FOOTNOTES:
[G] This newest educational suggestion appears in a vigorous and thoughtful paper on "Education and a Philosophy of Life," in the January number of Education.
HISTORICAL RECORD.
[By sending to the editor brief contributions suitable for use in this department, readers will greatly add to its completeness and value.]
Maine:
Dec. 22.—Meeting of the Maine Historical Society in Portland, President James W. Bradbury in the chair. A communication from Curtis M. Sawyer, of Mechanics Falls, called attention to the fact that traces of Indian settlements in Maine are now disappearing, and suggested that some means should be taken to mark sites of Indian villages and shell-heaps. The Rev. Henry O. Thayer read a paper on Popham colony. E. H. Elwell read a paper on the "British View of the Ashburton Treaty, and the Northeastern Boundary Question;" the Hon. Joseph Williamson on "The Rumored French Invasion of Maine in 1798;" the Rev. Dr. Burrage on "Additional Facts concerning George Waymouth;" Dr. Charles E. Banks on "The Administration of William Gorges from 1636 to 1637." The original diploma of the Society of the Cincinnati, signed by George Washington and General Knox, was exhibited by Thomas L. Talbot. B. F. Stevens, of London, who has for many years collected documents relating to the Revolution, and negotiations of that period, requested that the attention of Congress be called to these manuscripts, and an effort be made to have the government purchase them. It was voted to refer the matter to a standing committee with power. It was also voted that the subject relating to the limits of Indian towns be left to a standing committee.
Massachusetts:
Dec. 21.—Forefather's Day was appropriately celebrated in many places. At Plymouth, addresses were delivered by Hon. Thomas Russell, President of the Pilgrim Society, James Russell Lowell, Rev. George E. Ellis, D. D., Dr. Henry M. Dexter, Judge Charles Levi Woodbury, and others.
Dec. 22.—Dedication of new public library building in Chelsea, the gift of Eustace C. Fitz. An eloquent dedicatory address was delivered by James Russell Lowell.
Dec. 24.—Streets of Lawrence lighted for the first time by the incandescent electric light.
Jan. 6.—Annual meeting of the New England Historic Genealogical Society. Marshall P. Wilder was re-elected President, and Grover Cleveland was made an honorary member. The following were elected to fill vacancies in the old board of officers: Vice-president, Horace Fairbanks, of St. Johnsbury, Vt.; honorary vice-presidents, Charles C. Jones, of Savannah, Ga., and W. F. Mallalieu, of New Orleans, La.; director, John F. Andrew, of Boston; committee on heraldry, John K. Clarke, of Needham; committee on library, Walter Adams, of Framingham; committee on papers and essays, Waldo Burnett, of Southboro, Alexander Williams, of Boston. The report of the treasurer showed: Income of the past year, $3,637.92; expenditures, $3,510.61; present balance, $127.31; total of the building fund, $25,028.19; total of all funds, $66,610.23. The librarian's report showed: Addition of books by purchase, 121; by gift, 401; present total, 20,778; pamphlets purchased, 30; gifts, 1848. Present total, 64,604. Nathaniel F. Safford offered a resolution of thanks to Mr. Wilder for his services in general to the society, and in particular for his persevering personal efforts during the past few years by which he has obtained, not merely the subscriptions of his friends, but the payment thereof for the building fund of the society, so that the money, about $25,000, is now on deposit, and at the society's disposal. The resolution was adopted unanimously by a rising vote.
Meeting of Massachusetts Legislature. President Pillsbury of the Senate, Speaker Brackett, of the House, and Clerks Gifford and Mr. Laughlin were re-elected. Captain J. G. B. Adams, of Lynn, was elected Sergeant-at-Arms.
Dec. 12.—Annual meeting of the Bostonian Society. The following were chosen directors for the coming year: Thomas C. Amory, William S. Appleton, Thomas J. Allen, Joshua P. Bodfish, Curtis Guild, John T. Hassam, Hamilton A. Hill, Samuel H. Russell, and William Wilkins Warren. The report on the library showed a total of 520 volumes, and many pamphlets not yet enumerated, being an addition of 184 volumes, and 126 pamphlets during the year. The report of the treasurer showed: Balance of last year, $3,857.85; receipts, to make a total of $4,736.65; expenditures, to leave a present balance of $1,992.23. It was announced that Mr. D. T. V. Huntoon, the secretary and treasurer, declined a re-election, being about to take a journey for the benefit of his health. The vacancy was not filled.
Jan. 14.—Monthly meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Dr. Green, as one of the executors of the will of John Langdon Sibley, read that part of the will in which he has constituted this society the residuary legatee of nearly all his estate. This amount is by far the largest sum of money ever given or bequeathed to the society, and will place the name of Sibley among the greatest benefactors of historical research. It was voted that a committee consisting of Judge Hoar, Mr. Cobb, and Professor E. C. Smyth be appointed to consider and report to the society what action should be taken in view of this munificent bequest.
Mr. R. C. Winthrop, Jr., communicated thirty-two letters, written between 1693 and 1699, from General Lord Cutts to Colonel Joseph Dudley, then lieutenant-governor of the Isle of Wight, and afterward governor of Massachusetts. They contain incidental reference to William of Orange, and many public men of that period, as well as to the campaign of the allied army in Flanders, and the evident sincerity and soldierly bluntness of the writer renders them quite entertaining. Lord Cutts was not merely a famous commander, but a poet, and his verses are quoted by Horace Walpole. Mr. Winthrop expressed a desire to learn where a picture of him might be found, and he discussed the authority and probable date of various portraits of Governor Joseph Dudley, and his wife, Rebecca Tyng.
Mr. Appleton spoke of the flag carried by the minute-men of Bedford to Concord, on the 19th of April, 1775, a photograph of which had been exhibited at the last meeting. It was originally designed in England in 1660-70 for the three county troops of Massachusetts, and became one of the accepted standards of the organized militia of this State, and as such was used by the Bedford company. Mr. Appleton said that in his opinion this flag far exceeds in historic value the famed flag of Eutaw and Pulaski's banner, and, in fact, is the most precious memorial of its kind of which we have any knowledge.
The Hon. R. C. Winthrop presented from the Hon. John Bigelow, of New York, late minister to France, and author of an elaborate life of Franklin, five old maps, on one of which the name of this city is spelled Baston, and on another Briston.
Mr. Windsor made a communication in reference to a ditch and embankment found in Weston, at the confluence of Stony Brook and Charles River, which indicate, it has been lately said, that a trading post and fort were erected there by the French in the early part of the sixteenth century. He gave reasons for the opinion that these relics may mark the site of an early attempt to found the town of Boston there, since soon after the arrival of Winthrop at Salem he set out for Charlestown, whence, with a party, he explored the neighboring rivers for a convenient spot to found their town, and discovered such a place "three leagues up Charles River." Dr. Palfrey, who seems not to have known of the existence of these remains, says that the spot must have been somewhere in Waltham or Weston, and most likely near the mouth of Stony Brook.
Mr. Winsor also read a paper in which he referred to a statement which had appeared in several popular histories, that, during the eight years of the Revolutionary War, the thirteen colonies sent two hundred and thirty-two thousand men to the Continental army. He traced the origin of this extravagant statement. In 1790, General Knox, then Secretary of War, presented to President Washington a report on the number of troops furnished during the war. He showed the number credited to the several States, making no distinction between those who served for a shorter or a longer period, and he did not tabulate his separate statements for each year into one including the whole war. This was done, however, in the first volume of the New Hampshire Historical Society's collections, and the error was copied by many subsequent publications. It was afterwards said in explanation, that these figures denoted enlistments or years of service, and not men. The truth of the matter is that these figures are worthless as representing the number of men which made up the Continental line, or the years of actual service, and their only value is as enabling us approximately to judge how much more or less relatively one State contributed than another to the military force that gained our independence.
Rhode Island:
Dec. 17.—The committee appointed by the Providence City Council to consider what action should be taken by the city government for the proper observance of its two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, submitted its report. The committee is of the opinion that the celebration should consist of a festival lasting two days. It is recommended that the first day be devoted to literary and historical exercises in the First Baptist Meeting-House, with an historical address giving a complete history of the city, together with appropriate odes, poems, and music. The committee recommends that on the second day there be a grand trades procession representative of the past and present industries of Providence; also an elaborate military and civic parade; that, in the afternoon, balloon ascensions, band concerts, and other amusements be provided for the people, and that the celebration be brought to a termination by a grand display of fireworks in the evening. As the best historical authorities name the date of the founding of Providence as between the 20th and 25th of June, the committee is of the opinion that the 23d and 24th should be selected. This suggestion is made also in view of the fact that the 24th of June will be observed as a festival day by the French residents, and the Masonic Fraternity. It is proposed that the city appropriate $10,000 for the observance, and that the State legislature be requested to make a further appropriation of $5,000.
Connecticut:
Jan. 6.—The Legislature organized by electing Stiles T. Stanton, President pro tem. of the Senate, and John T. Tibbets, of New London, as Speaker of the House.
The article on the Wayte family, in the January number of the New England Magazine, has provoked much pleasant comment in Lyme, the birthplace and summer home of Chief Justice Waite, and New London, the residence of Hon. John T. Wait.
The History of Hartford County in two splendid volumes, press of Ticknor & Co., of Boston, is now being printed, and will be ready for delivery in a few weeks.
Vermont:
Six young men, playing Spanish mandolins, guitars, and harps, says the Chicago Herald, Jan. 18, sat in the balcony of one of the banquet halls at Kinsley's last evening. Below the musicians, and seated at an E-shaped table were two hundred and fifty elderly gentlemen, members of the Illinois Association of the Sons of Vermont, who were destroying their ninth annual banquet. Pots filled with pork and beans, huge pumpkin pies, and large blocks of brown bread were spread before the banqueters. Glass fruit-dishes piled high with ruddy winter apples and little dishes overflowing with cracked hickory nuts came later, and then all these good things were washed down with cider and claret. The toasts were: "Vermont," H. N. Hibbard; "Clergymen of Vermont," Rev. G. N. Boardman; "Stumps of Vermont," E. B. Sherman; "The Star that never sets," W. W. Chandler. After the speech-making, Jules Lombard, robed in black and wearing a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles upon the breast of his Prince Albert coat, sang "America" and a pretty Scottish serenade. Among those present were E. G. Keith, II, P. Kellogg, O. S. A. Sprague, R. S. Smith, Gen. H. H. Thomas, H. N. Hibbard, George Chandler, Harvey Edgerton, Dr. C. N. Fitch, E. A. Jewett, Col. Arba N. Waterman, E. B. Sherman, John M. Thatcher, A. W. Butler, Frank Deinson, H. N. Nash, John M. Southworth, George W. Newcombe, and S. W. Burnham.
NECROLOGY.
December 15.—Samuel Dyer, a pioneer in the anti-slavery movement, died at South Abington, Mass., aged seventy-eight years. He was intimately associated with Wendell Phillips and Garrison as an abolitionist, and at one time held the office of president of the anti-slavery society of Plymouth county. He was among the first to aid and assist Frederick Douglass. When George Thompson, of England, became identified with the anti-slavery movement, his intercourse with Mr. Dyer began, and they worked together in the cause for many years. He had been a prominent business man of the town and had held several public offices.
On the same day died at his home in Cambridge, Mass., James C. Fisk, ex-president of the Cambridge Railroad Company. He was born in Cambridge in 1825, and always lived in that city. He was President of the Fiskdale Mills, at Sturbridge, Mass. Mr. Fisk was president of the common council two years, 1858-9.
December 20.—Frederic Kidder died in Melrose, Mass., aged eighty-one years. He was born in New Ipswich, N. H., and was formerly engaged in the cotton trade in Boston. He was a member of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, and published several historical works.
December 22.—Rev. Daniel James Noyes, D. D., Professor Emeritus of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy and Political Economy at Dartmouth College, being in term of service next to the senior instructor in that institution, died at Chester, N. H. He was born in Springfield, Sept. 17, 1812; was fitted for college at Pembroke, and was graduated from Dartmouth in 1832; after graduation was a tutor at Columbian College at Washington; was graduated from the Andover Theological Seminary in 1836, and then for one year was a tutor at Dartmouth. In 1837 he was ordained to the ministry and installed pastor of the South Congregational Church in Concord. In 1849 he was dismissed in order to accept the Phillips Foundation Chair of Theology at Dartmouth, which he filled until 1869, when he was transferred to the chair which he held at the time of his death, having been Professor Emeritus since 1883. The University of Vermont conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1854.
December 29.—Edwin D. Sanborn, LL.D., Winkley Professor Emeritus at Dartmouth College of Anglo-Saxon and English Language and Literature, died in New York. He was born at Gilmanton, N. H., May 14, 1808, and was the son of David Edwin and Harriet (Hook) Sanborn. He was fitted at Gilmanton Academy, and was graduated from Dartmouth College in 1832. He gained reputation as a teacher in the academies at Derry and Topsfield, Mass., and at Gilmanton, being preceptor of the latter. In 1834 he declined a tutorship at Dartmouth, and at Meredith Bridge began the study of law, which he abandoned and entered the Andover Theological Seminary. In 1835 he was a tutor at Hanover; then Professor of Latin and Greek for two years, and later filled the chair of Latin alone from 1837 to 1859. Then he accepted the place of Professor of Latin and Classical Literature at Washington University, St. Louis, where he remained four years. In March, 1863, he returned to Hanover and became Professor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. In 1880 he took the Winkley chair. Since 1882 he had been Professor Emeritus, his failing health preventing him from performing the duties of that professorship. The deceased was licensed as a Congregational minister, Nov. 1, 1836. The University of Vermont in 1859 conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws. For many years he held most of the justice's courts in Hanover. In 1848 and '49 he represented the town in the Legislature and was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1850. In 1869 he was elected to the State Senate, but declined to serve. The deceased was widely known as an orator and literateur. In 1875 he published a history of New Hampshire. The death of Professor Sanborn is not only a great loss to Dartmouth College, but to the State and country at large.
Jan. 3.—A. S. Roe, author of many popular stories, died in East Windsor, Conn., aged eighty-seven years.
On the same day Prof. Charles E. Hamlin, of the Harvard Museum of Natural History, died at Cambridge, Mass., aged sixty years.
Jan. 4.—-Zuar Eldridge Jameson, died in Irasburg, Orleans County, Vt., aged fifty-one years. He was a well-known writer and lecturer on agricultural topics, whose initials, with transpositions, as well as other pseudonyms, are familiar to readers of the agricultural papers, particularly the New York Weekly Tribune, Albany, N. Y., Country Gentleman and Boston Cultivator. He was a member of the lower branch of the Vermont Legislature in 1878, and of the State Board of Agriculture in 1870-74, for many years Secretary of the Orleans County Agricultural Society, and for one or two years lecturer of the Vermont State Grange, Patrons of Husbandry. Aside from the large amount of purely agricultural matter written he was a frequent producer of short sketches of fiction, usually treating of rural life. He was associated with Dr. T. H. Hoskins in the editing of the old Vermont Farmer (not the present Vermont Farmer) at Newport, which was from a literary standpoint the most successful of Vermont agricultural journals.
Jan. 5.—Death of Noble H. Hill, senior proprietor of the Boston Theatre. He was born in Shoreham, Vt., in 1821; received a good education; came to Boston in 1840; was in active trade till 1867, being at that time a partner in the firm of Hill, Burrage & Co; in 1876 became a partner with Orlando Tompkins for conducting the Boston Theatre.
On the same day died Dr. James H. Whittemore, Superintendent of the Massachusetts General Hospital, aged 47 years.
Jan. 8.—Death of the Hon. Nahum Capen, at Dorchester, Mass., aged eighty-two years. He was born in Canton in 1804. He came to Boston at the age of twenty-one, embarked in the publishing business in the firm of Marsh, Capen & Lyon, and afterward was connected with several of the leading publishing houses of this city. His tastes were always literary, and for the past forty years he has devoted himself to literature and study, except when he held the office of postmaster, 1857 to 1861. He was appointed postmaster by President Buchanan, and it was during his term of office that the postoffice was removed from the Merchant's Exchange building to Summer street at the corner of Chauncy street, where it remained for about a year and a half. He mapped out the free delivery system, and was the first postmaster in the country to establish the outside letter collection boxes. Mr. Capen has written (most of them anonymously) and has published many books, scientific and political, and was a very liberal contributor to the newspapers and magazines. He was a sound thinker and was considered an able writer. His last work, on which he has been engaged for twenty-five years, is a history of Democracy. The first volume has been published, and the remaining three have been written and are ready to be printed, except a portion of the last.
LITERATURE AND ART.
History of the Civil War in America.[H] The deep and widespread interest which is being felt in this country in all that relates to the late war is likely to receive increased stimulus from the appearance of recent instalments of the translation of the "History" of the Comte de Paris. The fact that the narrative is written by a foreigner, not so much for the information of American as of European readers, will in no way interfere with the profound interest Americans themselves must feel in what, when finished, will probably be, if not the most impartial yet the most accurate, comprehensive, complete, and reliable record of that long, lamentable and costly struggle. The interest in American affairs which has culminated in the production of this history had been a long-cherished feeling with the author before he conceived the purpose which he has so far executed so admirably. For years materials of all kinds that promised to shed light upon his subject and assist him in his undertaking had been industriously collected. He enjoyed, besides, the great advantage of having personally served on the staff of General McClellan, in this way attaching to himself many friends, who, after his return to Europe, continued to keep him posted up in all that related to the movements of the belligerents, and the incidents and aspects of the conflict. These advantages, together with the count's very thorough knowledge of military science, justified his attempting a task which, as it approaches completion, promises to be a splendid success, and which, so far as it has been carried out, has already received high commendation from distinguished soldiers and statesmen both in Europe and America. The work, though voluminous, is sure to find, as it deserves, many readers. No American professing to be proud of his country's struggles and achievements can well afford to be ignorant of its contents. It may be as well to note that the Count fully confides in the translator's ability to perform his task with care and accuracy.