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The staffs of thy Caroliniana Library at Columbia, South Carolina, the Dtgnrtmtnt of Archives and Histor-y-in Washington,
D.	C., and also^frflontgomery, Alabama, and the Library of Congress deserve my thanks for their patience with an uninitiated researcher.
I am obligated to Mrs. W. R. Keels, Jr., of Pinewood, South CArolina, Robert Pierce, genealogical consultant to the Flagler family of Hartsdale, N. Y., and W. W. Doar, Sr., President of the Winyah Indigo Society of Georgetown, South Carolina, for sharing their genealogical research.
My executive secretaries over the past years deserve medals of honor for their patience and tolerance. Thus I am forever grateful to Elaine M. Stout of Miami, Florida, Mrs. Shirley Dalton of Clover, South Carolina, and Sheila Kelly of Georgetown in Washington, D. C. Vivian Knight of Miami generously xeroxed thousands of manuscript pages.
Finally, this volume would still be a mass of uncoordinated research, of disorganized structure, and of ponderous, overblown prose had I not been introduced by my brother, John W. Baxter, to John Medders, his late associate at Lockheed Missiles & Space Company and a distinguished writer and editor. As Ezio Pinza once remarked about the character Panisse in the musical play Fanny, and I paraphrase, "John Medders is the big one in this production." The story of Grandpa Baxter became a labor of love with him. His painstaking research, hours of reading, writing, and editing made the volume possible. I am proud to share equally the title page with him. Eternal rest grant unto John, 0 Lord, and all the other faithful departed.
LFB
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