ANNUAL MEETING, NOVEMBER, 1919

    THE Annual Meeting of the Society was held at the Algonquin Club, No. 217 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, on Friday, 21 November, 1919, at half-past six o’clock in the evening, the President, Fred Norris Robinson, Ph. D., in the chair.

    The Records of the last Stated Meeting were approved without being read.

    The Annual Report of the Council was presented on behalf of the Rev. Dr. Charles Edwards Park.

    REPORT OF THE COUNCIL

    In an age which manifests an increasing tendency to value all human activity by the pragmatic test, and which looks with indifference, not to say scorn, upon all efforts to cultivate the quieter interests and refinements of life, it needs a certain degree of courage to call attention to such a Society as ours, and to advertise the fact that we have completed our twenty-seventh year without any perceptible departure from the calm and even tenor of our way. The genius of industrial unrest has thrust no inflamed visage inside our door. Bolshevism has dropped no bomb, literal or figurative, into our occasions. International diplomacies have left unruffled the deep tranquillity of our deliberations. The high cost of living has wrought no confusion in our economies.

    If it requires some courage to make these admissions, it also engenders a profound satisfaction. There is more in life than its temporal storms and superficial upheavals. Your Council conceives it to be the function of the Colonial Society to maintain a due share of interest in the deeper aspects of our life, and, like a Benedictine monastery of the Dark Ages, to conserve so far as it may some understanding of the subtler continuities which bind age to age, and make all history one.

    And in fact to more than one of our members the meetings of the Society have been retreats of almost a monastic sanctity, whither they could resort to find respite from the outward passions of life, and to indulge undisturbed the interests and affections that are dear to them. There have been the usual five stated meetings; four of them held in the quiet comfort of the house of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; one of them held under the hospitable roof of our President, Professor Robinson. Papers and communications of solid value have been presented at these meetings, which will all go to the permanent enrichment of our publications.

    The present condition of the Society’s Publications is as follows:

    Volumes XV and XVI, containing the Corporation Records of Harvard College down to 1750, are well advanced, and will, it is hoped, be completed in 1921.

    Volume XIX, containing the Transactions from November, 1916, to November, 1917, was distributed last April.

    The text of Volume XX, containing the Transactions from December, 1917, to February, 1919, is wholly completed, the index is in type, and the volume will be ready for publication early in 1920.

    The text of Volume XXI, containing thus far the Transactions for March and April, 1919, is at present in type to page 402, and the volume will no doubt be ready for publication in the spring of 1920.

    Volume XXII, projected last spring, will contain the Plymouth Church Records. The preparation of the material is well advanced, and the volume will, it is expected, be completed in the fall of 1920.

    During the year the following gentlemen have been elected to Resident Membership in the Society:

    • James Parker Parmenter,
    • Charles Rockwell Lanman,
    • Henry Goddard Pickering,
    • Robert Gould Shaw,
    • Samuel Williston,
    • Morris Gray,
    • Howard Nicholson Brown,
    • John Lowell.

    And during the year the Society has lost from its membership by death:

    Samuel Swett Green, Librarian Emeritus of the Worcester Public Library, a lover of good books, and of all to whom good books are dear, whose eighty-two years of life were crowded full of a quiet, happy usefulness in making more available to all the rich stores of human knowledge and the companionship of great minds.

    Franklin Pierce Rice, an enthusiast by nature in the local history and antiquities of his surroundings, whose timely solicitude and personal industry have rescued many a valuable town record from oblivion; and whose chief claim to his reputation for eccentricity consisted in an unusual diligence in the work he loved, and a lifelong devotion to his mother.

    Horace Everett Ware, publisher of the Old Farmer’s Almanac, an accurate and painstaking investigator, to whom carelessness in fact or judgment was sin, and who embodied in his own simplicity, courtliness and generosity the grace and charm of the by-gone days which he loved to study and understand.

    Henry Ainsworth Parker, clergyman and soldier, rich in spiritual graces, who enjoyed prosperity with humble and grateful appreciation while it lasted, and, when adversity came, bore it without a word of complaint or bitterness, with cheerful fortitude and unconquered faith.

    Moses Williams, lawyer and trustee, a man of wide interests and large usefulness, whose opinions commanded respect, and whose moral integrity inspired universal confidence; to whose nature passions of every kind were strangers, and whose only enthusiasms were those that survived the analysis of a singularly clear and searching judgment.

    Henry Ernest Woods, State Commissioner of Public Records, who dignified his office by his own faithfulness and worth; whose life, both public and private, was an uphill battle. He had the reserve of suffering, the loneliness of bravery, the modesty of self-sacrifice; and his real value as a friend and a public servant is fully revealed only by his death.

    Henry Lee Higginson, Fellow of Harvard College, whose name will ever stand as a synonym for American citizenship in its fulness and beauty. His patriotism did not end on the battlefield, but made him a life-long warrior against every form of wrong and injustice; a life-long champion of every refinement of heart and nobility of soul. Wealth to him was a stewardship, and, with spiritual insight, he employed it to ennoble our American life by enriching that life at its sources. In war and in peace, in great things and in small, he walked humbly and joyously in the footsteps of Him who came not to be ministered unto but to minister.

    The Treasurer submitted his Annual Report, as follows:

    REPORT OF THE TREASURER

    In accordance with the requirements of the By-Laws the Treasurer submits his Annual Report for the year ending 17 November, 1919.

    CASH ACCOUNT

    receipts

    Balance, 18 November, 1918

    $31.03

    Admission Fees

    $80.00

    Annual Assessments

    590.00

    Sales of the Society’s Publications

    93.10

    Sales of the Society’s Paper

    1.86

    Contribution from a member

    5.00

    Editor’s Salary Fund, subscriptions

    1,300.00

    Interest

    4,091.34

    Henry H. Edes, demand loan without interest

    500.00

    Mortgages, discharged or assigned

    11,700.00

    Horace Everett Ware Fund, interest on Mr. Ware’s bequest, received from his executors

    53.34

    18,414.64

    $18,445.67

    disbursements

    The University Press

    $1,676.77

    A. W. Elson & Co., photogravure

    192.05

    Folsom Engraving Company

    206.28

    Photostating documents and records

    301.47

    Consolidated Index to Volumes 1–20

    50.00

    Salary of the Editor

    1,000.00

    Women’s Educational and Industrial Union

    40.16

    Andrew Stewart, auditing

    10.00

    Postage, stationery, and supplies.

    93.62

    Clerk hire

    111.45

    American Academy of Arts and Sciences, fuel, light and janitor service

    20.00

    Boston Storage Warehouse Company

    24.00

    J. Franklin Jameson, annual subscription toward the Bibliography of American Historical Writings

    50.00

    Miscellaneous incidentals

    578.50

    Mortgages on improved real estate in Boston

    3,750.00

    Interest in adjustment

    $167.12

    Henry H. Edes, demand loan

    500.00

    Western Telephone and Telegraph Company’s 5% Bonds of 1932, $10,000 face value

    8,890.00

    $17,661.42

    Balance on deposit in State Street Trust Company, 17 November, 1919

    784.25

    $18,445.67

    The Funds of the Society are invested as follows:

    $68,000.00

    in First Mortgages, payable in gold coin, on improved property in Greater Boston

    8,890.00

    in Western Telephone and Telegraph Company’s 5% Bonds of 1932 ($10,000 face value) guaranteed by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company

    200.00

    on deposit in the Provident Institution for Savings in the Town of Boston

    $77,090.00

    TRIAL BALANCE

    debits

    Cash

    $784.25

    Mortgages

    $68,000.00

    Provident Institution for Savings

    200.00

    Western Telephone and Telegraph Company’s 5% Bonds, $10,000 face value

    8,890.00

    77,090.00

    $77,874.25

    credits

    Income

    $784.25

    Editor’s Salary Fund

    $600.00

    Publication Fund

    10,000.00

    Benjamin Apthorp Gould Memorial Fund

    10,000.00

    Edward Wheelwright Fund

    20,000.00

    Robert Charles Billings Fund

    10,000.00

    Robert Noxon Toppan Fund

    5,000.00

    Robert Charles Winthrop, Jr. Fund

    3,000.00

    Andrew McFarland Davis Fund

    2,000.00

    William Watson Fund

    1,000.00

    Horace Everett Ware Fund

    658.34

    General Fund

    14,831.66

    77,090.00

    $77,874.25

    Henry H. Edes

    Treasurer

    Boston, 17 November, 1919

    REPORT OF THE AUDITING COMMITTEE

    The undersigned, a Committee appointed to examine the Accounts of the Treasurer for the year ending 17 November, 1919, have attended to their duty and report that they find the accounts correctly kept and properly vouched, and that proper evidence of the investments and of the balance of cash on hand has been shown to them.

    This Report is based on the examination of Andrew Stewart, Certified Public Accountant.

    Henry G. Pickering

    Robert G. Shaw

    Committee

    Boston, 19 November, 1919

    The several Reports were accepted and referred to the Committee of Publication.

    On behalf of the Committee appointed to nominate officers for the ensuing year, Mr. Chester N. Greenough presented the following list of candidates; and, a ballot having been taken, these gentlemen were unanimously elected:

    PRESIDENT

    • FRED NORRIS ROBINSON

    VICE-PRESIDENTS

    • ANDREW McFARLAND DAVIS
    • ARTHUR PRENTICE RUGG

    RECORDING SECRETARY

    • HENRY WINCHESTER CUNNINGHAM

    [CORRESPONDING SECRETARY

    • CHARLES EDWARDS PARK

    TREASURER

    • HENRY HERBERT EDES

    REGISTRAR

    • ALFRED JOHNSON

    MEMBER OF THE COUNCIL FOR THREE YEARS

    • SAMUEL WILLISTON

    After the meeting was dissolved, dinner was served. The guests of the Society were Dr. Elbridge Gerry Cutler, the Rev. Dr. Kirsopp Lake, and Messrs. George Hubbard Blakeslee, Frederick Cornwallis Conybeare, William Bradford Homer Dowse, John Henry Edmonds, Franklin Tweed Hammond, Charles Francis Jenney, John Douglass Merrill, James Duncan Phillips, Arthur Stanwood Pier, William Bernard Reid, Eliot Dawes Stetson, Harry Walter Tyler, Arthur Gordon Webster, and Irvah Lester Winter. The President presided.