Judge Benjamin Winborne, motivated by the destruction of most of Hertford County's early official records, collected a lifetime of information of his home county and ultimately published it in 1906. The work itself spans a period of fifteen decades, within which compass it makes a survey of the early settlers, soldiers, churchmen, and politicians and examines with considerable circumspection the early courts and government, in short dwelling on all persons, places, and events instrumental to the growth and development of the county. Nor does it neglect Hertford's participation in various wars, for a great number of colonial, Revolutionary, and Civil War officers and soldiers are identified and permanently memorialized.