Excerpt from A Genealogy of the Duke-Shepherd-Van Metre Family: From Civil, Military, Church and Family Records and Documents "Pride in descent from men of the type of our early colonists, is held to be entirely consistent with our democratic institutions. They were the pioneer Americans, men who under great discouragements and with vast labor, planted strong and deep the foundations of our commonwealths. It is worth while to make this fact plain. . . . hence, the spirit of preserving the memory of the great though humbly worked-out deeds of our ancestors in the gloomy obscurities of the colonics in their forest days." Boston Transcript. "The very base of family feeling is respect for the past, for the best possessions of a family are its common memories. . . . We must learn again to value our domestic traditions. A precious care has preserved certain monuments of the past. So antique dress, provincial dialects, old folk-songs, have found appreciative hands to gather them up before they should disappear from the face of the earth. What a good deed to guard these crumbs of a great past - these vestiges of the souls of our ancestors I Let us do the same for our family traditions, save and guard as much as possible of the patriarchal - whatever its form." From Rev. Chas. Wagner's Simple Life. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com