CONCLUSION

  In 1876, the writer began the transcription and the study of the town's earliest records and history, with the thought perhaps of collating its most important events in the form of annals. It was to him an unknown field, whose exploration from that time to the present, has given unalloyed pleasure, and often afforded a relief from the common cares and anxieties of life.
  When the manuscript containing what is found in Period 1, was placed in the printer's hands, the writer deemed his work at an end. But the same fascinating desire to study the acts of the new-born town, and preserve them from a possible oblivion, led to the publication of Periods II and III, with a "Title and Introductory," prefixed to Period 1. This must account for the desultory arrangement of the work. A single merit is claimed for it, as being a correct and literal transcript of the text, with only needful punctuation marks added. When the old records shall have become illegible, or crumbled to dust, these pages may tell the future historian or annalist for Suffield, the story of its planting and growth, while under Massachusetts Government for three-quarters of a century. My pleasant self imposed task is finished.

SUFFIELD, June, 1888. H. S. S.