I would like to say, preliminarily, to the friends who have so kindly assembled, that it has long lain on my mind and heart that the traditions of the early, formative, life of the Village ought to be handed down alike in justice to the Pioneers and to the genera tions succeeding them. It would have been a relief to me to have found someone better equipped for the task; but I could find no one reaching back to the days of which I shall speak on whom I could rely for such work, which therefore I must undertake.