SPECIAL MEETING OF THE COUNCIL,

    10 May, 1900.

    A Special Meeting of the Council was held in the office of John Noble, Esq., Clerk of the Supreme Judicial Court, in the Court House, Boston, on Thursday, 10 May, 1900, at two o’clock in the afternoon, to take action upon the death of President Wheelwright, which occurred yesterday morning.

    Present, Messrs. Henry Herbert Edes, Frederick Lewis Gay, John Noble, James Bradley Thayer, Samuel Lothrop Thorndike, and Robert Noxon Toppan.

    The Second Vice-President, James Bradley Thayer, LL.D., occupied the chair.

    In the absence of the Recording Secretary, Mr. Edes was chosen Recording Secretary pro tempore.

    Mr. Thorndike offered the following Minute, which was unanimously adopted by a rising vote: —

    The Council of The Colonial Society of Massachusetts, called together suddenly upon the death of the President, wish to express their deep sense of the blow which has fallen upon them and of the great loss which the Society has suffered.

    Edward Wheelwright was elected a Member of the Society at the First Stated Meeting of the Founders. He has been one of the Council since November, 1895, and President since February, 1897. He brought to our service a lifelong fondness for antiquarian and biographical research, and during his whole membership he has promoted our welfare with unfailing interest and sincere attachment. But it is not for these things alone that he will live in our memory. We shall recall his cheerful fellowship at the Council board, the simple dignity with which he presided at the meetings of our Society, and his genial humor on all festive occasions.

    His career was uneventful. An intelligent traveller, a student and critic of art, a lover of literature, a cultivated gentleman, a member of many social clubs and learned societies, he passed a happy and contented life of unpretentious usefulness. If he had been asked to name his most important work, he would probably have mentioned the Annals of the Harvard Class of 1844. These are, indeed, in their biographical and genealogical fulness, a model of what a Class Record should be, and are an important contribution to the history of the last half-century. That distinguished Class has given no less than seven members to our Society. Wheelwright joined in our tribute to the memory of six of these, — Gould, Saltonstall, Slade, Hale, Sears, and Parkman. We mournfully bid him farewell as the last survivor of the seven.

    Voted, That attested copies of this Minute be sent to Mrs. Wheelwright and to Mr. Henry A. Wheelwright.

    Voted, That the Council will attend as a body the funeral of our late President, in King’s Chapel, to-morrow.

    Voted, That a Special Meeting of the Society be called during the present month on a date to be fixed by the two Secretaries.

    The Chair appointed Messrs. Andrew McFarland Davis. Charles Carroll Everett. Augustus Lowell. John Lathrop. Arthur Theodore Lyman. Charles Pickering Bowditch, and Richard Middlecott Saltonstall a Committee to draught appropriate Resolutions to be submitted to the Society for its consideration at the Special Meeting to be held in memory of Mr. Wheelwright.