See the first installment of this continuing series here . Fascinating questions and their answers will raise more queries as both my remarks and the Library's amazing exhibit will reveal. History is supposed to be about truth. We have an outstanding Exhibit to support the truth of 19 April, yet numerous materials and writings over 225 years have created and supported myth, embellishment, personal belief, current conceptions and all too often, the outright falsehood of it. Defined, it means actual fact, conformity to reality, verifiable, indisputable fact, genuine, actual existence, freedom from deceit.
Truth is momentary and it is eternal.
It must be sought in primary source materials as found in this Exhibit and in our Special Collections and Town Records. An event must be studied within the context of its own time and participants. Historical truth is for the purist who desires unadulterated fact, not revisionism or popular myth. This while he badgers old veterans in the local tavern seeking confirmation of his personal views. Unfortunately, the ends often justify the means when writing history and thus the truth does not always out.