The revival of interest in Colonial and Revolutionary times has become a marked feature of the life of to-day. Its manifestations are to be found in the literature which has grown up around these periods, and in the painstaking individual research being made among documents and records of the past with genealogical and historical intent.
Not only has a desire been shown to learn more of the great events of the last century, but with it has come an altogether natural curiosity to gain some insight into the social and domestic life of Colonial days. To read of councils, congresses, and battles is not enough: men and women wish to know something more intimate and personal of the life of the past, of how their ancestors lived and loved as well of how they wrought, suffered, and died.
With some thought of gratifying this desire, by sounding the heavy brass knocker, and inviting the reader to enter with us through the broad doorways of some Colonial homes into the hospitable life within, have these pages been written.
For original material placed at my disposal, in the form of letters and manuscripts, I am indebted to numerous friends, among these to Mrs. Oliver Hopkinson, the Misses Sharples, Miss Anna E. Peale, Miss F. A. Logan, Mrs. Edward Wetherill, Mr. C. R. Hildeburn, and Mr. Edward Shippen.
To the Editors of the Atlantic Monthly, the Lippincott’s Magazine, and the Philadelphia Ledger and Times, I wish to express my appreciation of their courtesy in allowing me to use in some of these chapters material to which they first gave place in their columns.
A. H. W.
PHILADELPHIA, March, 1893.
