ANNUAL MEETING, NOVEMBER, 1924

    THE Annual Meeting of the Society was held at the Algonquin Club, No. 217 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, on Friday, 21 November, 1924, 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 read and approved.

    The Corresponding Secretary reported the death of Robert Hallowell Gardiner, a Corresponding Member, at Boston on June 15th; of William Lowell Putnam, a Resident Member, at Cotuit on July 26th; and of Henry Cabot Lodge, a Resident Member, at Cambridge on November 9th.

    The Annual Report of the Council, written by the Rev. Dr. Charles E. Park, follows:

    REPORT OF THE COUNCIL

    The year has been unmarked by any departure from our usual customs and activities. The Society has held five stated meetings. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences continues to be our kind hosts. The Council wishes to remind the Society of their exceeding good fortune in being permitted to enjoy a place of meeting so admirably adapted to our purposes. The quiet, spacious room, the comfortable chairs (which are possibly open to the objection of being too comfortable), the accessible location, together with the unfailing interest and value of the papers presented, all combine to convince the Council that the reason these meetings are not better attended must be sought elsewhere.

    The April meeting was held, by invitation of Mr. William C. Endicott, at his home, 163 Marlborough Street, and was a memorable occasion for its hospitality and enjoyment.

    With the resignation of Mr. Henry Winchester Cunningham as Recording Secretary, the Society has lost the invaluable services of a scribe who for thirty-one years had kept our records with a faithfulness and precision that will prove a model of secretarial efficiency to his successor. Mr. Cunningham later accepted a similar office with our deadly rivals and dearest friends, the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the Council assures him of their deep gratitude for the past and best wishes for the future.

    Since the last Annual Meeting three volumes have been published: Volume XXIII (Part II of the Plymouth Church Records), Volume XXIV (Transactions, 1920–1922), and Volume XXV (Transactions, 1922–1924). Volume XXVI, the current volume. of Transactions, has advanced to page 87. The text of Volumes XV and XVI (Harvard College Records) is in type, part of the preliminary matter is at the printers, and the volumes ought to be completed in 1925. Work on the Index to Volumes I–XXV is being steadily carried on.

    Elections to membership during the year have been as follows:

    Resident Members:

    • Charles Lewis Slattery,
    • Frank Brewer Bemis,
    • Frederic Winthrop,
    • Benjamin Loring Young,
    • Edward Motley Pickman,
    • Edward Waldo Forbes,
    • Alfred Marston Tozzer;

    Corresponding Members:

    • William Otis Sawtelle,
    • William Keeney Bixby,
    • William Davis Patterson,
    • Kenneth Charles Morton Sills.

    Four of our members have been lost by death.

    Charles Francis Jenney: Associate Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth. His success in his profession was the result not only of his learning but also of his wide experience and broad contact with human nature. He was one of those men who never cease learning, and was therefore a helpful and inspiring influence to others. His ability to serve the Commonwealth was equalled by his willingness, and both were of a very high order. He was a great lover of birds and flowers; a student and writer of local history. His aim was to live worthily, and help others to make a creditable use of their abilities.

    Robert Hallowell Gardiner: A prominent lawyer as well as a director or trustee in many business enterprises of the highest standing. Neither profession nor business, however, was able to exhaust his interest, a generous portion of which he bestowed upon his church and organized Christianity in general. His religion was of the sincere, deep-rooted kind that enabled him to form bonds of warmest sympathy with other Christian men of whatever name or affiliation, and his dearest wish was to help in bringing all such into a closer fellowship of mutual understanding, esteem, and coöperation. Among his many offices, that in which he took a peculiar pride was Secretary of the World Conference on Faith and Order.

    William Lowell Putnam: He represented a type of manhood on which great nations are founded, and from which noble civilizations are formed: the type that does not squander the advantages of a good start, and does not disappoint expectations, but sustains family tradition, and labors and prospers and serves and becomes the solid responsible element in the community. But he was not merely the sample of a type: he was a kindly, warm-hearted personality, likable and friendly, full of clean energy, fond of outdoors, simple in tastes and habits, high-minded in all his motives and responses.

    Henry Cabot Lodge: Man of letters. Student, teacher, and writer of history — public servant. For thirty-one years, Senator from Massachusetts in the National Congress. Learned, cultured, refined; under the factitious dignity of place was the real self-consciousness of birth, breeding, and achievement. For many years the foremost figure in the Senate, he lent to that body an atmosphere of old-fashioned intellectual refinement that will be sorely missed. He wrote his character into his public record, which stands as his most truthful biography.

    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 November 16, 1924.

    CASH ACCOUNT

    receipts

    Balance, November 16, 1923, Principal Cash

    $5,293.43

    Less Income cash overspent

    52.68

    $5,240.75

    Receipts of Principal:

    Mortgages, discharged

    $9,200.00

    Robert Charles Winthrop Fund

    2,000.00

    Henry H. Edes Bequest, Warren Institution for Savings

    1,816.81

    Interest on Warren Institution for Savings account

    82.64

    Horace Everett Ware Fund, Principal

    118.55

    Horace Everett Ware Fund, Income added to Principal

    210.49

    Subscriptions to Editor’s Salary Fund

    800.00

    Interest on Provident Institution for Savings account

    1.19

    Commutations from three members

    300.00

    Contributions

    10.00

    Admission Fees

    70.00

    Income transferred to Principal

    120.00

    Total receipts of Principal

    14,729.68

    Receipts of Income:

    Interest

    $7,220.10

    Annual Assessments

    610.00

    Sales of the Society’s Publications

    447.30

    New England Society in the City of New York, for 512 copies of the Plymouth Church Records

    1,536.00

    Contributions to defray portion of cost of publications

    80.00

    Sale of paper

    22.40

    Total receipts of Income

    9,915.80

    Total

    $29,886.23

    disbursements

    Disbursements of Principal:

    $9,000 New River Company 5% Bonds, due 1934

    $8,347.50

    Mortgage purchased

    8,000.00

    Editor’s salary, paid from Salary Fund

    1,000.00

    Henry H. Edes Bequest, represented by Warren Institution for Savings account

    1,816.81

    Interest on Warren Institution for Savings account, added to Principal

    82.64

    Interest on Provident Institution for Savings account, added to Principal

    1.19

    Total disbursements of Principal

    $19,248.14

    Disbursements of Income:

    University Press

    $6,395.06

    A. W. Elson & Company

    489.21

    Folsom Engraving Company

    11.75

    Boston Storage Warehouse Company

    61.25

    Union Safe Deposit Vaults

    20.00

    Stewart, Watts & Bollong, auditing services

    250.00

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

    29.00

    State Street Trust Company, interest on loan

    195.83

    Interest accrued on bonds purchased

    163.75

    Annual subscription toward the Bibliography of American Historical Writings

    50.00

    Annual dinner

    422.25

    Clerk hire

    160.00

    Thomas S. Longridge, insurance

    244.75

    Mary A. Tenney, Index to Volume 25

    125.00

    Nina E. Browne, Consolidated Index

    200.00

    Miscellaneous

    69.20

    Interest on Horace E. Ware Fund added to Principal

    210.49

    Amount of income transferred to Principal

    120.00

    9,217.54

    Total Disbursements of Income

    $28,465.68

    Balance, November 16, 1924, Principal cash

    $774.97

    Income cash

    645.58

    1,420.55

    Total

    $29,886.23

    The funds of the Society are invested as follows:

    $27,550.00

    in first mortgages payable in gold coin on improved property in Greater Boston

    94,240.00

    in bonds elsewhere described in this report having a face value of $104,000

    28.17

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

    1,899.45

    on deposit in the Warren Institution for Savings

    $123,717.62

    The investments of the Society yield an average annual income of approximately 6.06%.

    A Trial Balance of the accounts as of November 16. 1924, is hereto annexed and made a part of this report.

    William C. Endicott

    Treasurer

    Boston, 16 November, 1924

    TRIAL BALANCE

    debits

    Cash, Principal

    $774.97

    Income

    645.58

    $1,420.55

    Henry Herbert Edes Memorial Fund

    3,081.53

    Provident Institution for Savings

    28.17

    Warren Institution for Savings

    1,899.45

    Mortgages

    27,550.00

    Bonds:

    $20,000

    Western Telephone & Telegraph Company, Collateral Trust 5’s, due 1932

    $16,960.00

    5,000

    Union Pacific Railroad, Equipment Trust 7’s, due 1932

    5,000.00

    5,000

    Wickwire-Spencer Steel Corporation, First Mortgage Sinking Fund 7’s, due 1935

    5,000.00

    5,000

    Detroit Edison Company, First Mortgage Refunding 5’s, Series A, due 1940

    4,397.50

    5,000

    Detroit Edison Company, First Mortgage Refunding 6’s, due 1940

    4,400.00

    5,000

    Chicago Junction Railways and Union Stock Yards Company, Mortgage and Collateral Trust Refunding 5’s, due 1940

    3,762.50

    5,000

    United Electric Securities Corporation, Collateral Trust Sinking Fund 5’s, due 1935–1942

    3,750.00

    5,000

    Northwestern Bell Telephone Company, First Mortgage 7’s, Series A, due 1941

    4,862.50

    5,000

    Philadelphia Company, First Refunding and Collateral Trust, Mortgage 6’s, Series A, due 1944

    4,350.00

    5,000

    Pennsylvania Railroad, Equipment Trust 6’s, due 1935

    5,000.00

    5,000

    Cedars Rapids Manufacturing & Power Company, First Mortgage Sinking Fund 5’s, due 1953

    4,450.00

    5,000

    New York Edison Company, First Mortgage 6½’s Refunding, Series A, due 1941

    5,000.00

    5,000

    Minneapolis, St. Paul & Sault Ste. Marie, First Mortgage Refunding 6’s, Series A, due 1946

    5,000.00

    5,000

    Oregon-Washington Railroad and Navigation Company, First Mortgage Re-funding 4’s, Series A, due 1961

    4,105.00

    5,000

    New England Telephone & Telegraph Company, First Mortgage 5’s, Series A, due 1952

    4,875.00

    5,000

    Cleveland Union Terminal Company, First Sinking Fund 5½’s, Series A, due 1972

    $4,980.00

    9,000

    New River Company, First Mortgage 5’s, due 1934

    8,347.50

    94,240.00

    $104,000

    $128,219.70

    credits

    State Street Trust Company, loan

    $4,000.00

    Income

    645.58

    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

    5,000.00

    Andrew McFarland Davis Fund

    2,000.00

    William Watson Fund

    1,000.00

    Horace Everett Ware Fund

    3,777.22

    General Fund

    21,215.92

    George Vasmer Leverett Fund

    30,000.00

    Henry Herbert Edes Bequest

    1,899.45

    Henry Herbert Edes Memorial Fund

    Subscribed

    $3,831.53

    Paid First Church

    750.00

    3,081.53

    123,574.12

    $128,219.70

    REPORT OF THE AUDITING COMMITTEE

    The undersigned, a Committee appointed to examine the Accounts of the Treasurer for the year ending 16 November, 1922, 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 Stewart, Watts & Bollong, Public Accountants & Auditors.

    Harold Murdock

    Frank B. Bemis

    Committee

    Boston, 21 November, 1924

    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 L. Nichols presented the following list of 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

    • ARTHUR STANWOOD PIER

    CORRESPONDING SECRETARY

    • CHARLES EDWARDS PARK

    TREASURER

    • WILLIAM CROWNINSHIELD ENDICOTT

    REGISTRAR

    • ALFRED JOHNSON

    MEMBER OF THE COUNCIL FOR THREE YEARS

    • FREDERIC WINTHROP

    Mr. Harold Murdock read the following paper:

    NOTES ON BUNKER HILL — THE MYTH OF THE ROYAL WELCH FUSILEERS

    In the Boston News Letter of August 11, 1774, you will find the following item: “Sunday last, arrived in this Harbour, the Transports from New-York, having on board his Majesty’s Royal Regiment of Welch Fuzileers, under the command of Colonel Barnard129 (one of the six renowned British Corps, to whose Valor and Intrepidity, the ever memorable Victory at Mendin was gloriously acquired the 1st of August, 1759).”130 In this verbiage we find an echo of the enthusiasm which inspired Boston in the glorious year of “59,” when that victory gained upon a far-away Westphalian battle-field was regarded as an occasion for thankfulness and jubilation in the King’s most loyal Province of Massachusetts Bay. Only fifteen years had passed and now the colors of the Fusileers that had waved so proudly at Minden appeared in the narrow streets of Boston, to be regarded as symbols of oppression and tyranny. Such words as we have quoted from the Boston newspaper must be regarded as the dying expression of a proud and happy memory. The famous Minden regiment, while admittedly the most distinguished corps in the Boston garrison, became by virtue of that preëminence the most conspicuous threat to the cause of American liberty. Elbridge Gerry deplored the moral effect upon his countrymen of such a “sounding name” as Welch Fusileers.

    The regiment took the field on the day of Lexington with 282 rank and file, but their presence in the action occasioned no special comment. When, however, after Bunker Hill, it was realized what heavy losses had been inflicted upon the troops, a wave of curiosity swept the American camp as to the fate of that famous corps which had proved its mettle against the much vaunted infantry of France. This interest appears upon every hand, and I shall read a few comments made directly after the battle, that are typical of much else that appeared.

    On June 23, 1775, William Tudor wrote as follows to Stephen Collins, the comment being an after-thought written in the margin of his letter up and down the sheet: “The Reg’t of Royal Welch Fusileers, who were in the Battle of Minden last War, & who piqu’d themselves on their Bravery are ruin’d. It is said the greatest Part of the Privates fell & every Capt. except one. It was in a great measure owing to this Reg’t that they were able to carry the Hill.”131

    There is a letter “from a Gentleman in the army,” dated June 27, which carries us into the realm of statistics: “The Royal Welsh Fusileers have but seventy privates and one Captain left alive.”132

    On the day following, June 28, General Nathanael Greene wrote as follows: “the Welch Fusileers, the finest Regiment in the English establishment, is ruined; there are but one Captain and eleven privates left in the Regiment.”133

    It was on June 30 that President Stiles had his interview with that extraordinary witness, the Rev. John Martin. “All the Welch were slain but six men,” declares Martin, and adds, “One Connect. man killed above twenty of the Welch fusileers.”134

    On July 1, the following appeared in the Providence Gazette and Country Journal and I think in other New England papers: “The Welch Fuzileers were nearly all cut off; only one Captain and 17 Privates it is said remained of that Regiment.”

    In a “letter from the Camp at Cambridge” dated July 3, we find the following: “The Welch fusileers, the best regiment in the English army, carried from the field no more than 17 privates and one captain.” And then this correspondent gives us new matter for reflection — “It is also certain,” he says, “they lost 34 officers.”135 The mental processes of this man are clear. With his one captain in hand, he estimated the probable number of officers in the regiment and consigned the balance to the casualty list.

    These extracts illustrate the contemporaneous variants of the story. Here is a mass of contemporaneous testimony as to a certain fact, and it still lies in wait to entrap hurried and conscientious students who appreciate the superior value of original sources.

    Then came that sudden decline of interest in the details of Bunker Hill. Anniversary celebrations were omitted. No one cared to contend for the dubious honor of commanding in that rash and ill-conducted affair. Jealousy and bitterness were rife and allusions to the battle were almost certain to engender recriminations detrimental to the good of the cause.

    Forty-three years had passed when in 1818 General Dearborn burst upon the world with his hazy memories of the battle and his epoch-making assault upon the courage and military behavior of Putnam. Dim recollections of the Fusileers lingered in his mind. “They came into action,” he says, “five hundred strong; and all were killed and wounded but eighty-three.” Where Dearborn found these figures or how he could have dreamed in such quantities is, I think, an unsolved mystery, but they proved an inspiration to another New Hampshire man. If you turn to the Memoirs of General John Stark by Caleb Stark, published in Concord, New Hampshire, 1860, you find the following: “The Regiment opposed to the New-Hampshire line was the Welch Fusileers, which had been distinguished at the Battle of Minden, and was considered the finest light infantry regiment in the British army.” They “came into the field more than 700 strong, and mustered but 83 on parade next morning.”136 Dearborn was doubtless Stark’s authority, but you will note that this new writer takes the liberty of recruiting the regiment from a strength of five hundred to more than seven hundred men. As final evidence that “the evil that men do lives after them,” it was only last year that an honored member of a New England historical society in addressing his fellows on the services of New Hampshire at Bunker Hill restated this episode, for the contamination of history. He maintained the regiment on Stark’s establishment of seven hundred men, but was content that the survivors should remain at Dearborn’s figure of 83.

    So much for the legend of the Fusileers at Bunker Hill; and now for the facts. In the first place, neither Colonel Bernard nor his regiment were in the battle. This is no startling heresy. Mr. Swett doubted it as far back as 1826,137 and Mr. Frothingham saw and asserted the truth in 1875.138 All through that hot battle afternoon the men of the regiment, some 250 in number, were lounging in their camp on Fort Hill, while the flames from Charlestown swirled high above the steepled sky line of the North End and the air throbbed to the grim music of the guns.

    It is true that the two flank companies of the regiment, in common with those of every other regiment in Boston, had been incorporated in the corps of Grenadiers and Light Infantry, and so were in the action. These two companies represented a strength of sixty or possibly sixty-five men and were officered by two captains and four subalterns. Captain Blakeney and three of these subalterns were wounded, and 46 of the privates appeared on the casualty list.139 These are the British official figures, but they were disregarded in the days when everyone was enthusiastically determined to believe in the extinction of the regiment. There are amusing points of similarity between the guesses and the facts. For instance, the legend has it that the regiment carried but one captain from the field. This is so, for certainly Blakeney was the only captain to be carried or assisted to the rear. Two accounts have it that only seventeen privates were left. If we deduct the casualties of forty-six from a force of sixty or sixty-five, it makes a creditable conjecture. And yet it was all conjecture of the wildest sort, accompanied by the delusion that the famous Minden regiment had suffered annihilation in the field.

    While interest in the fate of the Fusileers was for obvious reasons a matter of widespread interest after Bunker Hill, I think there is a more solid basis than this for the origin of the tale. Howe’s first attack on the 17th of June was delivered by eleven companies of Light Infantry belonging to as many regiments. They moved forward in a long lance-like column on a narrow front, as is plainly shown on the map of Lieutenant de Berniere, a well-accepted authority on the battle. On this plan every company is indicated by its regimental number, and we find that to the Fusileers was accorded the honor of leading the advance. Is it not a fair assumption that the Americans, familiar with the uniform and distinctive insignia of the corps, jumped naturally at the conclusion that the whole long column were of the Fusileers? When the assault was thrown back they might well have inferred that they had worsted the regiment, and the story passing rapidly from mouth to mouth accumulated the weird statistics and unwarranted elaborations of the sort which gossip provides.

    We laugh at many British estimates of the strength of the Provincial forces at Bunker Hill, estimates based upon a knowledge of Ward’s strength at Cambridge and the assumption that his men were all engaged. We may laugh as well at this legend of the Fusileers with its strange and amusing variants, but, as I have said, I think we may ascribe its birth to the uniform of a few file leaders in a Light Infantry attack.

    Of course this legend will persist. It is one of the thrilling stories of Bunker Hill, as solidly entrenched as Mr. Longfellow’s version of the midnight ride of Paul Revere. A modest essay like this into the realm of truth cannot prevail against such a time-honored tradition, but at least it furnishes healthful moral exercise for the writer. Perhaps in the coming days of centennial enthusiasm the old regiment may bleed anew upon the rostrum to stimulate our love of country. It may be that we shall be privileged to read as well as to hear how a handful of our ancestors in homespun overcame and slew those haughty heroes of Minden, the Royal Regiment of Welch Fusileers.

    After the meeting was dissolved, dinner was served. The guests of the Society were the Rev. Dr. Willard Learoyd Sperry, and Messrs. Charles Knowles Bolton, Arthur Howland Buffinton, Charles Burton Gulick, Charles Howard McIlwain, Nathan Matthews, and Grenville Howland Norcross. The President presided.