Excerpt from The Story of New York IT is the purpose of this story of the State of New York to indicate in outline rather than in detail the stages of growth through which the Commonwealth, from a purely mercantile venture in a newly-discovered world, advanced to its present imperial position in a sisterhood of sovereign States. Against the background of historic facts is thrown this record of a hypothetical Knickerbocker family, the members of which never attained to the eminence of power, wealth, or official station, but remained through all the stages of national de velopment ever the same simple folk active workers in their humble sphere but, with thousands like them, factors in the advancing career of a mighty State. Fragmentary as such sketches must necessarily be, the author trusts that they may serve to emphasize, in a novel way, certain historic happenings in the various epochs that mark the con tinual progress of the Empire State from its day of small things. If these, in turn, shall awaken in American readers a deeper interest in the more comprehensive histories of their nation, or of the States that stand as its component parts, the purpose of the author will have been fully served. 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.