Beginning in 1924, Proceedings are incorporated into the Apr. no.

Excerpt from The History of the Old Town of Derby, Connecticut, 1642-1880: With Biographies and Genealogies History is the record of experiences in the ages that are past; and experience, while varying through the changing of circumstances, is a teacher worthy to be carefully studied, and to whose voice it is wise to listen. The person who is indifferent to the past is too selfish to be of much benefit to the world in the present, and too heedless of wisdom to accomplish much for human good in the future. One object sought in the writing of this book has been the promotion of reflection on the past, which would result, it is believed ln careful consideration of what shall be the life of the future, for it would be un pardonable to give a book to the world without some high motive of good, in the mind of the author. How well or poorly the purpose may have been attained is not a question now, the existence of the motive is the only fact of which we can be certain. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The idea of covenant was at the heart of early New England society. In this singular book David Weir explores the origins and development of covenant thought in America by analyzing the town and church documents written and signed by seventeenth-century New Englanders. Unmatched in the breadth of its scope, this study takes into account all of the surviving covenants in all of the New England colonies. Weir's comprehensive survey of seventeenth-century covenants leads to a more complex picture of early New England than what emerges from looking at only a few famous civil covenants like the Mayflower Compact. His work shows covenant theology being transformed into a covenantal vision for society but also reveals the stress and strains on church-state relationships that eventually led to more secularized colonial governments in eighteenth-century New England. He concludes that New England colonial society was much more "English" and much less "American" than has often been thought, and that the New England colonies substantially mirrored religious and social change in Old England.