

Hence the necessity of going over the whole ground, as far as pos¬
sible, with new and careful investigation; questioning and doubting the
old authorities at every step, and obtaining accurate information from
the most recent and authentic sources. In the endeavor to accomplish
this, the author has spared no labor nor expense which it was in his
power to command. Having devoted himself almost exclusively to the
pursuit of information in this department for many years, during which
time his Gazetteers of New England, and of the states of Massachu¬
setts, New Hampshire, and Vermont, have been given to the public,
and having, for this purpose, travelled somewhat extensively, and made
himself personally familiar with the physical and social characteristics
of the country, he has endeavored to pass an intelligent judgment
upon the genuineness and accuracy of all the materials incorporated
in the work. Yet perfect accuracy, in a work of this extent, is unat¬
tainable by any human diligence; and the author claims, on this score,