Prefatory.

HE following Address and Appendix have been prepared almost entirely from the Records of the Town, the Parishes, and the Churches. I have found hardly a sentence in print which has given me any assistance. If any historical sermons were preached by any of the ministers of the town, they were either not printed, or I have failed to find them.

This fact has made my labor very difficult and slow, as well as severe. I have thoroughly searched the records of the town of Springfield during the period antecedent to the incorporation of Wilbraham, and copied all that referred to our history. I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Folsom, City Clerk, for aid in finding that portion of the records which I needed. I obtained a copy of the Indian deed of a portion of the town from the office of the Registry of Deeds, and the clerks kindly volunteered to make scrutiny to discover, if possible, other deeds.

I spent several days in the Archives of the State Department, at the State House, in Boston, and was greatly assisted by the clerks, Messrs. Strong and Coolidge, and especially by Alanson Hawley, Esq., who kindly copied for me several pages from the "Revolutionary Rolls," and aided me in other ways most generously.

I have obtained invaluable assistance from Samuel Warner's Journal, and from Doctor Samuel Fisk Merrick's Journal of his two expeditions in the Revolutionary War, and from his MS. address at the conclusion of a century from the settlement of the town, delivered June, "election day," 1831.

I have not been able to find any Revolutionary correspondence save

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