This region was then as beautiful a stretch of hill and vale and riverside as could well be found. The river was clear and sparkling, and fish abounded; the call of the whip-poor-will was heard on the evening air, and the brown thrush sang to us from the thicket, while squirrel and hare were always with us. Groves of trees were numerous and beautiful. “Bird’s Woods” along Second river with its magnificent old pines and hemlocks, the outer edge of the wood fringed with an undergrowth of laurel, while partridge berries gleamed from the depths of the moss underfoot, made an entrancing spot which has seldom been equalled, and the ruins of the old mills along the stream gave a picturesque touch that none who grew up with the region can forget. Effort has been made to give credit for information received; in some cases authority for statements made is given in connection with the statements themselves, as it is interesting and valuable to know the source, but this is not always practicable, as the same item not infrequently comes from several sources and it is occasionally difficult to blend the varying opinions. In a few instances statements made by unknown newspaper writers have been used. The stories are given for what they are worth, but all of them are part of the legend of the region and none have been invented merely for filling. I have honestly done the best I could in gathering and arranging the material. Now and then I have come on a mine of information in such friends as Mrs. Henry J. Winser and Messrs. E. A. Boyden, James S. Taylor and James Swinnerton, but it has been mostly here a little and there a little, and for such help I acknowledge indebtedness to Mr. W. E. Blewett, Jr., Mr. E. A. Boyden, Miss J. F. Bradford, Mrs. R. H. Brewster, Mr. Edward Burling, Mr. R. Smith Carter, Mr. James E. Coombes, Mr. Frank S. Crane, Mrs. Henry Davis, Miss Anna B. Farrand, Mrs. A. H. Gibbs, Messrs. Levi C. and William H. Jackson, Mrs. Margaret H. Kay, Mr. J. Edwin Keen, Mr. John Morris Keen, Mr. Thomas Kinsey, Mr. David Maclure, Mr. James C. McDonald, Mrs. John R. Mathews, Mr. Theodore Melius, Rev. Henry Merle Mellen, Mr. Henry B. Munn, Mr. Lincoln B. Palmer, Mrs. Margaret Perry, Miss and Messrs. Phillips, Mr. Henry C. Rommel, Mr. Arthur E. Sandford, Miss. J. A. Sidman, Judge Alfred F. Skinner, Mr. William Stimis. Mr. James Swinnerton, Miss Laura M. Sydenham, Mr. James S. Taylor, Mr. L. P. Teller, Judge Jay Ten Eyck, Mrs. Mary E. Tucker, Dr. Grenville M. Weeks, Mrs. Emma F. Welch, Mrs. E. M. Wessel, Mrs. Henry J. Winser. I am also indebted to the Newark Public Library, the New Jersey Historical Society and the New York Historical Society, and to the real estate records of the Fidelity Trust Company.