Author: Daniel Thomas Vose Huntoon

Publisher:

Published: 2015-07-09

Total Pages: 32

ISBN-13: 9781331004899

Excerpt from The Province Laws: Their Value, and the Progress of the New Edition The author of this pamphlet was for more than twenty years a fellow townsman, and during the years 1861 and 1862 a student at law, of the late Ellis Ames, senior editor, after the death of Gov. Clifford, of the Province Laws, now being reprinted by authority of the Commonwealth. Having from childhood taken a deep interest in local history, and having enjoyed exceptional opportunities of observing the devotion with which his departed friend labored to collect and preserve for public use the rare and fading pages of the legislation of the Colony and Province, upon which our state superstructure is erected, he naturally took some interest in the work. He frequently listened to the conversations between Gov. Clifford and Mr. Ames upon the subject, and well remembers the large bossed safe and the antique bookshelves that held the rare old jewels, that, covered with dust and liable any day to be burned, adorned one side of this musty old office. Again, some two years ago the writer heard a distinguished antiquary, a resident of New York City, in the course of conversation say, "That the great object of his life was to complete his set of Massachusetts early laws." The next express that went to New York carried over twelve hundred pages of Acts and Resolves, Journals of the House, Perpetual and Temporary Laws, passed between the years 1684 and 1779. Since this article was commenced the writer has been informed that the set, owned by his own state, was not complete, and that three pages of this collection, given out of the state if for sale to-day, would bring their weight in diamonds. He deeply regrets that the few hundred pages he now has, are not of equal value. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.