ANNUAL MEETING, NOVEMBER, 1915

    THE Annual Meeting of the Society was held at the Algonquin Club, 217 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, on Monday, 22 November, 1915, at six o’clock in the evening, the President, Frederick Jackson Turner, LL.D., in the chair.

    The Records of the last Stated Meeting were approved.

    The Corresponding Secretary reported that letters had been received from the Rev. Henry Wilder Foote and Mr. Stephen Willard Phillips, accepting Resident Membership.

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

    REPORT OF THE COUNCIL

    Four meetings of the Society have been held in the house of the American Academy, whose hospitality we continue to enjoy and appreciate with undiminished gratitude. The meeting of April was held at the home of the Treasurer, Mr. Henry Herbert Edes. The attendance, your Council is sorry to report, has not materially improved. It seems to the Council that the members of the Society are denying themselves a real pleasure as well as a real privilege in not attending the monthly meetings. The papers presented have been of exceptional value and interest: upon The Term Pilgrim Fathers; upon The Change in the Editorship of the Province Laws; upon Franklin as a Scientist; and upon Proprietors of Massachusetts Townships. There have also been presented valuable communications of letters and original documents.

    The Treasurer brings the welcome information that the Society’s finances show encouraging symptoms of good health. During the year two of our Resident Members have commuted their annual dues, thus bringing the total number of those who have availed themselves of this privilege up to fifty-eight. This means that $5,800 has passed into the Society’s permanent fund, to yield an assured annual income of nearly $300. This custom of commuting dues is commended to the members as being, like the quality of mercy, twice blessed. It blesses him who commutes, in that it thereafter relieves him of all further payment of dues, and it blesses him that receives, in that it swells the Society’s endowment and increases its yearly income. The Council is confident that a word to the wise will be sufficient.

    The Society has received a bequest of $1,000 by the will of our late associate Dr. William Watson. This amount goes also into the Permanent Fund. It is a pleasure to note that contributions during the year for immediate use have amounted to $1,500, a good indication of vigorous interest on the part of the members.

    The following statement relates to the Society’s Publications:

    The last published volume was Volume XIV.

    Volumes XV and XVI, which will contain the Corporation Records of Harvard College down to 1750, are well advanced, but it is impossible to say when they will be ready for publication.

    Volume XVII, which contains the Transactions from March, 1913, to December, 1914, both included, is now going through the press and will be distributed shortly.

    Volume XVIII, also a volume of Transactions, has advanced to page 96, containing the meetings for January-April, 1915, both included. Thus the Transactions are in plate to date.

    The material for the Royal Instructions is mostly in hand, and will be, it is hoped, wholly in hand by the end of this year.

    Our membership has undergone the usual inevitable changes. The following gentlemen have been elected during the year to Resident Membership:

    • Francis Russell Hart,
    • Samuel Henshaw,
    • Augustus George Bullock,
    • Winslow Warren,
    • Edward Channing,
    • Edward Bangs Drew,
    • Henry Wilder Foote,
    • Stephen Willard Phillips;

    and to Corresponding Membership:

    • Charles McLean Andrews,
    • evarts boutell greene.

    There have been removed by death from our number six of our associates:

    David Rice Whitney, financier, one of the pioneers in the business development of his city, who devoted himself to her financial upbuilding, and brought to the task all the resources of an exceptionally shrewd and well-experienced mind.

    Francis William Hurd, jurist, a descendant of the Mayflower stock, in whom its sturdy qualities of mind and character were undiminished, a member of the famous Harvard Class of 1852, one of the organizers of the American Bar Association.

    George Emery Littlefield, historian, genealogist, lover of books, who by his devotion to strong native tastes, which he had the courage to gratify, made himself an authority in his line; and whose wisdom and integrity caused him to be sought by book lovers and book purchasers.

    Ezra ripley Thayer, Dean of the Harvard Law School, a brilliant scholar, and a loyal friend and lovable man. Simple, gentle, winning, reasonable and true, he was guiltless of the sin of low aim, and leaves unfinished a great work greatly begun.

    William Watson, eminent in science, especially mathematics, one of the organizers of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a member of many learned societies at home and abroad, and one of the original members of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts.

    Arthur Theodore Lyman, merchant and manufacturer, whose long, rich life and peaceful death one contemplates with a sense of spiritual elation, and whose graces of heart and disposition find their lasting memorial in the love of all who knew him.

    The Treasurer submitted his Annual Report:

    REPORT OF THE TREASURER

    In compliance with the requirements of the By-Laws, the Treasurer submits his Annual Report for the year ending 19 November, 1915.

    CASH ACCOUNT

    RECEIPTS

    Balance, 17 November, 1914

    $175.39

    Admission Fees

    $80.00

    Annual Assessments

    600.00

    Commutation of the Annual Dues

    200.00

    Sales of the Society’s Publications

    147.28

    Sales of the Society’s paper

    14.96

    Contributions from two members

    531.53

    Editor’s Salary Fund, subscriptions

    1,400.00

    Interest

    3,705.86

    Henry H. Edes, demand loan without interest

    75.00

    Mortgages, discharged or assigned

    5,500.00

    Provident Institution for Savings, withdrawn for investment

    400.00

    12,654.63

    $12,830.02

    DISBURSEMENTS

    The University Press

    $496.89

    A. W. Elson & Co., photogravure

    35.33

    E. O. Cockayne, photo-lithography

    18.37

    Mary A. Tenney, indexing

    100.00

    Albert Matthews, salary as Editor of Publications

    1,000.00

    Andrew Stewart, auditing

    10.00

    Clerk hire

    81.85

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

    15.00

    Boston Storage Warehouse Company

    24.00

    Postage, stationery, and supplies

    40.40

    Lucy Drucker, services in London at the Public Record Office

    526.53

    Carnegie Institution, annual subscription toward the Bibliography of American Historical Writings

    50.00

    Miscellaneous incidentals

    447.85

    Henry H. Edes, demand loan without interest

    1,825.00

    Deposited in Provident Institution for Savings

    80.00

    Mortgages on improved real estate in Boston

    8,000.00

    Interest in adjustment

    51.53

    12,802.75

    Balance on deposit in State Street Trust Company, 19 November, 1915

    27.27

    $12,830.02

    The Funds of the Society are invested as follows:

    $70,000.00

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

    100.00

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

    $70,100.00

    TRIAL BALANCE

    DEBITS

    Cash

    $27.27

    Mortgages

    $70,000.00

    Provident Institution for Savings

    100.00

    70,100.00

    $70,127.27

    CREDITS

    Income

    $27.27

    Editor’s Salary Fund

    $400.00

    Publication Fund

    8,500.00

    General Fund

    11,200.00

    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

    70,100.00

    $70,127.27

    Henry H. Edes

    Treasurer

    Boston, 19 November, 1915

    REPORT OF THE AUDITING COMMITTEE

    The undersigned, a Committee appointed to examine the Accounts of the Treasurer for the year ending 19 November, 1915, have attended to their duty and report, that they find them correctly kept and properly vouched, and that proper evidence of the investments and of the balance of cash on hand has been shown to us. This Report is based on the examination of Andrew Stewart, certified public accountant.

    Arthur Lord

    Wm. V. Kellen

    Committee

    Boston, 19 November, 1915

    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, Dr. Charles M. Green presented the following candidates; and, a ballot having been taken, these gentlemen were unanimously elected.

    PRESIDENT

    • FREDERICK JACKSON TURNER

    VICE-PRESIDENTS

    • MARCUS PERRIN KNOWLTON
    • ANDREW McFARLAND DAVIS

    RECORDING SECRETARY

    • HENRY WINCHESTER CUNNINGHAM

    CORRESPONDING SECRETARY

    • CHARLES EDWARDS PARK

    TREASURER

    • HENRY HERBERT EDES

    REGISTRAR

    • FREDERICK LEWIS GAY

    MEMBER OF THE COUNCIL FOR THREE YEARS

    • SAMUEL ELIOT MORISON

    After the meeting was dissolved, dinner was served. The guests of the Society were the Rev. Dr. Howard Nicholson Brown, the Rev. Dr. Samuel McChord Crothers, the Hon. Grafton Dulany Cushing, Dr. John Washburn Bartol, and Messrs. William Richards Castle, Jr., Alfred Johnson, Nathaniel Thayer Kidder, John Lowell, Lawrence Shaw Mayo, Bernard Moses, Charles French Read, William Bernard Reid, Richard Clipston Sturgis, and Harry Walter Tyler. The President presided.