Acknowledgements (1995 Printed Edition)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
(1995 Printed Edition)

For over ten years I have been a contributing writer of local history for the Greenwich Time. So when I determined in May 1994 to compile the historical data that resulted in Chains Unbound: Slave Emancipations in Greenwich, Connecticut, I thought it would be a graceful journey from start to finish- wrong!  

As Greenwich Town Historian William E. Finch, Jr., said, "Jeffrey, this is virgin territory. No one I know of has ever done anything quite like this before." 

I am strongly obliged to a variety of individuals and institutions for their assistance and support throughout the process of researching and writing this book. Their wisdom, experiences and professionalism have influenced me throughout my adult life for which I am appreciative. 

For their invaluable support I express my gratitude to Town Historian William E. Finch, Jr.; Mrs. Claire F. Vanderbilt, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Historical Society of the Town of Greenwich; Susan Richardson, Archivist of the Historical Society; and the Reverend Stuart C. Brush of the First Congregational Church of Woodbury and member of the Board of Directors of the Connecticut Society of Genealogists.

Appreciative thanks for their many courtesies are extended to Greenwich Town Clerk Carmen Budkins,  Barbara Grubiak of Greenwich Vital Records and the staff of the probate courts of the Town of Greenwich and City of Stamford. I am grateful for the kindnesses extended by the staff of the Greenwich Library and the Ferguson Library in Stamford.

I wish to express my gratitude to  the staff of the Connecticut State Library in Hartford and to the personnel of the North Carolina State Library and Archives in Raleigh. Accolades for my special requests are due to Judith A. Kearney, assistant librarian of the Hawaiian Mission Children's Society in Honolulu, Hawaii. 

For setting aside his free time I wish to extend thanks to Robert Beeson, archivist of the Second Congregational Church in Greenwich. 

Elizabeth Wilcox Willis deserves my thanks for her time and lore on her antecedents, as does Alice Mead Warren of Massachusetts.

I am grateful to Ann Hege Hughes, president of Gateway Books in Baltimore, Maryland, for her professionalism, patience and expertise in the production of this book. 

The late Lydia Ingersoll Ely deserves posthumous appreciation for her diligent research on the subject of slavery in Greenwich. She was the first to investigate this topic of our history and was a valuable tool in my research.