(v) This society was incorporated in February, 1794. The avowed object of its organization is to collect, preserve, and communicate materials for a complete history of this country, and an account of all valuable efforts of human industry and ingenuity from the beginning of its settlement. Between twenty and thirty octavo volumes of its "Collections" have been published.
*The library of Dr. Samuel Mather was burned at Charlestown, when it was destroyed by the British in 1775.
Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society.—Colonial and other Relics.—Departure from Boston.
tory, are numerous, rare, and valuable. There is also a rich depository of the autographs of the Pilgrim fathers and their immediate descendants.
There are no less than twenty-five large folio volumes of valuable manuscript letters and other documents; besides which are six thick quarto manuscript volumes—a commentary on the holy Scriptures—in the hand-writing of Cotton Mather. From an autograph letter of that singular man the annexed fac-simile of his writing and signature is given.
Among the portraits in the cabinet of the society are those of Governor Winslow, supposed to have been painted by Vandyke, Increase Mather, and Peter Faneuil, the founder of Faneuil Hall.