PREFACE


    When I offered to put together all of the family papers that Aunt Mary Dillon
had, and to make copies for her family, neither of us dreamed that a book would be
the result.  I believe I even promised that it would be finished in a month, and
that was in the Fall of 1962.

    Aunt Mary's sister-in-law, Mrs. R. S. Spilman, collected all of the information
that she could find on the Dillon and Polk families years ago when she was confined
to her bed for several months.  Names of the Mortons and other ancestors of ours
who lived in the same county as the Dillons (Prince Edward County, Virginia) kept
cropping up, so she went to work on Aunt Mary's ancestors, and gathered quite a lot
of information on them.  Aunt Mary already had some family papers and letters, and
she began writing down reminiscences and requested Uncle Marshall to do the same.

    As soon as I received the large envelope of papers from Aunt Mary, I began to
sort them out, and Arry, my husband, made a chart for me.  There was the Woodson
line in detail in America in 1619, the Morton in 1682, and the Dupuys in 1700.  In-
formation had been given on many other families, and suddenly I wanted very much to
know the background of Barna Bigelow and Abigail Pride, our Vermont ancestors, and
to fill in the gaps with our Virginia ones.  The notes that Aunt Mary and Uncle
Marshall had written added much interest to the records, and the letters gave a
priceless insight into the past.

    Arry suggested that we go to the Genealogical Section of the Library of
Congress, and we were shortly exploring a book on the Bigelow family.  There were
Barna and Abigail, and Silas, our great-grandfather, and it was easy to trace Barna
back to John Bigelow, who came to America in 1630, and to find the names of their
wives listed for each Bigelow ancestor.  But then I wanted to know more about those
wives, and that made research into the Warren, Flagg, Hathorne, Newton and Pride
 families necessary.  I became hopelessly embroiled in ancestor hunting, for I soon
realized that many more names were involved, and each time that I thought I would
finish Aunt Mary's papers, some maddening question in my mind would send me back to
the Library of Congress or the National D.A.R. Library.

    I almost gave up on the Pride family.  Although I had found the record of John
Pride's arrival in Massachusetts before 1637, I had been unable to tie him in with
Abigail. I found the charmingstory about Abner Pride in Hemenway's History of Ver-
mont, and felt sure that he was Abigail's father but had no way to prove it.  Months
later I was looking at the microfilm of the Norwich, Connecticut, records at the
D.A.R. Library in Washington and saw the record of the marriage of Abner Pride and
Abigail Kingsbury.  I then located a book on the Kingsburys and found that the dates
fitted in, and that Abner and Abigail moved to Vermont.  The book did not follow her
line, but her brother moved to Brookfield, Vermont, and that was enough for me.
Besides, the Bigelow  book says that Abigail was from Norwich. 
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    As names that were hitherto unknown to me appeared on the chart, the fascina-
ting story of the colonization of America began to unfold, and I had to read many
books to get the picture of the contrasts and similarities of the colonizations of
Virginia and New England.  I make no pretense of being a historian in this book,
but the volumes that I have read have given me more insight into our forbears. Very
early I determined that it was the American ancestors who interested me.  The know-
ledge that our ancestors helped to clear the forests and build the towns of New
England and Virginia, that they fought in almost every war in early America, that
some built taverns and some helped build colleges, was very meaningful to me.

    Almost all of these ancestors came from England, the majority of those from New
England coming with the Winthrop Fleets. Of course a good portion of our Virginia
ancestors were French Huguenot.  I have stated the origin of those who came over
whenever possible, and gone into detail with a few.  In searching many family genea-
logies I soon saw that many of the writers were as concerned with claiming descent
from royalty or nobility as they were with their ancestors' accomplishments in 
America.  Perhaps I shall become interested in nobility and heraldry at a later
date, but have made no attempt to prove or disprove any such claims in this book.
I did include one story about William the Conqueror who has been greatly overworked
by writers of family histories.  My reason for including it is that the legend
is concerned with the origin of a name.

    I have not merely copied the records as I found them in source books.  At first
I did that, and filled out many a chart, only to find information later which cast
doubt on the original source, and the search had to begin all over again.

    In addition to the papers that Aunt Mary had collected, my Mother had saved
the original obituaries of her parents and a great many family letters.  How often
I have wished that I had written down more of the things that she told me about her
family before she died!

    It gives me great pleasure to see this little book go to press.  Now I want to
get busy on Daddy's family.  Where did the Martins of Stewart County, Georgia, come
from?  Which descendant of William Rives went to Georgia?
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          Get ready Libraries - here I come!

          V. M. B.

Laurel, Maryland
April 1964