Preface

Preface

                In 1989, a distant cousin contacted me to see if I would be interested in receiving (and preserving) journals and some letters written by or to a common ancestor.  I, of course, agreed.  I did not know exactly when it would be that I would get around to reading any of them, much less do anything about them, but I wanted to make sure that such documents did not go to the trash, or find their way to E-Bay. 

                The documents arrived the following year, and I at first placed them in a box in my home office; I was intending to eventually take them out and read them to see if there was anything of interest.  I had not particularly been interested in pursuing the genealogy of this particular ancestor, and I had no other reason at that time to rush to viewing them.

                In 2006, I moved to California, shipping only boxes of documents that either were of legal interest (I had not yet retired from law practice), or were of genealogical interest.  There being no room in my new home, the boxes were relegated to my garage where they sat until early 2017.  I then began my research on my ancestors who had been involved with the manufacture of cotton gins.  But in perusing through the documents, I happened upon a group of letters and journals that had belonged to my g-g-g-grandmother, Louisa Williams.

                The first document that I found was a journal written by her in 1819, followed by other journals and letters that concluded in 1879.  I have attempted to set these documents in order, with some explanations added in endnotes.  I hope these materials will be useful or at least interesting to someone.

Disclaimer:  Although this novel, including the Preface, is historical fiction, it is based upon actual characters and events, while adding others as pure fiction.  This work should not be depended upon to be of any actual genealogical value.