You know the feeling . . .

. . . even when expressed by a guy who was old in 1892:

"To me, [this place's] Past is inextricably and strangely merged into its Present; it seems as if I were co-eval with Old Matthew Grant and its other first settlers; and that I had known every man, woman, and child who ever dwelt within its bounds; and as, occasionally, I tread the highways and byways of the towns which once composed Ancient Windsor, they are peopled for me with the shadowy -- almost tangible -- forms of those who have trodden them in the days of old."

Henry R. Stiles, "Preface to Volume II," The History and Genealogies of Ancient Windsor, Connecticut, 1635-1891 (Hartford: Case, Lockwood & Brainard, 1893; facsimile Camden ME: Picton Press, 1992), vii.