OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS. JOHN ELIOT AND HIS FRIENDS, OF NAZING AND WALTHAM ABBEY. From Original Sources. Written for the Royal Historical Society, By W. WINTERS, F. R. HIST. Soc. 2 PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR, CHURCHYARD, WALTHAM ABBEY, ESSEX. 1882 THE PREFACE. HE following pages were read a short time since before the Royal Historical Society and are now published mainly for the benefit of my Transatlantic friends; many of whom, I am convinced, are deeply interested in everything connected with the history of the old English homesteads of their forefathers. It would have given me much greater pleasure, had it been possible, to have published even more original data relative to the lives of the Pilgrim Fathers prior to their embarkation for the New World. Much, however, in this way, remains to be done by historical writers of the future. The materials for history which I here record are principally collated from original MSS. in my own possession; as also from the Parish Registers of Waltham Abbey, Nazing, Cheshunt, and other contiguous parishes, and from the various stores of MSS. preserved in the British Museum, Public Record Office, and Court of Probate, Doctors' Commons. The reader will find some connecting links to the present work in my paper on the subject, published in 1874, in the Historical and Genealogical Register (vol. xxviii. p. 140), Boston, New England, America. CHURCHYARD, WALTHAM ABBEY. July 10, 1882. W. WINTERS. |