Publisher's Note HESE charming stories of Colonial life TH were originally issued in two volumes, under the titles of Some Colonial Homesteads and More Colonial Homesteads. The author combines the accuracy of an historian with the charm of a story-teller. She has studied patiently and lovingly the traditions and historical associations that cluster about the old family estates founded by notable Americans of the Colonial period. How rich and varied is this lore, none can comprehend who have not, like her, visited the storied homes in person and had access to the family archives in each. Every house has its romance. The loves, the feuds, the tempers, the sports, and the tragedies revealed by such research are interwoven with descriptions of the houses as we see them to-day, and faithful pen-pictures of the worthies who built and lived in them when the history of the country was in making. THE nial Homesteads described in this work, were collected during visits paid by myself to those historical shrines. The task was a labor of love throughout, and made yet more delightful by the generous kindness of those to whom I applied for assistance in gathering, classifying, and sifting materials for my book. Family records, rare old histories, manuscript letters, valuable pictures, and personal reminiscences, were placed at my disposal with gracious readiness that almost deluded me, the recipient, into the belief that mine was the choicer blessing of the giver. The pilgrimage to each storied home was fraught with pleasures which I may not share with the public. I have conscientiously studied accuracy in the historical outlines that frame my sketches, giving to Tradition, "the elder sister of History," only such credit as is rightfully hers. Thanks are due to Harper & Brothers for permission to reprint from Harper's Weekly the chapter entitled "Jamestown and Williamsburg." That upon Varina was published in part and under another title in 1892 in The Cosmopolitan Magazine. |