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.