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Excerpt from A Genealogical Memoir of the Backus Family: With the Private Journal of James Backus, Together With His Correspondence Bearing on the First Settlement of Ohio, at Marieta, in 1788 This little volume, although primarily a family memorial, will nevertheless be interesting to the general reader, from the fact that many letters, documents and other articles are inserted, illustrating the spirit and character of the times in which they were written. Of these, the private journal and correspondence of James Backus is, perhaps, the most instructive and interesting. The journal, with a few breaks, covers a period of about three years, and was written on the spot where occurred one of the most important events in the country's history, - the settlement of Ohio, at Marietta, April 7, 1788. The journal, and also the correspondence, is full of interesting facts connected with this event, James Backus being one of the first settlers. The papers of Elijah Backus, bearing on another critical time in the country's history - the period of the Revolution and the period just before - is also very interesting. We see by these papers the character of the people who secured for us our independence, and the trying times through which they passed. Elijah Backus seems to have been very active at that time, and his papers throw a strong light on the character of the people and the times. These papers have been lying idle for a hundred years and more, and it is one of the objects of priming this book to preserve and make public these records, which, although they may not give any new points on the history of the country, yet may serve to corroborate the statements of other historians, and serve to fix some of the uncertain points. As a family memorial, this volume docs not pretend to be exhaustive. In fact, within the limits of this little book it would be impossible to even mention every member of so large and widely a scattered family So it has been thought best to follow the Norwich branch, that of the second William. Of his two children who settled in Norwich, we have followed only the line of Joseph. 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.