Excerpt from History of Cherry Valley No village in the United States has had so remarkable a history as Cherrj Valley; nor has any played so important a part in all the various epochs of the countrys history. Indeed it may be said that a careful student might trace through it the life of the country, with all its varied changes: the hardships and struggles of the colonial times; the sufferings and agonies of the revolutionary period; the trials and toils of an impoverished people commencing life over again in the infant republic; the beginning of the emigration from New England and its gradual increase until it became almost a universal exodus from the older states of the east to the new territories of the west; the building up of the villages on the great routes of this travel until they rivalled in their wealth and influence the old commercial towns of New England and eastern New York; their gradual decline through the building of the canals and railroads, which diverted from them their great sources of revenue; and following this the final destruction of their prosperity and influence by the loss of their young men, who have, in recent years, so generally sought the growing country to the west, or the large cities in the east, as offering greater opportunities for advancement. 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.