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been adequately covered by others. I have, however tried to include other areas once in Hancock County up to the time that they were no longer part of this county, in order to consider the trade and family connections of this area as a whole. As the borders of the county shrank when other counties were created from it, so too does the area which is covered in this history of the county. Only an occasional mention of Pine Hills, Henderson's Point, and Pass Christian Isles has survived into the history of today's Hancock County, and these are more the result of the current proximity created by the bridges over the Bay than of old historical connections. I hope that this little book may change the view that many of Hancock County's residents have of their county. I myself viewed it, until only recently, as a quiet little out-of-the-way kind of place where nothing ever happens. Now, I know better. Hancock County has an extremely romantic history, one that shows that things DO happen here, and have been happening for hundreds......no, thousands of years. When I began to become familiar with it, I thought this history to be so interesting, that it fairly DEMANDED to be written down and shared with others. Boy, have I got a story for you! It's a story that includes stone and iron-age peoples and is about European explorers... about a struggle to survive, so intense that reading and writing were forgotten for a hundred years... about hurricanes and Spanish land grants, and antebellum cotton plantations... about xi i
Scharff, Robert G 014