• Agenda
• Treasurer's Report
• Curator's Report
• Publications Report
• President's Report
• Mayflower Compact
• Latin Grace

The Colonial Society of Massachusetts
Agenda for the 119th Annual Meeting of the Membership

Held at the Society’s House, 87 Mt. Vernon Street, Boston, 17 November 2011 at 6:00 p.m. 

1.         Minutes of the Annual Meeting, November 18, 2010.
             Leslie Morris, Recording Secretary

2.         Report of the Membership Committee. Celeste Walker, Chair.

3.         Report of the Treasurer. Thomas Appleton.

4.         Report of the Nominating Committee. Owen Stanwood, Chair.

5.         Election of Officers and Councilor. Fred Ballou, chair pro tempore.

6.         Report of the Curator. Elton Hall.

7.         Report of the Editor of Publications. John Tyler.

8.         Report of the President. Donald Friary.

The Colonial Society of Massachusetts
Annual Meeting
Treasurer's Report
November 17, 2011

The Endowment ended the fiscal year worth $5.21 million, down slightly from $5.28 million last year. 

The Equities in the endowment had a flat one year return versus a positive 1% return for the main U.S. stock market index and a negative 9% return for the main Foreign stock market index.  I mention the return of the foreign index as roughly 40% of the endowment’s investments are in foreign domiciled firms.

We again came in under budget, this year at $294,000 versus a budget of $372,000. 

Although house-related expenditures were virtually identical to last year at $78,000, only $35,000 was spent on publications versus $94,000 last year.  The amount spent on publications does vary widely from year to year and I expect publication expenses to exceed $100,000 in the current fiscal year.

On the other side of the ledger, $169,000 in rental income was received during the year and $131,000 in dividends and interest.

The budget for the current fiscal year is basically unchanged at $375,000. 

Are there any questions?

Colonial Society of Massachusetts
Report of the Curator

            As usual, my report will be relatively brief, which is a good thing because the more I have to say, the more it probably cost to run the house this past year.  Looking over the year’s invoices involving the fabric of our house, I find principally routine maintenance such as replacing parts in one of the boilers, fixing a lock and so forth.  The one curious item was a charge for the removal of a dead bird found hanging from a string near a 2nd story window at the front of the house.  Thinking the cost to benefit ratio of that was pretty high, I looked into it, but the response was rather vague other than it had happened.
            As I wrote in the current newsletter, our principal conservation project this year has been our three antique clocks, two of which you can see and hear this evening. The third is in the shop.  This has been done as a contribution by Michael Poisson through the good offices of our past president and honorary horologist, Fred Ballou.
            My principal current effort is a revision of the inventory of the contents of this house.  I produced the first inventory back in 1992 when I became Curator.  A few years ago we had an intern who created a data base which allows for more information, better organization and inclusion of photographs.  A lot has happened in the house since the original document was produced, so I have been checking both inventories with each other and the objects themselves as a first step. 
            Most of what we have here arrived in the first few years of our ownership of the house, which began in 1955.  The younger post-war generation were abandoning their family homes on Beacon Hill and in the Back Bay and moving to the suburbs.  Their family possessions did not fit into their new houses or life styles.  Some like that secretary desk and bookcase did not fit physically.  Other pieces, such as these cabinets, did not fit the décor.  Nor had these things attracted the attention of museums and collectors.  So much of our furniture and furnishings came here because nobody else wanted it. 
            It amazes me to think that all these things have been here for half a century now.  Taste moves on. The interest in empire style furniture has developed, and much of what we have here is of high quality. There are other things as well. If you get down on your hands and knees and look under that table over by the library door—it would help if you had a flashlight—you will see the name Herter branded into the top.  It wasn’t a name too many people knew in 1955, but it’s hot stuff today.  It’s time for a fresh look.  The updated inventory will allow the Council to make informed decisions regarding insurance and conservation.  And we plan to have the House Committee, bolstered by other Colonial Society Members with relevant expertise, take a good curatorial look at everything in a way that has never been done before.  I’ve no doubt that that examination will produce some new and useful information. We’ll look forward to reporting it in the future.

Elton W. Hall
Curator

Colonial Society of Massachusetts Annual Publications Report 2011
Delivered by John Tyler

Annual Report 2012

On April 2, 1765, Timothy Doggett, master of the sloop Polly, appeared at the Custom House in Newport, Rhode Island and on oath reported his vessel’s arrival from Surinam with a cargo of 63 casks of foreign molasses. Job Smith of Taunton, the owner of the vessel was present at the master’s report and paid duties for 2067 gallons of molasses. John Robinson, the Collector of Customs at Newport, suspecting that the report was a false entry for a vessel of Polly’s tonnage, set out two days later for Dighton, Massachusetts (about 35 miles from Newport) where Polly lay at anchor in the Swanzey River. He was accompanied by Capt. Charles Antrobus of His Majesty’s Ship Maidstone,  stationed at Newport. They arrived on Saturday, April 6 and upon examination found that the cargo was about double the quantity of molasses reported, therefore they seized both the unrecorded balance of the cargo and the vessel, leaving both in the custody of Nicholas Lechmere, the Surveyor and Searcher of Customs at Newport and Daniel Guteridge, Robinson’s servant. Robinson and Antrobus returned to Newport, intending to collect a larger party to bring down the vessel, since a crew could not be “procured in Dighton on any terms.”
          Meanwhile, Lechmere and Guteridge, “refreshing themselves [in a tavern] not a hundred yards away” from Polly were blithely unaware as the boat was carried off. Under the cover of darkness about 40 persons in disguise scurrying back and forth from the vessel carried away the entire cargo. When they protested, Lechmere and Guteridge were threatened “with all the bad treatment imaginable.” by men with blackened faces When Lechmere and Guteridge reported what had happened to the local justice of the peace, Col. Richmond, the justice warned that he too had seen disguised men with cutlasses who had said they were looking for two customs officials. Lechmere and Guteridge tarry no longer in Dighton.
          Robinson and Antrobus eventually rounded up a force of 30 marines and 40 armed seamen, but worried that they would be unable to use force if they were resisted, since the terms of the Riot Act required that before the military could be used against civilians, a civil magistrate would need to order the crowd to disperse, something any justice of the peace living near Dighton would be reluctant to do. So Robinson and Antrobus sent a rider posthaste to Boston to John Temple, the Surveyor General of Customs for the Northern District, suggesting that Temple ask Gov. Francis Bernard, with whom Temple was then on very bad terms, for directions and assistance.
 While Robinson, Antrobus, and the rest of their party were proceeding by boat to Dighton, they met Lechmere and Guteridge coming down river who told them that Polly had now been stripped of her sails, anchor, chain and rigging and run onto the beach during a spring tide. There she sat with holes bored in her bottom and it was unlikely she could be brought off until the next spring tide. When the sailors and marines reached Swanzey, the same justice of the peace who had declined to act earlier warned Robinson and Antrobus that the whole country was in arms and that such a small force as theirs would be overwhelmed. Undeterred Robinson and Antrobus insisted that Richmond and his fellow j.p., Jerathmeel Bowers issue a warrant to recover the stolen goods and aid and assist them, something they were obliged to do since both Robinson and Antrobus acting as customs officers held writs of assistance. Stalling for time, the justices insisted that such an application be made in writing.
At 3PM on Friday afternoon when Robinson went ashore again, he was arrested at the suit of Job Smith (the owner of Polly) for L3000 damages caused by the seizure, and Robinson was carried off “in triumph” to Taunton, eight miles away, in a procession that included a hundred jeering spectators led by the deputy sheriff. Concerned about Robinson’s safety, Capt. Antrobus dispatched his mate and several seamen from the Maidstone to escort Robinson and protect him from violence. At 11 that evening with a sword at his side, Job Smith’s son appeared at the tavern in Taunton where Robinson was being held saying the prisoner was “too much indulged” and ought to be taken straight away to the county gaol. Smith’s son also warned the sheriff to take particular care of the prisoner since his father was determined to prosecute him “with utmost severity.”
On Saturday morning, Robinson wrote again to Temple to inform him of his predicament, lamenting that he knew not a soul in Bristol County who would post bail for him. Robinson also mentioned that one of his guards, “a country fellow” was inclined to turn informant, but their conversation was observed and the others at the gaol speedily put the would-be informer on his horse and whipped it away lest Robinson should discover anything to Smith’s prejudice. Later that same day, Robinson applied to three more justices, including Samuel White, the speaker of the Massachusetts Assembly, all of whom refused to grant a warrant to search Smith’s storehouse. Knowing that White sometimes acted as an Attorney General, Robinson tried to engage him as council only to be told that White was already retained by the other side! While all this had been going on, the meeting house bell had been ringing to call all of Smith’s friends to come to his aid by removing the molasses to new, safer locations.
Meanwhile in Boston, Bernard had called a meeting of the Provincial Council to advise him on how to proceed, a further delay that infuriated Temple. Eventually, Bernard dispatched to Bristol County a proclamation instructing all to assist in the apprehension of criminals involved in the rescue of the smuggled goods.
About 3 o’clock on Sunday afternoon, Robinson applied to Justice Daniel Leonard (a future Loyalist and as author of the “Massachusettensis” letters sparring partner for John Adams) for assistance in searching Smith’s stores. Leonard promised to find Robinson as soon as the Sunday meeting was over. When Smith’s warehouse and distillery were searched, they found only a few small casks of molasses that didn’t justify a seizure. New information suggested that the smuggled goods had now been moved to Taunton, where in the stable of William McWharten they found five hogsheads, which Robinson immediately seized for the king’s use. Between 9 and 10 that night, Robinson was finally released from the sheriff’s custody after Charles Paxton, Boston’s Surveyor and Searcher of Customs, who had been sent by John Temple, paid Robinson’s bail for him. On Monday, April 15, nearly two weeks after the initial false declaration had been made, two men conveyed the confiscated 5 hogsheads to Newport in a small lighter, only about 7 per cent of the suspected cargo.
I’ve retold this story in such detail, not to illustrate the weakness of the rule of law in Massachusetts before even rumors of the Stamp Act arrived, nor because it is a tale that is new to the historical record. Most of it appears in Edmund Morgan’s The Stamp Act Crisis, a book it is hard to improve upon for either narrative or analysis. But the anecdote does give you a sense of the rich texture of Governor Francis Bernard’s letters during 1764-65 as they will appear in the Colonial Society’s next volume: The Bernard Papers II as edited by Colin Nicolson. These two years of letters carry Bernard from the writs of assistance case through the tumultuous aftermath of the Stamp Act crisis in Boston. Along the way, you will also learn about bloody border conflicts between Massachusetts and New York, Bernard’s efforts to map the Maine frontier, his attempts to render more profitable Mt. Desert Island, a grant given to him by the Massachusetts assembly in earlier, happier days, and a little finagling of the border between Maine and Nova Scotia, that would enable Bernard and some other well-placed investors at court to speculate in grants on the shores of the Passamaquoddy Bay. The index of Vol. II is already complete and the final set of galleys should be ready soon, so look for another blue and gold binding to appear in your mailboxes sometime in the early winter of 2012.
Nicolson promises that the third volume of The Papers of Sir Francis Bernard covering the years 1766 and 1767 will appear closely on the heels of Volume 2 in late 2012 or early 2013. Volume 4 deals with Bernard’s last two years in Massachusetts, 1768 and 1769. A fifth volume will include a complete calendar of Bernard’s letters.
          The proceedings of the 2007 conference on New England Visual Culture jointly sponsored by the Colonial Society and the American Antiquarian Society is now entitled New Views of New England: Studies in Material and Visual Culture, 1680-1830. The manuscriptstill needs to be broken into pages, so it is quite a bit further behind than the Bernard Papers, but I hope it will appear sometime before the close of our fiscal year in late September.
          The first volume of The Correspondence of Thomas Hutchinson covering the years 1741 through 1766 is being vetted by Hobson Woodward, an associate editor of the Adams Papers, and, all going well, may begin production sometime this summer. So 2012 will be a busy year with two books expected and another two beginning the first stages of production.
          This spring the Committee on Publications approved a new project: The Memoirs of Josiah Cotton edited by Douglas Winiarski of the University of Richmond. Josiah Cotton (1680–1756) was the son of John Cotton Jr., whose correspondence was recently edited by Fellow Members Len Travers and Sheila McIntyre as Volume 79 of the Colonial Society’s Publications. Cotton spent his life working in Plymouth as a schoolmaster, county court justice, and Indian missionary, as well as managing a large farm. In 1726, Cotton began compiling a family history for the moral edification of his children. Over time, the manuscript evolved into a sprawling memoir in which the Plymouth magistrate commented on a wide range of notable events, from paper currency debates and imperial warfare to regional religious controversies and local intrigue. From 1727 until his death in 1756, Cotton retreated to his study on his birthday to record the “remarkable occurrences” of the previous year. Each annual narrative moved outward from personal and family business, to local events in Plymouth and the surrounding communities of southeastern Massachusetts, to regional political and religious developments, and, finally, to news spanning the British empire.
          There are lots of projects underway, but as always the Publications Committee is on the lookout for worthy documents related to early Massachusetts, especially if you know someone willing to undertake the considerable labor of love in editing them. If you have a suggestion please convey them either to Pauline Maier, the chair of the Publications Committee or to me.
          Before completing my report, I should take note that Dan Coquillette and the five volumes of Quincy Papers received the Henry Lind Award from the Association of the Reporters of Judicial Decisions for exceptional work in preserving judicial records. Congratulations, Dan, on the completion of your mammoth project that has brought great honor to the Society.

President’s Report, delivered by Donald R. Friary at the 119th Annual Meeting of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Thursday evening, November 17, 2011.

Thank you, John, for your enlightening and promising report. We are very proud of our publications, thanks to John Tyler's able editing and care in overseeing design and production, the guidance of the Committee on Publications chaired by Pauline Maier, and the volunteer effort of readers among our membership. 

Among publications supported by the Society is the New England Quarterly, appearing both in printed form and online for Colonial Society members who request it.  Soon after the establishment of the New England Quarterly in 1928 the Colonial Society began to extend annual financial support to the publication of this journal that offers so much insight on the history and literature and cultural life of our region.  We are happy to continue this long relationship and to make the New England Quarterly a benefit of Colonial Society membership. 

In cooperation with the New England Quarterly, the Colonial Society each year offers the Walter Muir Whitehill Prize for the best essay in early American history submitted.  Essays are reviewed and evaluated by a panel of distinguished scholars, for many years Edmund S. Morgan of Yale, Bernard Bailyn of Harvard, and Robert Middlekauff of the University of California at Berkeley.  We are grateful for the commitment of these members.  This year we have witnessed a changing of the guard as all three have decided to step aside from the Whitehill Prize Committee.  We are very happy to have recruited Fred Anderson of the University of Colorado, David D. Hall of the Harvard Divinity School, and Mary Beth Norton of Cornell University for the committee.  Pauline Maier agreed to serve as liaison with the New England Quarterly for the Whitehill Prize and other matters and enlisted these distinguished historians. This year’s prize was awarded to Lindsay Schakenbach of Brown University, and her article, “From Discontented Bostonians to Patriotic Industrialists: The Boston Associates and the Transcontinental Treaty,” appeared in the September 2011 issue of the Quarterly.

Edmund Morgan is our longest serving member, having been elected in 1940.  We have several who have been on the rolls for more than fifty years and one who is now observing the 50th anniversary of his election.  Marcus McCorison became a member in 1961, just a year after his appointment as Librarian of the American Antiquarian Society.  He has been a frequent attendee at our Annual Meetings and Dinners and we are very happy to have him with us. 

When Celeste Walker read the necrology a few minutes ago, we heard the names of some of our most distinguished colleagues.  Oscar Handlin was elected in 1945 and has in recent years been an Honorary Member.  Malcolm Freiberg became a member in 1957 and was elevated to honorary status in 2007 in recognition of his long and diligent service on the Committee on Publications.  Peter Gomes was elected in 1973 and left us too early this year.  We will miss his sonorous intonation of the Mayflower Compact at Annual Dinners. 

On a happier note, we observe another transition this year as we anticipate the retirement in the spring of Elaine Paul, our Office Administrator for the last 20 years.  Elaine has kept our records, managed our membership database, and sent you meeting notices and annual reminders of Colonial Society dues.  She has been a most congenial part of the Colonial Society, notably at conferences and other special events.  Elaine wrote recently, “I have enjoyed being with the Society immensely and will miss all the people I have met and had the pleasure of working with over the years.” We thank you, Elaine, for a job very well done and wish you the best in retirement. 

In addition to the Stated Meetings arranged by John Tyler, we have had special events in recent months.  When the American Historical Association held its Annual Conference in Boston in January, we took the opportunity to have a bookstall, shared with the New England Historic Genealogical Society, at conference headquarters in the Hynes Convention Center. Members volunteered to staff the sales table and dispensed information about our Graduate Students Forum and our publications.  During that meeting we hosted a reception here at 87 Mount Vernon Street for members and their guests and for alumni/ae of the Graduate Students Forum.  It was a congenial and collegial evening that drew distant members, some of whom had never been in the Society’s house. 

Just a few weeks ago here at 87 Mount Vernon Street we presented Eileen Hunt Botting, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame, who was the Colonial Society’s New England Regional Fellowship Consortium Fellow this past year.  The New England Historic Genealogical Society has just published her edition of Reminiscences and Traditions of Boston by Hannah Mather Crocker, the subject of her research fellowship, a most interesting book that offers considerable information and real insight on the Boston that Cotton Mather’s granddaughter and Thomas Hutchinson’s niece knew in her long life here. 

The New England Regional Fellowship Consortium offers each year a fellowship in colonial history that is funded by our society.  This year’s has been awarded to Lisa Brooks, Associate Professor of History at Harvard, who is researching King Philip’s War.

Partnerships like this can enable the Colonial Society to accomplish significantly more than we could acting alone.  Our collaboration many years ago with the American Musicological Society resulted in the joint publication of the four volume set of The Complete Works of William Billings that still has steady sales.  In 2007, working with the American Antiquarian Society’s Center for Historic American Visual Culture and the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, we co-sponsored a conference on visual and material culture whose proceedings will be published by us early in 2012. 

Now we are about to embark on a very exciting collaborative venture with the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Winterthur Museum, and nine other institutions--Four Centuries of Massachusetts Furniture.  There will be a conference at Winterthur in March 2013 on early Boston furniture, whose proceedings the Colonial Society plans to publish. Later in 2013 there will be exhibitions at the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Peabody Essex Museum, the Concord Museum, Old Sturbridge Village, Historic Deerfield, and the Fuller Craft Museum.  Historic New England and the Museum of Fine Arts will each create a searchable database of Massachusetts furniture.  The North Bennet Street School will develop programs in connection with this whole project.  John Tyler and I will serve on the selection committee for choosing papers for conference presentation, and subsequently for publication.

The Graduate Students’ Forum Committee, chaired by Vice-President Robert Allison and including Robert Gross and Susan Lindsey Lively, planned a stimulating day on June 17 with papers by eleven young scholars from across the nation on early American subjects. The program concluded with remarks by Mary Beth Norton of Cornell University on her own experiences in research and writing.  This year the forum will be on April 27 and will feature as senior scholar Jack P. Greene, Emeritus Professor of History at the Johns Hopkins University.  We encourage you to make this forum known to your graduate students and to other young scholars so they can benefit from an experience that brings graduate students together with peers and veteran scholars, who will suggest new avenues to explore. 

We rely so much on the outstanding work of our committees--Nominating, Publications, Finance, Auditing, Membership, Development, Marketing, Website, Graduate Students’ Forum, Membership Directory, House. They are critical to the management of this society and to the success of our programs.  The House Committee chaired by Cheryl Robertson has had two productive meetings and has set Curator Toby Hall to work on an inventory of the collections that will collate earlier listings and match them to the furnishings in the house.  The committee has also discussed a mission statement for the house that will clarify its role in the Society. 

The new Membership Directory Committee, chaired by David Ames, has had a stimulating discussion of the uses and usefulness of a new directory, which will appear first online and subsequently in print.  Bob Mack has been especially helpful in organizing the online directory.  Many of you have already responded and entered your information.  I encourage those of you who have placed it on your "to do" list to move it closer to the top.  Those who have not learned about the online membership directory should make certain that we have your current e-mail address.  Those who do not use e-mail will be contacted by post. 

Everything that is accomplished by the Colonial Society is made possible by the commitment of our members –the Council, all those committees, and other volunteers who respond to the society's needs.  A key element in our ability to do so much to promote the study and interpretation of early Massachusetts history is the generosity of our members, not only as volunteers, but in financial commitment through the prompt payment of annual dues, subscription to life membership, and in gifts to the annual fund.  Total contributions in the 2011 fiscal year that ended on September 30 were $21,505, compared to $16,735 in 2009-2010, a sharp increase.  We are very grateful to all of you for your support of the Colonial Society and for the interest that you take in the early history of Massachusetts, New England, the nation, and the Atlantic world. 

Agreement Between the Settlers at New Plymouth : 1620

IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c. Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the northern Parts of Virginia; Do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually, in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid: And by Virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and Officers, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general Good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due Submission and Obedience. IN WITNESS whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape-Cod the eleventh of November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, Anno Domini; 1620.

The Latin Grace

Gratias Tibi agimus, Deus omnipotens pro his ac universis donis Tuis, quae de Tua largitate accepimus, qui es Dominus Deus in saecula saeculorum. Amen.