The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees

 By 

Mary Caroline Crawford

Author of "The Romance of Old New England Churches,"
"The College Girl of America, " etc.

Illustrated 

L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
BOSTON  PUBLISHERS

copyright, 1902

BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY

(INCORPORATED) 

Eighth Impression, March, 1908 

COLONIAL PRESS Electrotyped  and Printed
by C. H. Simonds & Co. Boston, U. S. A.

FOREWORD 

THESE little sketches have been written to supply what seemed to the author a real need, -- a volume which should give clearly, com­pactly, and with a fair degree of readable­ness, the stories connected with the surviv­ing old houses of New England. That de­lightful writer, Mr. Samuel Adams Drake, has in his many works on the historic mansions of colonial times, provided all necessary data for the serious student, and to him the deep indebtedness of this work is fully and frankly acknowledged. Yet there was no volume which gave entire the tales of chief interest to the majority of readers. It is, therefore, to such searchers after the romantic in New England's his­tory that the present book is offered.

It but remains to mention with grati­tude the many kind friends far and near who have helped in the preparation of the material, and especially to thank Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., publishers of the works of Hawthorne, Whittier, Longfellow, and Higginson, by permission of and special arrangement with whom the selec­tions of the authors named, are used; the Macmillan Co., for permission to use the extracts from Lindsay Swift's "Brook Farm"; G. P. Putnam's Sons for their kindness in allowing quotations from their work, "Historic Towns of New England"; Small, Maynard & Co., for the use of the anecdote credited to their Beacon Biogra­phy of Samuel F. B. Morse; Little, Brown & Co., for their marked courtesy in the extension of quotation privileges, and Mr. Samuel T. Pickard, Whittier's literary ex­ecutor, for the new Whittier material here given.

M. C. C.

Charlestown, Massachusetts, 1902.

Sir Harry Frankland

"All houses wherein men have lived and died are haunted houses."
 -- Longfellow.

 "So very difficult a matter is it to trace and find out the truth of anything by history."
-- Plutarch.

". . . Common as light is love,
And its familiar voice wearies not ever."
-- Shelley.

 " . . . I discern
Infinite passion and the pain 
Of finite hearts that yearn."
-- Browning.

 "'Tis an old tale and often told."
-- Scott.

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