Paul S. Preston was born August 24, 1796, in Stockport, Pennsylvania, the son of surveyor Samuel Preston and Marcia Jenkins. He was raised a Quaker. In 1818, he married Henrietta Maria Mogridge (1797-1875). Preston was very active in civic life; he studied law and worked as an attorney and, beginning in 1850, as judge of the court of common pleas of Wayne County. He also established a newspaper, the Wayne County Free Press and Bethany and Honesdale Advertiser, in 1838, and was a commissioner of Honesdale Bank. Preston died in 1874.
Jackson Woodward was born September 1, 1821, in Bethany, Pennsylvania, the son of John Kimball Woodward and Mary Ann Kellogg. For many years, he worked as an attorney in Honesdale, Pennsylvania. In 1854, he married Augusta Manning, and they had at two children, Edward and Amy. Woodward died in 1866.
From the guide to the Preston-Woodward correspondence, 1845-1858, (William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan)
