FEBRUARY MEETING, 1927

    A Stated Meeting of the Society was held at the house of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, No. 28 Newbury Street, Boston, on Thursday, February 24, 1927, at three o’clock in the afternoon, the President, Samuel Eliot Morison, in the chair.

    The Records of the last Stated Meeting were read and approved.

    The Corresponding Secretary reported the death, on January 30, 1927, of Simeon Eben Baldwin, a Corresponding Member.

    The Corresponding Secretary reported that letters had been received from Chief-Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes accepting Honorary Membership; from Mr. Harold Hitchings Burbank accepting Resident Membership; from Mr. Clarence Walworth Alvord, Mr. Thomas William Lamont, and Mr. William Gwinn Mather, accepting Corresponding Membership; and from Mr. John Henry Edmonds, Mr. Hugh Edward Egerton, and Mr. Charles Howard McIlwain, accepting Associate Membership.

    Mr. George Lincoln Burr of Ithaca, New York, and Mr. Stanley Thomas Williams of New Haven, Connecticut, were elected Corresponding Members.

    Mr. Harold Murdock read and commented upon a group of letters in his collection written from or bearing upon Revolutionary Boston.

    The writers included persons in public and private life, officers and citizens, patriots and loyalists, who viewed the progress of events with mixed emotions. One of the most interesting of the letters was written by Thomas Hutchinson in 1773, stating impressively his political creed. Another, written in the next year by the Rev. Andrew Eliot, gave a melancholy account of Boston, and mentioned the benefactions of Thomas Hollis to Harvard College. A third, written by Joseph Warren to Elbridge Gerry, disclosed the tumultuous condition of the American camp, and contained an interesting reference to Joseph Pigeon, who, according to Warren, by his service as Commissary General held the army together at a critical time. A letter of George Washington, written in 1775, revealed his clear understanding of the military situation, and gave sound reasons for rejecting a suggestion that Point Allerton be fortified.

    Mr. Kenneth B. Murdock read a poem addressed to “Mr. Wise in New England,” from a volume of manuscript poems apparently written in England early in the eighteenth century.