Genealogical Sketch of the First Three Generations of Prebles in America - With an Account of Abraham Preble the Emigrant, Their Common Ancestor, and of His Grandson Brigadier General Jedediah Preble, and His Descendants #222024

It has been my amusement, in leisure hours, during the last twenty years, to gather, from public and private sources, the material from which this volume has been selected.<br><br>The printing of this Family History was begun, and has been continued and concluded, under such peculiar circumstances, that I hope they will be considered an excuse for some of its imperfections.<br><br>The first dozen pages, relating to the common American ancestor of the family, and the memoir of his grand-son, Brigadier General Jedidiah Preble, were prepared for the July and October numbers of the New-England Historical and Genealogical Register, for 1868, without thought of their separate publication. After the first paper was in type, it occurred to me to have a few copies struck off separate from the Magazine, and then for the first time to connect it by a genealogical sketch of the intervening descendants, with the memoirs of my grandfather Brigadier Preble, to add some account of the latters descendants, and print a few copies of the whole in a pamphlet of fifty or sixty pages, for private and family circulation. Such was the humble origin of this octavo.<br><br>Just as that design was being perfected in manuscript, and before the second article on the Brigadier was in type, I was suddenly called to duty in the North Pacific Squadron.