History is for reading, and even a local history should not be a mere storehouse of facts; I have therefore striven, with however little success, to make this a readable narrative. It may be that in the attempt to weave the disconnected and often trivial details of county affairs into a coherent story, I have sometimes been tempted to wander astray into the general history of the time. To such lapses I can only hope that my readers will be indulgent.