PREFACE.
I never could see what real usefulness there was in a preface to a work of this kind, and never wrote one without a misgiving that it would do more to confuse than enlighten the reader.
The good people of Nyack will pardon me, I know they will, for taking such an unwarrantable liberty as to locate many of my scenes and characters in and around their flourishing little town.

I have no doubt there are persons yet living there who will readily recognize some of my characters, especially those of Hanz and Angeline Toodleburg.

That the very distinguished family of Von Toodleburgs, which flourished so extensively in New York at a later period, as described in the second series of this work, will also be recognized by many of my readers I have not a doubt.

Nyack should not be held responsible for all the sins of the great Kidd Discovery Company, since some of the leading men engaged in that remarkable enterprise lived on the opposite side of the river, many miles away.
The reader must not think I have drawn too extensively on my imagination for material to create "No Man's Island" and build "Dunman's Cave" with.
About eighteen years ago I chanced to have for fellow traveller an odd little man, of the name of Price, (better known as Button Price,) who had been captain of a New Bedford or Nantucket whaleship.

He was an earnest, warm-hearted, talkative little man, and one of the strangest bits of humanity it had ever been my good fortune to fall in with.