Excerpt from History of the Baptists in Vermont, Vol. 2 The importance of preserving material for a history of Ver mont Baptists was recognized by a few persons at an early date._ In the minutes of The Shaftsbury Association of 1794, is this note N. B. It is the request of some of the members of this Associa tion, that the several Associations with whom we correspond would print their annual minutes in sizable octavo. By this we judge a valuable end might be answered; by being all of one size they might easily be reduced to a volume, without any expense; being ranged in order from year to year, and bound together, they will naturally be preserved. The various circular letters they contain will be richly worthy of perusal and preservation; they will contain a body of divinity, in a familiar style of letter writing. This method fol lowed a few years will produce at once a more extensive history, and accurate register of the Baptists in America, than any other. It will at least contain particular and extensive information, for rising generations, without any expense but merely the care of pre serving. To this end an octavo size will be best. Unfortunately this suggestion as to uniformity of size was not heeded, but the prediction concerning the value of the minutes as sources of history was correct, and much credit is due those who pre served the minutes and to others who have collected the files now available for reference in our Historical Societies. For many years, however, a vast amount of history was in the archives of the peo ple 's memory, and much has been lost, for lack of a timely historian. 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.