"One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh" — an ancient writer thus summarizes the unending story of the life of man on the earth. Multitudes who came and went long, long ago left but scanty memorials of themselves and of their work, and these exceedingly hard to get at, necessitating in our day on the part of the heir of all the ages a new profession, requiring detective ardor and skill — that of the archeologist. With the advance of the art of living has kept pace both the study of the past and the writing of contemporary records, the present generation being especially mindful of its obligations in this respect to posterity.
For one hundred and twenty-three years has the American republic kept with open door the best and best-attended training school in the world for the development of individuals, the result being an unrivalled body of intelligent, loyal, serviceable citizens, builders and, if need be, defenders of their country.
The Biographical Review, of which the present issue, devoted to Greene, Schoharie, and Schenectady Counties, New York, is the thirty-third in our Atlantic Series, has for its object to preserve the life stories, with ancestral notes, of numerous representatives of the American people of to-day, well known in their respective localities — men and women of action and of integrity, helpers in the world's work — to the end that future generations may keep their memory green, may emulate their virtues, profit by their experience, and haply, with increased advantages of learning and resources, better their example.
Biographical Review Publishing Company.
October, 1899.