The Children are older than their charter. Before the charter there was the covenant, and before the covenant there was the ground, and the ground was already old.

An instrument of correction, recorded in 1794, set right an error in an older conveyance. The Children hold that the error was not in the writing but in the reading: men had recorded the ground as though it were empty, and the correction made the record true. What the correction says, the county keeps. What it means, the Children kept.

Our families came into the valley with the Patent of 1851. The government surveyor recorded a spring on the low ground at the northeast — "water rising cold and constant" — and his fieldbook ends mid-entry, and the fair copy was never completed. Our families finished the reading of that entry, though not in writing.

In the first month of 1887 the heads of eight families set their hands to the charter, and the Children were gathered, and the hall was raised, and the cornerstone was set. The charter is transcribed on these pages, save what is not set down.

The Children have kept grounds beyond their own, and conveyed them when their keeping was done. Each was returned to good use.

In March of 1998 the last of the holdings was conveyed, the rolls were closed, and the keeping was concluded. The Children do not end; a keeping concludes. The ground remains, and remains kept.