ANNUAL MEETING, NOVEMBER, 1920

    THE Annual Meeting of the Society was held at the Algonquin Club, No. 217 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, on Monday, 22 November, 1920, at half past six o’clock, the President, Fred Norris Robinson, Ph.D., in the chair.

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

    The Corresponding Secretary reported the death since the meeting in April of Charles Armstrong Snow on the 1st of September, and of Winthrop Murray Crane on the 2nd of October, both Resident Members; and of Franklin Bowditch Dexter on the 13th of August, a Corresponding Member.

    Mr. Alfred Lawrence Aiken of Worcester was elected a Resident Member.

    The Annual Report of the Council, written by the Rev. Dr. Charles Edwards Park, was presented and read:

    REPORT OF THE COUNCIL

    A brief statement will suffice to cover the activities of the Colonial Society during the year just ended. Outwardly the year has been marked by strong feelings, by regrets and hopes and reactions, culminating in a presidential election of unprecedented decisiveness. Little if any of this outer turmoil has disturbed the admirable calm of our own doings as a society for historical study.

    The fact that this year 1920 marks the tercentenary of the voyage of the Mayflower was signalized by our associate Mr. Winslow Warren in a notable paper on the Pilgrim Spirit read at the February meeting. The year has been rich in many other papers of commanding interest and value.

    The Treasurer announced at the April meeting that $2000 had been received on account of the bequest of Horace Everett Ware, which, as the Society will remember, is to accumulate until 1930, and then, with any possible additions, be spent in erecting a suitable memorial to the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay and the transfer of the Colony Charter to New England. The Treasurer also announced the receipt of $30,000 in satisfaction of the bequest of George Vasmer Leverett, this bequest to be added to the Publication funds of the Society, whose endowment now amounts to $111,000. Mr. Leverett’s noble testamentary remembrance of the Society, in which he took the deepest interest, is peculiarly welcome at this time when the enormous increase in the cost of printing, paper, and all materials used in our Publications has made an unusually heavy demand upon our treasury. Without this substantial addition to our resources, the Society’s work of publication must have been seriously curtailed.

    The Society has again enjoyed the hospitality of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, in whose comfortable house four of our meetings were held. The April meeting was held in the home of our Treasurer and was made memorable by the gracious welcome we have learned to expect under that hospitable roof.

    The trials and tribulations of the Editor have been unusually severe, as, for a good portion of the year, he has had to divide his attention among no less than seven volumes, all in the process of completion. Three of the seven have been finished during the year: Volume XX, Transactions, has been distributed; Volume XXI, Transactions, and Volume XXII, Plymouth Church Records, are at the binders.

    Of the four volumes left on the Editor’s hands, Volumes XV and XVI, containing the Records of the Corporation of Harvard College to 1750, are well advanced. Volume XXIII, also containing the Plymouth Church Records, which were found far too voluminous for a single volume, is complete in text, and awaits the completion of the index. Volume XXIV, Transactions, is in type to page 110.

    During the year the following gentlemen have accepted membership in the Society:

    Resident Members:

    • Charles Francis Jennet,
    • George Henry Haynes,
    • Edward Mussey Hartwell.

    Corresponding Member:

    • George Russell Agassiz.

    And during the year the Society has lost by death the following associates:

    Franklin Carter, President of Williams College; an educator of wisdom and discernment, sensitive to truth and nobility, whose labors were inspired by deep solicitude for humanity, and who gave generous portions of his time and strength to many missionary and philanthropic enterprises.

    Andrew McFarland Davis, one of the incorporators of this Society, beloved by his associates in the Society as one of their most active and interested fellow-members; and no less beloved and admired by a wider circle of friends as a man of high character and strong affections; blunt, witty, sagacious, generous, tender-hearted, and dependable.

    Charles Armstrong Snow, widely learned in the law of public service corporations, and in the laws of inheritance and taxation. A man of great industry and moral probity, who earned in life a wellmerited success, and who enjoyed life to the utmost. A great lover of nature and of mankind; ever ready to help; a charming companion, a loyal and generous friend.

    Winthrop Murray Crane, a faithful servant of the Commonwealth and the Nation, within whose frail body were stored abundant resources of political wisdom and moral power. His counsels exerted a quiet but potent influence in shaping aright the policies of our generation, while his unfailing human sympathy prompted him to countless acts of unostentatious kindness and endeared him to an entire country side.

    Franklin Bowditch Dexter, teacher of American history and Secretary to the Yale Corporation for thirty years. To the undergraduate a strange and awe-inspiring figure, he proved upon closer acquaintance that the angularities of his tall and ungainly form had no counterpart in the genial and kindly simplicities of his spirit. He loved to delve in the records of the past, and to find there names and memorials which his active sympathy at once clothed with the warmth and animation of real human beings, with real human emotions.

    The Treasurer presented his Annual Report:

    REPORT OF THE TREASURER

    In accordance with the requirements of the By-Laws, the Treasurer submits his Annual Report for the year ending 16 November, 1920.

    CASH ACCOUNT

    RECEIPTS

    Balance, 17 November, 1919

    $784.25

    Admission Fees

    $30.00

    Annual Assessments

    590.00

    Commutation from one member

    100.00

    Sales of the Society’s Publications

    69.10

    Sales of the Society’s paper

    16.50

    Contribution from a member

    5.00

    Editor’s Salary Fund, subscriptions

    1,800.00

    Interest

    6,872.42

    Henry H. Edes, demand loan

    4,000.00

    Mortgages, discharged or assigned

    20,050.00

    $5,000 General Electric Company’s 6’s, sold

    4,993.75

    Horace Everett Ware Fund, received from Mr. Ware’s executors

    1,608.36

    George Vasmer Leverett Fund, received from Mr. Leverett’s executors

    30,000.00

    70,135.13

    $70,919.38

    DISBURSEMENTS

    The University Press

    $6,196.31

    A. W. Elson & Company, photogravure

    1,159.57

    Folsom Engraving Company

    120.13

    Notman Photographing Company

    6.00

    Consolidated Index to Volumes 1–20

    551.00

    Salary of the Editor

    1,000.00

    Andrew Stewart, auditing

    10.00

    Postage, stationery, and supplies

    82.71

    Clerk hire

    121.57

    Mary A. Tenney, indexing

    200.00

    William B. Browne, copying and proof-reading

    79.30

    Sarah L. Patrick, typewritten copy of the Plymouth Church Records

    325.00

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

    $50.00

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

    20.00

    Boston Storage Warehouse Company

    25.50

    Union Safe Deposit Vaults

    15.00

    Miscellaneous incidentals

    469.51

    $10,000 Western Telephone & Telegraph Company’s 5% bonds of 1932

    8,070.00

    5,000 New England Telephone & Telegraph Company’s 5% bonds of 1932

    3,915.00

    5,000 Western Electric Company’s 7% notes of 1925

    4,925.00

    5,000 Union Pacific Railroad Company’s 7% Equipment Trust bonds of 1932-1934

    5,000.00

    5,000 Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company’s 7% bonds of 1935

    4,775.00

    5,000 New York Telephone Company’s 4½% bonds of 1939

    3,937.50

    5,000 Detroit Edison Company’s 5% bonds of 1940

    4,397.50

    10,000 General Electric Company’s 6% bonds of 1940

    9,718.75

    5,000 Wickwire-Spencer Company’s 7% bonds of 1935

    5,000.00

    5,000 Chicago Junction Railways and Union Stock Yards 5% bonds of 1940

    3,762.50

    2,000 United Electric Securities Corporation 5% bonds of 1935 and 1939

    1,500.00

    Mortgages bought

    4,500.00

    Interest in adjustment

    810.15

    Deposited in Provident Institution for Savings

    50.00

    70,793.00

    Balance on deposit in State Street Trust Company, 16 November, 1920

    126.38

    870,919.38

    The Funds of the Society are invested as follows:

    $52,450.00

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

    58,897.50

    in Bonds elsewhere described in this Report having a face value of $67,000

    250.00

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

    $111,597.50

    The mortgage investments yield an income averaging 5.67% and the investments in bonds 6.40%, the whole endowment of the Society earning an average of 6.03%.

    The bonds bought during the year are all of high grade, and many have been purchased at prices ranging from eighteen to twenty-five per cent below par, so that at maturity these securities will furnish an addition of upwards of $8,000 to the principal of the Society’s endowment.

    TRIAL BALANCE

    DR.

    Cash

    $126.38

    Income

    3,873.62

    $4,000.00

    Mortgages

    $52,450.00

    Provident Institution for Savings

    250.00

    $20,000

    Western Telephone and Telegraph Company’s bonds

    16,960.00

    5,000

    New England Telephone and Telegraph Company’s bonds

    3,915.00

    5,000

    Western Electric Company’s notes

    4,925.00

    5,000

    Union Pacific Railroad Equipment Trust bonds

    5,000.00

    5,000

    Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company’s bonds

    4,775.00

    5,000

    Wickwire-Spencer Company’s bonds

    5,000.00

    5,000

    New York Telephone Company’s bond

    3,937.50

    5,000

    Detroit Edison Company’s bonds

    4,397.50

    5,000

    General Electric Company’s bonds

    4,725.00

    5,000

    Chicago Junction Railways and Union Stock Yards Company’s bonds

    3,762.50

    2,000

    United Electric Securities Corporation bonds

    1,500.00

    111,597.50

    $67,000

    $115,597.50

    CR.

    Henry H. Edes

    $4,000.00

    Editor’s Salary Fund

    $1,400.00

    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

    2,361.00

    General Fund

    16,836.50

    George Vasmer Leverett Fund

    30,000.00

    111,597.50

    $115,597.50

    Henry H. Edes

    Treasurer

    Boston, 16 November, 1920

    REPORT OF THE AUDITING COMMITTEE

    The undersigned, a Committee appointed to examine the Accounts of the Treasurer for the year ending 16 November, 1920, 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.

    John E. Thayer

    John Lowell

    Committee

    Boston, 19 November, 1920

    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. Julius H. Tuttle presented the following candidates; and, a ballot having been taken, these gentlemen were unanimously elected.

    PRESIDENT

    • FRED NORRIS ROBINSON

    VICE-PRESIDENTS

    • ARTHUR PRENTICE RUGG
    • GEORGE FOOT MOORE

    RECORDING SECRETARY

    • HENRY WINCHESTER CUNNINGHAM

    CORRESPONDING SECRETARY

    • CHARLES EDWARDS PARK

    TREASURER

    • HENRY HERBERT EDES

    REGISTRAR

    • ALFRED JOHNSON

    MEMBER OF THE COUNCIL FOR THREE YEARS

    • MORRIS GRAY

    Mr. Henry H. Edes read the following letter:

    November 9th, 1920.

    Dear Mr. Edes

    The invitation that you have conveyed to me has given me the greatest pleasure and I heartily wish it were in my power to cross the Atlantic and find myself among my Boston friends at your Tercentenary Celebration. Since that cannot be, may I send you the cordial greetings of one who remembers with delight his many visits to New England and cherishes the memory of the friendships he formed there ever since the now distant days of Longfellow and Emerson, James Russell Lowell and Oliver Wendell Holmes? May there never be wanting a due succession of bright and noble spirits like theirs — men honoured here as you honoured them in their old Bay State.

    The event you are celebrating this year stands out as a great event in the history of the world. It was the consecration of a continent to civil and religious liberty. The little band of humble men who landed in wintry weather on the bleak Plymouth coast planted among you those principles of ordered freedom and self-government which have spread from ocean to ocean and become a beacon light to the nations of two worlds. Your whole history is a witness to their powers. The common faith of the American and the English peoples in those principles — I speak of peoples not of Governments, for Governments sometimes misrepresent their peoples and make them misjudged — the common devotion of these peoples to the same ideals of justice and liberty as the foundation of peace, mark them out as specially called to stand side by side in trying to rescue the world from the abyss of calamity into which the War has plunged it. Everything depends on their friendship, and we prize the influence America can exert, not only because she is strong, but because she is impartial, raised above the jealousies and ambitions that vex this distracted Europe. In the cordial coöperation of these two peoples, animated by the same high traditions, lies the best hope for the future peace of the world.

    Believe me

    Very faithfully yours

    JAMES BRYCE225

    Henry H. Edes, Esq.

    After the meeting was dissolved, dinner was served. The guests of the Society were the Rev. Dr. Kirsopp Lake, and Messrs. Wilbur Cortez Abbott, George Pomeroy Anderson, George Hubbard Blakeslee, Cyrus Edwin Dallin, John Henry Edmonds, Frederick Lawton, Clifford Herschel Moore, Edward Sylvester Morse, Arthur Stanwood Pier, William Thompson Sedgwick, Philip Leffingwell Spalding, and Harry Walter Tyler. The President presided.