The Preface - book written for a family reunion in 1911

Preface

The history within, prepared for the Kirkbride family reunion at Lake Park, near Alliance, Ohio, Sept 2, 1911, is based upon the little booklet entitled, "Domestic Portraiture of the Kirkbride Family," published by the eastern branch of the connection in 1824. This booklet was in possession of Mrs. Frances Keen Kirkbride and was copied carefully with pen and ink by Mrs. Mary K. Warren who kindly turned over to me the copy with other material she had been able to gather. At the reunion, 1910, —Louis H. Kirkbride, president—a committee of three consisting of Rev. Sherman A. Kirkbride, for the Berlin, O., branch, Frances Kirkbride for the Salem, O., branch and Mrs. Mary K. Warren for the New Jersey branch of the family were appointed to prepare a history to be read the following year.

The work of composing was assumed by Sherman and it has been a task congenial, even if arduous. Access to a fine collection of colonial records at Washington and Jefferson College was made possible by an official visit to that institution, and a vacation of several weeks at Washington, D.C., with privelage of teh magnificent Congressional Library made other original records available so that your committee has verified much of the old booklet, and corrected some mistakes, —rare, for the book is admirably gotten up, —and also added some new light, as for example the date 1681 for Joseph Kirkbride's arrival in America; and the death of Robert, mentioned casually in a note in the large modern history of Bucks County Historical Society are perhaps unsurpassed by those of any other county in the United State. And our ancestors occupied a very large place in the affairs of the colonies there.

This sketch is submitted with reserve, for the history is imperfect, partly because of mistakes or uncertainties or omission in the records preserved, and partly because of limited opportunity to prosecute inquiries. But the record of such noble beginnings is easily worth while.



This is the end of the preface of the book.