OHIO STATEWIDE FILES - The Ohio Hunter [Author's Preface]

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AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

No doubt an apology will be expected by an exacting and
discriminating public, for the presumption of 
adding "one" to the world of books already written; especially
in such an age as this. when our land is teeming with 
the millions, who from deeds of noble daring and patient, both
suffering, both on the field of  battle, and the no less 
trying conflict between truth and  error, justly merit the
highest place in the temple of fame.

To such we cheerfully accord the high position; but alongside
with the gallant, and brave who have so nobly 
fought, and decisively won, the great battles that should save
our country with its fertile soil, and highly-cultivated 
fields, from the desecrating tread of the usurper, would I
claim a place for the humble pioneer, who reduced the 
immense forests to fruitful gardens, and converted the mighty
oaks and hickorys that waved their imperial heads 
with undisputed dominion above the rich soil that sustained
them, into the convenient habitation of' men.

But for the mon and women whose lives have been spent in
privation and toil to render our own loved land the 
pleasing
(7)

8                                                                   
landscape we now behold it, thickly dotted with cities and
towns,--the land of the Brave and the home of the 
 
free,--it never would have been worth the Blood it cost to
save it. It was not our territory that the 
 
ever-to-be-honored soldiers shed their blood to save; but our
homes--the sanctity of the social compact--these were
 
to be preserved inviolate, even though it cost the blood of
millions. And now while I ask for myself an humble 
 
place, a simple nook, in the great wide-spreading temple that
is towering toward the heavens, having inscribed 
 
upon its scroll the names of the illustrious living and dead,
from Washington to Lincoln, and many more who are  
 
justly entitled in the names of "good," and "great," among
such for myself I ask no place, but for my 
 
fellow-laborers, who with me have aided in bearing the heat
and burden of the day, I ask an honorable place in the 
 
records of the past.

	That any honor or any praise would ever accrue from
the publication of such a book as this, never mingled 
with  the motives that prompted to the work. It was first
suggested by the oft-recurring request of my children when 
seated around the fireside,  saying, Father, this is a good
time to tell us some stories," and was finally expressed by 
some of them in a wish that these same stories might be
written or printed, that they could be transmitted to a future 
generation, to show what had been the deeds of some of their
ancestry. To gratify this desire of my children's, I first 
determined to write them, and have published in small pamphlet
form, enough so

9
that my children and immediate connections might have a copy:
but the undertaking proved that a rehearsal of the 

half of them could not be confined to a pamphlet size.  I saw,
too, that the pages written were rife with instruction, 

and so determined not only to favor my own family and friends,
but also the world at large, with the fruits of my 

experience in frontier life; not because the events herein
marrated were connected with my unimportant self, but 

because in my own experience you have the experience of
thousands, who with me entered the wild woods, and 

subdued not only the beasts that inhabit them but the forests
themselves, and rendered the vast country over which 

they held dominion, suitable for the habitation of man.

	If this little Work awakens a single emotion of
gratitude in the hearts of the young, who will soon enjoy all 

the fruits of the labor of the pioneer, and if in the hearts
of theose still living, who with myself have experienced 

all that these pagesdescribe, there revive pleasing
remembrances, the wish of the Author is fully gratified. 

                                             S. E. EDWARDS.

Napoleon, Henry Co., Ohio.