murders, the population of a new country will not admit of such a waste
of human life. There might possibly have been one or two hangings, to the
manifest advantage of the settlement; but then it would have been out of keeping
with the humane laws of this compassionate country.
    The Pioneers is now before the world, Mr. Wiley, and I shall look to you for
the only true account of its reception. The critics may write as obscurely as
they please, and look much wiser than they are; the papers may puff or abuse, as
their changeful humours dictate; but if you meet me with a smiling face, I shall
at once know that all is essentially well.
    If you should ever have occasion for a preface, I beg you will let me hear
from you, in reply.
    Yours, truly,
    
                                                                     The Author.
New-York, January 1st, 1823.
 

                                  Introduction

As this work professes, in its title page, to be a descriptive tale, they who
will take the trouble to read it, may be glad to know how much of its contents
is literal fact, and how much is intended to represent a general picture. The
author is very sensible, that had he confined himself to the latter, always the
most effective, as it is the most valuable mode of conveying knowledge of this
nature, he would have made a far better book. But, in commencing to describe
scenes, and perhaps he may add characters, that were so familiar to his own
youth, there was a constant temptation to delineate that which he had known
rather than that which he might have imagined. This rigid adhesion to truth, an
indispensable requisite in history and travels, destroys the charm of fiction,
for all that is necessary to be conveyed to the mind by the latter had better be
done by delineations of principles and of characters in their classes, than by a
too fastidious attention to originals.
    New-York having but one county of Otsego, and the Susquehannah but one
proper source, there can be no mistake as to the site of the Tale. The history
of this district of Country, so far as it is connected with civilized man, is
soon told.
    Otsego, in common with most of the interior of the Province of New-York, was
included in the county of Albany, previously to the war of the separation. It
then became, in a subsequent division of territory, a part of Montgomery; and,
finally, having obtained a sufficient population of its own, it was set apart as
a county by itself, shortly after the peace