My interest in the two families of Horton and Burleigh, arises not from the recent efforts to procure genealogies of those two families by parties specially interested. I have long been engaged in collecting facts pertaining to the history of Union, my native town. I have made it a point to study the history of all the early settlers and long residents. I have traced the ancestry of very many back to England and Scotland, through the Scotch-Irish emigration, which took place nearly one hundred and sixty years ago. Very many of the early settlers of Union were Scotch-Irish--as the Pauls, the Lawlors, the Moores, the Armours, the Crawfords, the McNalls, and others who, like all the race, were genuine Scotch in their character, and were among the best of the emigrants of the olden times. They were not connected at all with the modern or ancient Irish race. The Hortons, Burleighs, and Laflins were genuine Englishmen in their ancestry. So were the Fosters, the Badgers, the Sessions, the Newells, the Loomises, the Abbotts, and the Waleses. From that little town, a great many enterprising emigrants have gone forth to people the mighty West. The people of Union, in respect to enterprise and education, are higher than the average emigration of towns in Connecticut and Massachusetts. My long and patient explorations into the history of Union, has led me to such results as that I am not ashamed of the fame or the name of my native town. Having lost all my own children, and always cherishing a sincere regard for the people of Union, I determined long ago to find out all I could of their history and the fortunes of their descendants. The old town holds its own in population and in valuation. I have a good memory of all who have lived there during the last half century, and I think the town is as respectable now as it was in my childhood. Some of the worthy names of the olden time have wholly gone; though the descendants of some remain. It is an interesting circumstance, that from that little town _you_ have gone forth, and on the other side of the new world have laid the foundations of a great city. Thus New England has sent forth its best mind and muscle to build up new States in this greatest Empire of freemen the sun has ever shone upon.