Edward A. Collier History of Old Kinderhook

Annotation

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. The labor involved has been enormous. A short para graph sometimes represents long and laborious research. No known available source of information has been neglected. Land-papers in the Secretary of State's and other public offices, State and County; deeds, mortgages, and wills in numerable recorded in Albany, Hudson, Kingston, and New York, together with many unrecorded papers loaned by friends; the treasures of the great libraries, including priceless manuscripts (now largely perished) in the custody of our courteous State Archivist, Mr. Van Laer, to say nothing of histories, alleged histories, gazetteers, and newspaper files, have been searched with the utmost care in reading and copying. Many Dutch records have been translated or their substance furnished, in some cases by Mr. Van Laer himself. The records of the old Kinderhook church, covering nearly two hundred years, have been of incalculable value; and possibly fifty years of very frequent scrutiny of them may justify the hope of the approximate accuracy of data derived therefrom. In every quotation there has been strict ad herence to the original text, and all responsibility for incon sistencies in the spelling of names is expressly disclaimed. Three variations in such spelling in one document, and as many as fourteen spellings of the same name, have been noted. Descendants of the old families may find in their records ample authority for any spelling they prefer.