PREFACE.

    THE Transactions at nine Stated Meetings of the Society are recorded in this book.

    The papers and communications here presented cover a wide field. Among the more important are three by Mr. Davis, dealing with the Provincial Currency; Mr. Ford’s Colonial America; two of a topographical nature, and one on Joseph Boucher de Niverville, by Mr. Matthews; and three by Mr. Edes, on the Places of Worship of the Sandemanians in Boston, Documents relative to the early history of Yale University, and Chief-Justice Martin Howard and his portrait by Copley. There are also papers on the Case of Maria in the Court of Assistants, 1681, and the Land Controversies in Maine, 1769–1772, and a file of Letters of Dr. James Martineau.

    Tributes to the memory of Henry Parker Quincy, Samuel Johnson, Edward Griffin Porter, and Edward John Phelps will be found in the following pages; and Memoirs of George Martin Lane, by William Watson Goodwin; of Daniel Denison Slade, by Edward Wheelwright; and of Joseph Henry Allen, by Charles Carroll Everett.

    For the use of the portrait-plate of Jeremy Dummer, the Society is indebted to the courtesy of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin and Company, and for the gift of the other nine plates to the generous interest of several of the members. Three of the portraits have been engraved for the first time, by Mr. Elson, expressly for this volume, — those of John Colman, Joseph McKean, and Martin Howard, — at the charge of Mr. Gay, Mr. H. W. Cunningham, and Mr. Leverett, to whom the Committee expresses its grateful acknowledgments.

    The Index has been made with great care, and no pains have been spared to make it full and accurate.

    For the Committee,

    John Noble.

    Boston, September, 1904.