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In an appendix the state of the shoe business in 1864 is discussed at length in a third of a half-page! All we learn from it is that by the State returns in the year ending June 1, 1833, there were made 9,275,593 pairs of shoes valued at $4,165,529. In the year ending September 1, 1864, about ten million pairs of shoes were made, valued at fourteen million dollars (probably paper, not gold, value), and the number of shoe manufacturers was 174; of men and women employed, 17,173. As the total population of Lynn at that time was little if anything over twenty-three thousand, it will be seen that even these figures are untrustworthy, or else the shoe business played even a greater part in Lynn affairs than is generally supposed.
And this is all the mention to be found in a History of Lynn concerning the backbone of the city—that great industry to which it almost wholly owed its population of 38,274 in 1880. Can any one maintain that this sort of a book is a history?
And so we might go on, finding history after history of the towns and cities scattered through New England and the Middle States, most of them on a par with those last mentioned, in all styles of print and binding, some decrepit and musty with age, others fresh and enticing, with gaudy covers and scores of illustrations; some like Sewall's History of Woburn with no table of contents or index, and so practically useless; a few like Staples's Annals of Providence, scholarly and creditable; yet none of them ideal histories. But occasionally we meet an oasis in this vast waste, and though it may not be a paradise, yet we are too grateful for the water that nourishes the palms and the grass, that refreshes our parched mouths and wearied bodies, to think that in other climes we might call it brackish and unclean.
Such is the effect that the History of Pittsfield, Massachusetts has on us. Here is a book that might well be taken as a standard by town historians. The very history of the History will show its merits.
At a town meeting held in the Town Hall, in Pittsfield, August 25, 1866, so the preface says, Mr. Thomas Allen rose, and stated that on the centennial of the First Congregational Church and parish, namely, April 18, 1864, he had been requested by a vote of the parish to prepare an historical memoir of that parish and church, embodying substantially, but extending, the remarks he made at that meeting. He stated that, in looking over the records of the town and parish, he found them intimately connected, so that a history of the one would also be a history of the other; and he had found the history of the town highly interesting, and honorable to its inhabitants. True, there were no classic fields in Pittsfield, consecrated by patriotic blood spilled in battle in defence of the country, as in Lexington and Concord, simply because no foreign foe in arms ever invaded its soil; but it was not the less true that Pittsfield had always promptly performed her part, and furnished her quota of men and means, in every war waged in defence of the country and the Union; and that in the intellectual contests through which the just principles of republican government, and civil and religious freedom, have been established in this country, the men of Pittsfield, on their own ground and elsewhere, have ever borne a part creditable alike to their wisdom, their sagacity, and their patriotism. Pittsfield, therefore, had a history which deserved to be written. The first settlers had all passed away; and their immediate descendants, witnesses of their earlier struggles, were whitening with the frosts of age, and were also rapidly disappearing. If the records of their history were to be gathered together, and preserved in a durable form, it was time that the duty be undertaken. He was satisfied that an honorable record would appear, and worthy of the place to which God had given so much that is beautiful in nature.
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These remarks were so sensible, their spirit was so noble, their form so forcible, that at once a committee of five was appointed to compile, write, and supervise the publication of a history of the town, and an appropriation was made to defray the expense. This committee chose Mr. J.E.A. Smith to aid them, and, according to the title-page, he compiled and wrote the book under their general direction. It was published in two octavo volumes: the first contained five hundred and eighteen pages, and appeared in 1868, bringing the history from 1734 down to 1800; the second, containing seven hundred and twenty-five pages, was not published until eight years later. The second volume brought the history down to date, and with the first formed an unbroken, readable narrative, written in perhaps as good a style as town history could warrant us in expecting. Not the least deserving of praise are the indexes, the lack of which found in most books of the sort does more to lower their value than any other defect. The man who writes a history without indexing it thereby shows his utter lack of the most essential requisite in an historian—a knowledge of the art of codification. He also calls down upon his head the curses of every student who tries to use his book.