Excerpt from Justin Winsor: A Memoir Prepared for the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society These early journals are absolutely free from any subjective comment, but they emphasize the fact of the writer's compara tive social isolation, his dislike of school, and his absorption, even as a boy, in pursuits which made him find a journal more companionable than a schoolmate. He formed friendships at the time which endured, but his friends remember him then as silent and reserved. It is not altogether surprising to find him, while still a school-boy, attending meetings of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, and even, as he records under date of November 1, 1848, making a few remarks about the state of the Duxbury Records and the old graveyard. For he had already, in the year before he entered college, set about com piling the history of his father's and mother's native town; and the first entry in his college journal, August 29, 1849, is a bit of self-gratulation at having a room by himself, as he is hard at work on the proofs of his History of the Town of Duxbury. On October 27 of the same year he notes: Got some of my books [bound] for the first time. I received my first proof Saturday, July 14, 1849, just fifteen weeks ago. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.