Cape Cod Library of Local History and Genealogy

Book excerpt: Cape Cod families are difficult to trace because only the probate records survived the burning of the Barnstable County Courthouse in 1827, and similar disasters have taken their toll on the Cape's town records. Many of Chatham's records, for instance, were lost in a fire, and Yarmouth's records of the Revolutionary War period have been missing for years. Even so, many important Cape Cod town records still exist; the problem is that so few of them are in print. So it was fortuitous when Col. Leonard Smith stumbled upon a series of pamphlets published at Yarmouthport by Charles W. Swift in the early part of this century under the name Cape Cod Library of History and Genealogy. Although contributors to the Cape Cod Library included such celebrated genealogists as Josiah Paine (author of History of Harwich), William C. Smith (known for his History of Chatham), and Amos Otis (Genealogical Notes of Barnstable Families), the series never reached a large audience, and is today virtually inaccessible. No library in the country holds the complete collection of 108 pamphlets. With great diligence, Col. Smith put together a complete collection for himself, arranged the pamphlets in the order in which they were published, and then, to make the material usable, compiled an index of names.--From publisher description.