Alexander County IL Archives History - Books .....Preface 1910 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/il/ilfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com August 15, 2006, 4:50 am Book Title: A History Of The City Of Cairo Illiniois PREFACE I HAVE lived in Cairo forty years and during all that time have been engaged in the practice of the profession of the law. I ought, therefore, to be fairly well acquainted with what has taken place, during that time, in and concerning the city and which was worthy of record or of a place in its history. For many years I have preserved papers and documents relating to the city, not at first with a view to writing a history thereof, but just as any one would preserve papers or documents he regarded as of more than usual interest. These have so accumulated that I have felt I could in no other way do a better service for the people of Cairo than by using them and other materials in the preparation of a history of the city. Besides this, 1 have not known of any one who had in contemplation the undertaking here attempted. In the year 1864, Mr. Moses B. Harrell, then long a resident of Cairo, wrote an excellent short history of the city, and the same became the first fifty pages of a city directory of that year. The History of Alexander, Union, and Pulaski Counties, published in 1883, twenty-seven years ago, contains three several parts relating to Cairo. These parts were written by Mr. H. C. Bradsby, who had before that time resided in Cairo many years. The book is a large one and contains many biographical sketches of citizens of Cairo. There are quite a number of copies of this history in the city I suppose; but of Mr. Harrell's history, there are now only a very few copies. This history must necessarily contain much that is found in the other two, just as the second contains much that is found in the first; but I have found a great deal which I have deemed worthy of permanent record, which is not embraced in either of the other two books; and further, many matters merely touched upon in them I have presented much more fully. It will be seen that the book contains much historical information about that part of our country which embraces our city, county and state—information that might have been omitted without affecting the local history; but it is believed little of it will be found so foreign to the local history as to seem wholly out of place. Local history would be very local indeed, which did not here and there show the relation of the locality to much that was outside and pertained to the country at large. Then, too, I have desired to create, in some small degree at least, a desire in the younger people of our community to know more of this part of the Valley of the Mississippi—this Illinois Country, in some respects the richest part naturally of the United States. I have not been able to devote much time or space to biographical sketches. Ordinarily, it is quite difficult enough to choose between what ought and ought not to go into a local history like this. The book should be a history of the city and not of individuals, excepting, of course, of those persons who have been so identified with its establishment and growth that a history of it with them left out would seem very incomplete. J. M. L. Cairo, Illinois, September, 1910. Additional Comments: Extracted from: A HISTORY OF THE CITY OF CAIRO ILLINOIS BY JOHN M. LANSDEN WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS CHICAGO R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY 1910 COPYRIGHTED, 1910 BY JOHN M. LANSDEN The Lakeside Press R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY CHICAGO File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/il/alexander/history/1910/ahistory/preface74nms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/ilfiles/ File size: 4.0 Kb