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TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY 
 
 OF 
 
 CHARLES DEANE 
 
 ^? ti)e jnassat^usetts l^tetortcal ^oct'etp 
 
TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY 
 
 OF 
 
 CHARLES DEANE 
 
 i3p t\)t i^tassacl^usetts; IE)i£itoncal ^ori'etp , /' 
 
 AT A SPECIAL MEETING 
 
 December 3, 1889 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY 
 1889 
 

 SSnibersttg Press : 
 
 John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 
 
 Gift 
 American Hiatorioal Eovlew 
 
 FEB 2 6 1925 
 

 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Remarks by 
 
 George E. Ellis 5 
 
 Robert C. Winthrop 10 
 
 Charles F. Adams 13 
 
 Stephen Salisbury 19 
 
 Justin Winsor 20 
 
 Samuel C. Cobb 22 
 
 William Everett 22 
 
 Samuel A. Green 23 
 
 Edmund F. Slafter 24 
 
 Edward Channing 25 
 
 Edward J. Young 26 
 
 R. C. Winthrop, Jr., commiinicatiug Letters from 
 
 Henry Lee, W. C. Endicott, and H. M. Dexter 27 
 
 Article by 
 
 Charles C. Smith .... 29 
 
PROCEEDINGS. 
 
 A Special Meeting of the Society was held on Tues- 
 day evening, Dec. 3, 1889, at eight o'clock, at the house 
 of Mr. Robert C. Winthrop, Jr., to express its sense of 
 the loss it has sustained by the recent death of its 
 senior Vice-President, Charles Deane, LL.D. 
 
 After calling the meeting to order, the President, 
 Dr. George E. Ellis, rose and said : — 
 
 Gentlemen, — This special meeting of our Society is called 
 and held as a tribute of our personal affection and esteem for, 
 and an expression of our profound respect and grateful appre- 
 ciation of, the character and the faithful and fruitful life-work 
 of our late first Vice-President, Dr. Charles Deane. The 
 meeting was prompted by our considerate host. The response 
 to his invitation is spontaneous. Well do we know that the 
 modest}'" and the unobtrusive spirit of our associate would 
 have made him shrink from any greatly different method of 
 our tribute to him, as his life closed, from that in which at 
 our regular meetings he had so often taken a part, as, one by 
 one, through lengthening years, our members have passed 
 away. But by promptings coming with their own force, the 
 feeling was warm and general among us that his death called 
 for a special and signal expression of our exalted and grateful 
 estimate of him and of his services to us. It needs not that 
 we should be oblivious of the care and toil of the founders of 
 this Society in their early devotion to it, in gathering, pre- 
 serving, and setting forth the records and relics of former 
 days, thus rescued from loss. Nor would we put any name 
 in rivalry with that of James Savage, in industry, in research, 
 
6 
 
 in intelligent interpretation and illustration, and in the pa- 
 tience of work. But having been in membership here for 
 just half of the nearly completed century of the existence of 
 the Society, and through the greater part of those years in 
 association with Dr. Deane, I must say now that he has 
 given to us longer, more varied, more fruitful years of service 
 in zeal, in care, in actual earnest devotion, and in the accom- 
 plishment of difficult and exacting work, than any one whose 
 name is upon our roll. And more than that, the manifold 
 products of his work carry with them that unprofessional, 
 natural, solid, substantial quality, the fruit of a thorough 
 business training, which, better than polish of style, rhetorical 
 skill, or discursive literary culture, give to historical papers 
 dignity and value. He pursued his studies under the fairest 
 and richest of all conditions, save those of his own mental 
 furnishing, within the walls of his own library, with his own 
 books, rare, precious, and complete in their range and con- 
 tents for the subjects which engaged him ; and he had him- 
 self gathered those curious and costly materials. The mere 
 possession of such a library, if by hap one had come into the 
 ownership of it, might well tem]3t and goad him to put it to 
 good uses. But its contents were of his own selection and 
 acquisition, volume by volume, even sometimes page by page. 
 It was like a full font of antique and quaint type arranged in 
 cases, which he was to dispose into a text of wisdom, with 
 truthful oracles for setting forth severely digested and authen- 
 tic history. In his searchings through old book-stalls in this 
 country, and in his visit abroad, he had come to know what 
 to look for, and where to find it. Through his agents, and in 
 scanning the catalogues of dispersed libraries, he obtained the 
 antique and curious treasures called Americana, — now but 
 rarely to be picked up, and at fabulous prices ; and if editions 
 of these differed in priority, fulness, or enrichment, his was 
 the best. His own abounding and learned annotations in 
 many of them are like the accumulated interest on old de- 
 posits. Such tools, implements, resources, found in him a 
 skilled workman, apt in using them. 
 
 We know how lai'gely his work was with the more recon- 
 dite, obscure, the tangled and perplexed elements and peri- 
 ods of our history. His aim always was for severe and exact 
 
accuracy, the positive and certified facts of historical narration. 
 He accepted such hues and incidents of romance as invested 
 real persons and events, never decorating his pages with the 
 inventions of fancy or fiction. The grim and sturdy naviga- 
 tors of the heroic Elizabethan age, the sea-explorers and ad- 
 venturers of pioneer enterprises, engaged his keenest study, 
 though it was often as puzzling to verify their courses and 
 landfalls as it would have been to follow their tracks on 
 ocean ways. Those verbose, technical, and official parchments 
 called Royal Charters, Patents, the forms and processes by 
 which they issued and passed the Seals, and the grants and 
 transfers under them, were often as vague and unverifiable as 
 such would be to regions and privileges in the moon. He 
 penetrated their secrets and methods, their appropriation of 
 unbounded and unexplored territories bylines drawn in the air 
 over them, as they conflicted, overlapped, and duplicated each 
 other. This library of Mr. Deane was but the transfer of 
 property from one kind into another, alike the product and 
 material of his wisely directed and industrious life. 
 
 Our own library, with its crowded shelves and cabinets, is 
 identified with him as if he had been its guardian and its 
 catalogue. How diligently, how intelligently, with what dis- 
 cernment and skill, did he search into those fragmentary or 
 voluminous papers ! Crabbed and must}^ though some of them 
 are, he found use and value in them. He disposed them in 
 order, with notes for helpful guidance. How valuable to us 
 are our gains from his privileged leisure, spent j^ear after year 
 in putting us into real knowledge and possession of our accu- 
 mulated stores ! Many of us had come to look directly to 
 him for the information formally and technically to be sought 
 by card or catalogue. I hope that by some subtle quality 
 passed into them those manuscripts, so many of them arranged 
 and calendared by him in those bulk}^ tomes, will preserve 
 for our successors the aroma of his virtue. 
 
 The cherished memories of those who have been longest 
 in our membership will most fondly and tenderly associate 
 with our meetings those two congenial companions, friends, 
 fellow-townsmen, co-workers. Dr. Deane and George Liver- 
 more, that man of such rare and winning traits, so delicate, 
 so earnest, so gentle, so devoted to our Society. The}' came 
 
8 
 
 into membership the same year. Both had had their training 
 in a life of business ; both devoted the means so acquired to 
 the acquisition and best use of literary treasures. We owe 
 to their friendship with each other and with another kindly 
 benefactor the valuable and unique Dowse Library, with the 
 fund for its care. 
 
 I recall that at a meeting held in our hall in commemoration 
 of Dr. Sparks there were arranged on the table something like 
 one hundred substantial volumes, from his authorship or edi- 
 torial care. Not in bulk, certainly, will the literary results of 
 Dr. Deane's work equal that collection. Greatly different for 
 the most part were the range and subjects for mind and pen, 
 though of equal historical importance, which engaged those 
 two faithful laborers. As already intimated. Dr. Deane's 
 themes were many „ of them most obscure and perplexed in 
 the materials for dealing with them. They were numerous, 
 too, and varied in date, locality, and relations. He to whom 
 shall fall the grateful office of Dr. Deane's biographer will find 
 a keen and close diligence necessary to secure a complete list 
 of his productions that are now in print. Some of the most 
 brief and compact of them have in them a concentration of 
 care, research, and value. I have incidentally used the name 
 of our former President James Savage, the interpreter, expos- 
 itor, and annotator of the earliest and most precious records 
 of the Old Bay Colony, — Governor Winthrop's History, the 
 founder and revered patron of the Massachusetts. Happily 
 and most fittingly there came to Dr. Deane the opportunity 
 and the ability to do an exactly parallel work for the annals 
 of the Old Colony. He was the efficient agent in following 
 up the identification of the long-lost History of the Colony 
 by its Governor Bradford, which had mysteriously disap- 
 peared. The manuscript of this priceless treasure proved to 
 be hidden away in the library of the Bishop of London, at 
 Fulham. Dr. Deane at once procured an accurate transcript 
 of it, and then presented it, carefully, intelligently, and lumi- 
 nously edited, to complete as it were in a noble volume the 
 origines of our Commonwealth. T had the pleasure of giving 
 a copy of that volume to Dean Stanley, on his visit to Ply- 
 mouth. With absorbed interest he marked the pages with 
 which historic localities and incidents were identified. On 
 
9 
 
 his return liome he found in it a tlieme for discourse. So 
 while the okl Puritan manuscript was slumbering' hard by 
 him, its writer was the subject of a sermon on Forefathers' 
 Day, in Westminster Abbey. 
 
 Just as Dr. Deane's life was closing there came from the 
 press the eighth and last volume of that laborious and elaborate 
 work, which in its purpose and progress had intently engaged 
 his interest and co-operation, — "The Narrative and Critical 
 History of America," edited with such wide and exhaustive 
 research and with such marvellous ability by our associate 
 Dr. Winsor. Two of the most erudite chapters of that work 
 were from the pen of Dr. Deane. His advice, judgment, and 
 oversight were engaged through the whole of it. His own 
 library, with its treasures for richest use, was one of the most 
 helpful resources of the editor. During the nine years of its 
 progress each volume as it appeared was discerningly wel- 
 comed by him in conference with his friend ; but he was de- 
 nied the sight of the last. A fine engraving of his form and 
 features, in his genial serenity and dignity, is fitly presented 
 in the first volume of the series, which appeared onl}^ after six 
 preceding ones had been published. But I must not trespass 
 by further detail upon the ofifice of his fuller memorialist. 
 
 I have found it easy and attractive to draw this brief sketch 
 of a part of the life-work, for ourselves and others, of our 
 honored and beloved associate. Would that I might leave 
 wholly to others the delicate office of delineating and defining 
 the man, in personality, character, and spirit ! We say to each 
 other what we cannot say to all, and we all of us feel what 
 none of us will speak. If it be true, as has been said, that we 
 are most gently and winningly impressed b}^ engaging traits 
 in others more or less lacking in ourselves, then some of us 
 may find a kindly monition in defining to ourselves, if we will, 
 the charm and grace in the presence, the character, the mien, 
 and speech of our vanished friend. Manliness, sinceiity, dig- 
 nity, and an ever gentle courtesy showed what his spirit was. 
 The deliberation of his thought and utterance attested the dis- 
 cretion that was behind them. One might notice often that 
 the mildest and most genial working of his features accom- 
 panied the expression of his strongest dissent or disapproba- 
 tion. He was incapable of offending any one with whom he 
 
10 
 
 differed in view or opinion. When we had to take on trust 
 matters of which we were ignorant, we would all admit that 
 his assertions were the best substitute for our own knowledge. 
 He had a candid consciousness of incompleteness in his attain- 
 ments. He listened as courteously as he spoke. His judg- 
 ment and dissent were always tempered. To those who 
 have sat with him there, our hall will never wholly lack his 
 presence. 
 
 The following is offered for the action of the Society in 
 recognition of our loss : — 
 
 The Records of this Society for forty years are enriched in variety 
 and value, by the papers contributed to them by our late associate and 
 senior Vice-President, Dr. Charles Deane. It is with profound sad- 
 ness that we must now enter upon those records that his life closed 
 on the 13th of last month. Dr. Deane has long held a very high 
 place in our fellowship for his historical acquisitions, for his skill and 
 thoroughness in research, for his accuracy of statement, and for the 
 weight of his opinions and judgment. He had examined many diffi- 
 cult points, and was discreet and conscientious in his decisions. But 
 more even than by his constant service for us, we were all drawn to 
 him by the winning charm and graces of his character, his genial dig- 
 nity and courtesy, the simplicity of his sincerity and kindness. We 
 can all gratefully unite in this tribute of affection and respect for one 
 whom we so much honored. While entering this tribute upon our 
 records we would convey the expression of it with our tenderest sym- 
 pathy to his bereaved family. 
 
 The Hon. Robert C. Wintheop then said : — 
 
 Few things, Mr. President, would have afforded me greater 
 satisfaction than to pay an adequate tribute to so valued an 
 associate and so esteemed a friend as Charles Deane. Had 
 he been taken away from ns earlier, before age had impaired 
 whatever of faculty for such an effort I may have possessed, 
 or been credited with possessing, in former years, I could 
 hardly have found a subject of the sort on which I should 
 have been more willing to dwell. I knew him so long and 
 so well ; I was for so many years an immediate witness of 
 his devoted labors for this Society ; I owed so much to his 
 
11 
 
 obliging co-operation and assistance in my thirty years of its 
 Presidency, and I enjoyed so much of his personal regard and 
 friendship during all this long period, — that anything I could 
 have said of him or written of him would have come from 
 the fulness of the heart, and been wholly a labor of love. As 
 it is, I must be pardoned this evening for confining myself 
 within a narrow compass. 
 
 It may be remembered that at a recent meeting of this 
 Society I found occasion for a brief allusion to those with 
 whom I was associated when I first became a member, just 
 half a century ago. Mr. Deane was not of that number. He 
 was elected a member ten years later than myself; and it 
 Avas five or six years later still before he began to make a dis- 
 tinguished mark on our records. He was with me on the 
 Standing Committee in 1853 and 1854; but the Society was 
 not then in the way of doing much for itself, or of having 
 much done for it. It was still restricted and crippled, as it 
 had been from its original organization in 1791, by the want 
 of adequate apartments, and of the means for procuring or 
 improving them. Such rooms as we had were in a condition 
 of confusion and chaos which would baffle and beggar all 
 attempts at description. Our monthly meetings Avere very 
 thinly attended, and communications of importance or interest 
 were as rare as in later years they have been frequent and 
 regular. 
 
 But agreeably to the old proverb, it was darkest near day. 
 A good time was then, at last, just opening for us. In 1855, 
 at the same Annual Meeting at which I was called to succeed 
 Mr. Savage as President, Mr. Deane became Chairman of our 
 Standing Committee ; and from that time until his recent ill- 
 ness and lamented death, he was recognized by us all as 
 one whose services to this Society and to the cause of New 
 England history could hardly be overestimated. 
 
 It is a most striking coincidence that the proceedings of 
 the same Annual Meeting, in 1855, at which he first came to 
 the front, include the acceptance by the Society of the mu- 
 nificent donation of ten thousand dollars from the late Samuel 
 Appleton, as a Fund for the publication of our historical vol- 
 umes, — and, as the very next item, the announcement that 
 the most precious histoiical volume which we could ever hope 
 
12 
 
 to be privileged to publish had been at last discovered and 
 identified in the library of the Bishop of London, at Fulham, 
 and was awaiting our orders ! 
 
 That announcement was made by Mr. Deane himself, who 
 had taken a leading part in the identification of the Bradford 
 Manuscript, and whose subsequent annotation and publication 
 of it, in our Collections, was perhaps the most memorable 
 work of his life. It certainly established his position as the 
 umpire on any and every question relating to the Pilgrim 
 Fathers. 
 
 A few months later the foundation of the Historical Trust 
 Fund was laid by Mr. Sears ; and before another year had 
 expired, the splendid library of Mr. Dowse, so long the envy 
 of all who had ever seen it or heard of it, was presented to 
 us by its venerable owner as the closing act of his remark- 
 able life. 
 
 I need not say that this sudden change in the condition and 
 prospects of the Society involved as much of care and of 
 labor as it did of gratification and gratitude. I almost ache 
 anew as I recall the work which devolved on the officers and 
 members associated with me at that time. Most happil}'-, 
 however, there were found in our little number — then limited 
 by law to sixty for the whole State — those who were willing 
 and capable, and who entered on the work with enthusiasm, 
 and carried it along to a successful completion. I may name 
 especially Chandler Robbins, Richard Frothingham, Nathaniel 
 B. Shurtleff, George Livermore, and Charles Deane. And of 
 these five, I cannot hesitate to say, without any fear of being 
 accounted invidious, that in view of the length, the variety, 
 and the intrinsic value of his services, Charles Deane was the 
 most important of them all. Had his dear friend, George 
 Livermore, been spared to us longer, he might haply have 
 contended for the pre-eminence. His intervention with Mr. 
 Dowse, and his provisio'n as one of Mr. Dowse's executors for 
 the arrangement and preservation of the library which Mr. 
 Dowse had given us, can never be forgotten. But he him- 
 self, were he living, would agree with me that the editing of 
 the Bradford volume, the careful collation of the Belknap 
 and Hutchinson papers, the preparation of the two volumes 
 of our earliest history, and of so many of the volumes of our 
 
13 
 
 later Proceedings, and the numerous excellent memoirs of 
 deceased associates, of which he was the author, taken in 
 connection with his long and faithful service as our Record- 
 ing Secretary, have fairly entitled Mr. Deane to the foremost 
 place among our working members during the forty years of 
 his membership. 
 
 I have said nothing of his services in other connections, — 
 to the American Antiquarian Society, to the Boston Athe- 
 nseum, and to other institutions. I have said nothing of the 
 honors which he won abroad and at home, — his election as a 
 fellow of the London Society of Antiquaries, and his degree as 
 a Doctor of Laws and as a Master of Historical Study at the 
 two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Harvard College. I 
 have said nothing of his characteristic qualities as an historian 
 or as a man, — his untiring research, his unfailing accuracy, 
 his rigid historical exactness, which " nothing extenuated nor 
 set down aught in malice," his amiable and obliging disposi- 
 tion, his private virtues, his Christian character; — I leave all 
 these for those who may follow me. But I can hardly forego 
 the opportunity of adding that a beautiful copy of an old illus- 
 trated edition of the Bible, in which he had inscribed my name 
 with his own not long before his death, and which has now 
 been most kindly transferred from his library to my own, has 
 furnished me with a touching reminder that my affectionate 
 regard for him was reciprocated to the last. 
 
 It only remains for me to second the tribute of Dr. Ellis. 
 
 Mr. Charles F. Adams spoke as follows : — 
 
 I must confess, Mr. Pi-esident, to a feeling of strangeness, 
 and I might almost say of presumption, as I find m3^self in 
 answer to your call following you and Mr. Winthrop in pay- 
 ing such tribute as I may to the memory of Mr. Deane ; for 
 I have always been accustomed to regard myself as still a 
 young member of the Society, while you, Mr. Winthrop, and 
 Mr. Deane had already, when I was first introduced into its 
 rooms, been active in its work and prominent on its rolls for 
 more than a quarter of a century. None the less I am re- 
 minded of the passage of time, not only by the event we are 
 here to commemorate, but by the fact that though my own 
 
14 
 
 entrance into the Society seems so recent, yet more than half 
 the names of those then upon the roll have since been ob- 
 literated from it by death. The last published volume of our 
 Proceedings shows that already I am far up towards the head 
 of that procession which is ever silently moving whither Mr. 
 Deane is now gone. 
 
 But the mere mention of that first morning when I found 
 ray way into the rooms of the Society brings back Mr. Deane 
 to my mind. It was then, so far as I now can recollect, that 
 I made his acquaintance. Possibly I had known him earlier, 
 but if so I fail to recall the fact. I came to the rooms of the 
 Society as a novice about to make my first attempt at histori- 
 cal investigation ; for that deluge of centennial and quarter- 
 millennial eloquence which has during the last fifteen years 
 submerged the land, and which only now holds out the first 
 promise of subsiding for a time, was then about to begin. For 
 some reason, which I cannot now account for, I was invited by 
 the town of Weymouth to deliver an address in commemora- 
 tion of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the perma- 
 nent settlement of the place ; for Wessagusset, as Weymouth 
 was called in the early records, came in the order of age next 
 to Pljmiouth among Massachusetts towns, and the quarter- 
 millennial celebration of the Old Colony had occurred only 
 four years before. I came to the Society's rooms to learn 
 something of Wessagusset and of the early days of New 
 England, — matters about which I was, as it now seems to me, 
 singularly uninformed ; and, fortunately for me, on the thresh- 
 old of my inquiries I met Mr. Deane. Meeting him, though 
 of course I knew it not till later, made that one of the fortu- 
 nate days of my life, for well do I remember the manner in 
 which he extended to me his aid. Especially do I recall the 
 gentle consideration with which, during the days which fol- 
 lowed, he received my crude suggestions, and how kindly and 
 imperceptibly to myself he guided me into the paths in which 
 I should go. 
 
 To the delivery of that Weymouth address I owed my elec- 
 tion as a member of this Society. After that, whenever com- 
 bined occasion and leisure led me to wander in the field of 
 historical research, I was in constant intercourse with Mr. 
 Deane. I have served with him also on committees of this 
 
15 
 
 Society, especially upon the committee which, a few years ago, 
 caused the index to the first twenty volumes of its Proceedings 
 to be prepared. I think the suggestion that those Proceedings 
 should be thus indexed was first made by me ; but Mr. Deane 
 was associated with me as the committee having the matter in 
 charge, and it is hardly necessary to add that all the really 
 valuable work done was done by him. 
 
 Of his familiarity with the records and proceedings of the 
 Society, its publications, its traditions, and its unwritten usages 
 and history, it is needless for me to speak. No one knew 
 them as he knew them ; no one is likely to have an equal 
 knowledge of them again. It was he who first annotated a 
 publication of the Society, and I remember his once telling me 
 that though in pursuing this course with Bradford's History 
 he but followed the example of Mr. Savage in the notes to his 
 Winthrop, yet Mr. Savage did not encourage his so doing. 
 The old student of New England history was, he added, over- 
 eager to know what Bradford had said, and the practice of 
 annotating the publications of the Society was, moreover, in 
 his eyes an innovation of questionable expediency. The only 
 regret we now feel is that Mr. Deane in this matter allowed 
 himself to be influenced even by the age and authorit}' of 
 Savage. But for that there is reason to believe the pages 
 of Bradford would have been enriched far more than they 
 now are by the wealth of learning which their editor was no 
 less ready than able to lavish upon them. 
 
 And here, Mr. President, let me say that while I wholly 
 concur in the praise you and Mr. Winthrop have given, and 
 which others may give to Mr. Deane in this regard, I cannot 
 but think that so far as Bradford's History was concerned he 
 left his work unfinished. It was a matter on which I often 
 talked with him. I was most solicitous that the great mass of 
 detailed knowledge of our early history possessed by him should 
 not be lost, and so I continually urged him to bring out as 
 his magnum ojms a new edition — an edition de luxe — of Brad- 
 ford, in two volumes, to be known for all time as " Deane's 
 Bradford," into the notes of which he should garner up his 
 stores. The idea seemed always to commend itself to him, 
 and repeatedly he assured me that the thing should be done. 
 At last, a year or more ago, I met him one day on Washington 
 
16 
 
 Street, opposite the old State House ; and, as was our wont, 
 we stopped and exchanged a few words. Again I referred 
 to " Deane's Bradford," and asked him when the work was to 
 begin. Then for the first time I noticed a changed expression 
 in his face. He seemed to have aged since I had last met him, 
 and his reply foreshadowed the end. He simply said, " Ah, 
 yes ; I intended to do that, but it is now too late." And as I 
 turned and walked on with a saddened feeling, I realized that 
 " Deane's Bradford " was always to remain a want in New 
 England historical work, — to my mind then and now an 
 hiatus valde dejiendus. 
 
 In earlier years — and my only regret is that the thing did 
 not more frequently occur — it was my good fortune often to 
 consult with Mr. Deane ; and I do not think it would have 
 been possible to consult with one whose methods were more 
 calculated to excite respect. He was a natural historical 
 investigator. He had a calling that way. To me he seemed 
 to have been over the whole field of early New England 
 history, and his mind resembled some choice cabinet filled 
 with many pigeon-holes, in each of which, properly labelled 
 and docketed, was stored away some mental memorandum re- 
 lating to subjects which, at one time or another, had been 
 made by him matter of investigation. When one of these 
 subjects came up, he as it were would open the cabinet of 
 his mind, and produce from the proper pigeon-hole all that re- 
 lated to that subject. He never seemed at a loss ; he never 
 forgot ; he was never mistaken. Particularly do I remember 
 two examples of this. In preparing, some years ago, a paper 
 on Sir Christopher Gardiner, which I read before the Society, 
 I vaguely recalled having somewhere seen a reference made to 
 the loose moral conditions existing at an earl}^ period among 
 the fishermen of Maine. I wanted the reference, but a search 
 for i»t seemed almost hopeless. I did not know where first to 
 look. I merely remembered having somewhere in the course 
 of my researches seen such an allusion, which in a general 
 way I was able to describe. In my perplexity I happened to 
 meet Mr. Deane, and stated the case to him. Well do I re- 
 member the smile which played over his face, and the bright, 
 kindly look which lighted up his eyes as he heard of my per- 
 plexity. And here let me add that no one who ever knew 
 
17 
 
 Mr. Deane well is likely to forget that pleasant, friendly smile, 
 and the bright kindly look of his eyes. They broke on you 
 like sunshine ; and the best thing about them was that you 
 felt they did but reflect the nature within. When I say that 
 a half-hour passed with Mr. Deane seemed to warm up a whole 
 day and leave a bright mark for memory on it, like a ray of 
 sunlight on some vanishing point in the horizon, — when I say 
 this, I fancy I am only expressing a feeling in my own case 
 which will call forth a sympathetic response in the minds of 
 many others. He had an expression of his own, which was 
 luminous as well as genial. The mere memory of it will 
 always make pleasant for me the rooms of the Society. 
 
 But to return to the incident of which I was speaking, — 
 as I mentioned my perplexity to him, Mr. Deane's face lighted 
 up, and he instantly replied, " Ah, yes ; that is contained in 
 such and such a report, made at such and such a time. Wait, 
 I will bring it to you " ; and stepping to a neighboring book- 
 case he took down a volume, and turned at once to the very 
 passage I wanted. The other occasion was of a similar na- 
 ture, and my inquiries related to some early New Hampshire 
 worthy who bore the title of captain, but what his name was 
 I cannot now recall. I had chanced upon this personage in 
 the course of my investigations, and prepared a note in regard 
 to him. Fortunately for me, I submitted my work to Mr. 
 Deane. He glanced over it, and said at once, " Yes ; I see you 
 
 are trying to support the theories of Mr. ." I then 
 
 learned for the first time that there had been controversy over 
 the person in question, and Mr. Deane knew all about it; in- 
 deed, had himself, I think, taken part in the controversy. I 
 assured him I wished only to obtain the facts, and if he would 
 tell me what the facts were I should be only too pleased to in- 
 corporate them, so far as in me lay, into history. He accord- 
 ingly reshaped what I had written, and I have no doubt that 
 in accepting the form in which he left it I hit as nearly as 
 might be upon the truth. ' 
 
 If my understanding of Mr. Deane's life is correct, he aban- 
 doned business at a comparatively early age, and then, enjoy- 
 ing an ample competency which enabled him to devote himself 
 to chosen pursuits, he passed the remainder of life in those 
 researches for which Nature had peculiarly adapted him. To 
 
18 
 
 my mind this constitutes what may fairly be described as an 
 ideally successful career. There are some lines, written, I 
 think, by the Oriental scholar, Sir William Jones, which I 
 have not seen for very many years, and accordingly I shall 
 doubtless quote them wrong, — many of those here are prob- 
 ably familiar with them and could correct me, — but they run 
 in my memory thus : — 
 
 " On nurse's knee, a naked, new-born child, 
 
 Weeping thou sat'st, while all around thee smiled. 
 So live that, sinking in the last long sleep, 
 
 Thou mayest smile, while all around thee weep." 
 
 To me these lines, fi'om birth to death, have always seemed 
 to have concentrated in them the essence of a successful life ; 
 the idea of consciously approaching the end, and then, as one 
 naturally would, looking back in review of the whole only to 
 pass smiling away, realizing that as life had been given for en- 
 joyment, you had also enjoyed it to the full, deriving your 
 keenest enjoyment from the happy and useful exercise of the 
 best powers with which Nature had endowed you. This was 
 given to Mr, Deane. Retiring from business pursuits and the 
 necessity which compels so many, whether they desire to do 
 so or not, to waste their lives in earning a living, — retiring 
 from this business of earning a living while the sun still stood 
 for him in mid-day sky, there came the long, contented, happy, 
 busy afternoon, as that sun gradually drew to the horizon ; 
 and as it sank little by little, it seemed ever to shine upon him, 
 as he sat within the walls of his library, with a mellower and 
 a more golden light. There, within those walls, surrounded 
 by the books he loved, which may truly be said in his case to 
 have been not only for himself but for his friends, it was given 
 him to grow old through years of usefulness and contentment. 
 He had his cares and sorrows ; that goes without saying. 
 From them no man is exempt. None the less he had more, 
 far more, of all that is best worth living for than is often 
 given to those who seek the rewards and enjoyments of exist- 
 ence in noisier, more dusty, and more frequented paths. He 
 was a world, and a happy world, within himself. 
 
 Therefore, meeting here as we now have met, with a sense 
 upon us of the absence of one whom all respected, and all who 
 
19 
 
 knew admired and even loved, I think we cannot feel that we 
 would have it other than it is. In the case of Mr. Deane we 
 have seen the peaceful ending of a blameless, useful, and 
 happy life, after years of prosperous tranquillity passed in the 
 uninterrupted enjoyment and exercise of the choicest faculties 
 with which Nature had endowed him. All this is so ; but none 
 the less his death has left in this Society a void which cannot 
 be filled. 
 
 Mr. Stephen Salisbury was called on, as a repre- 
 sentative of the American Antiquarian Society, of which 
 Mr. Deane was also a valued officer. 
 
 Mr. President, — The American Antiquarian Society, feel- 
 ing that it had suffered a peculiarly severe loss in the death 
 of Dr. Deane, who had been a member thirty-nine years, 
 a member of the Committee of Publication thirty-four years, a 
 member of the Council twenty-five years, and Secretary of 
 Domestic Correspondence for ten years, held a special meet- 
 ing of the Council on the 27th ultimo to take action com- 
 memorative of their beloved associate. The President alluded 
 to the many services of Dr. Deane to the Society, which 
 comprised three formal reports of the Council and seven- 
 teen miscellaneous addresses and monographs, all of which 
 were prepared with the care and completeness which char- 
 acterized all Dr. Deane's literary work ; and he further 
 offered resolutions which set forth the many ways in which 
 Dr. Deane had aided this Society, and expressed the grati- 
 tude with which his memory is cherished by his associates 
 of the Council, stating the opinion that to the constant vigi- 
 lance and efforts of Dr. Deane, much of the interest shown by 
 the Society in purely historic research is justly due, while to 
 him they are particularly indebted for a conspicuous example 
 of a conscientious and unprejudiced historical method. 
 
 Senator Hoar seconded the resolutions, and spoke eloquently 
 and with great feeling of the very high and almost unique 
 position occupied by Dr. Deane among literary critics, in his 
 remarkable equipoise of judgment and industry of investiga- 
 tion, which,' owing to his breadth of vision and fairness of dis- 
 position, enabled him to do full justice to those from whom he 
 
20 
 
 differed in opinion. Mr. Nathaniel Paine and Mr, Charles A. 
 Chase, of the Committee of Publication, referred to their great 
 admiration of Dr. Deane as an editor and critic of the English 
 language, as well as of their respect and love for him as a man. 
 Mr. J. Evarts Green then paid a tribute to Dr. Deane's in- 
 tellectual worth as estimated by a managing editor of the 
 Press. 
 
 From the date of Dr. Deane's connection with the American 
 Antiquarian Society, may be noted the commencement of the 
 practice of offering unsolicited historical papers at stated meet- 
 ings, other than the formal reports which were expected. Dr. 
 Deane was nearly always present at meetings of the Society, 
 and frequently had prepared in advance something of interest ; 
 and those papers now enrich our publications, and many of 
 them were afterwards privately printed. The officers of the 
 Society have frequently consulted Dr. Deane as a mentor in 
 cases of difficult administration, and have found that his judg- 
 ment was uniformly wise, and was dictated " with malice to- 
 ward none, but with charity to all." His genial presence was 
 a benediction, and few could withstand the power of his open 
 face and patient, intelligent couitesy. The character of gen- 
 tleman was so natural to Dr. Deane as never to be oppressive, 
 which is often the case when that quality is the result of effort 
 or training. The American Antiquarian Society feel that 
 their sorrow is second only to that of the older society, which 
 has enjoyed the constant and daily co-operation and supervi- 
 sion of an officer at once so faithful and so considerate. 
 
 Mr. Justin Winsor then said : — 
 
 It is at least forty years, Mr. President, since I first knew 
 our lost friend. I was then a callow youth, more aspiring than 
 wise, stirred with an impulse to do something — I scarcely 
 knew what — in historical investigation, having derived that 
 impulse, as I well remember, at the knee of an aged and near 
 relative, who was accustomed to talk to me of the olden times. 
 It was in the days before even Dr. Deane was a member of 
 this Society, and we both came to its old rooms to pursue 
 such search as was permitted in the manuscripts of its Cabi- 
 net. Here it was I first encountered my friend. I was much 
 
21 
 
 his junior, and I needed the beneficent serenity of his smile, 
 the kindly advice, the sustaining help, which I readily got 
 from him on the strength of a merely casual acquaintance. I 
 never was quite absent from his influence ever after ; but 
 for many years next succeeding, when my studies lay in quite 
 other spheres than those of American history, I never met 
 him but to feel the better for the contact. 
 
 Thirty years passed before I was called to Cambridge and 
 became his fellow-townsman. Acquaintance deepened into 
 friendship, and such ties soon took on the strength of affec- 
 tion. It so happened that it was given to me at this time to 
 undertake the control of some large historical works. I had 
 the less hesitancy, because I felt that such a mentor was near 
 me. When a little later he offered to me a building-site on a 
 corner of his estate, and I built myself a house there, our in- 
 tercourse became almost that of members of one family. Dur- 
 ing the progress of the works to which I have referred, he 
 was constantly my adviser, and in some sections of them his 
 judgment was compelling. I could not, and would not, dis- 
 pute it. I saw him almost daily. Often of an evening I have 
 gone across the grass to his house, to lay before him some his- 
 torical problem which had arrested me. I found in him a 
 relief. He could show me authorities I had overlooked, and 
 place for me in their true relations others of which I could 
 tell him. If I left him with the question unsolved, I was 
 pretty sure to find the next morning, when I came down to 
 my desk, a note upon it awaiting me, telling me of investi- 
 gations that had kept him from bed perhaps, and they were 
 alwa3^s pertinent and definitive. 
 
 I never knew any one more conscientious in investigation. 
 His mental movements were far from rapid, but they were 
 sure. He never left any stone unturned in whatever might 
 be the field of his inquiry. " The mills of God grind slowly, 
 but they grind exceeding small." Here was a man, true to 
 his heirship as one of God's creatures, grinding slowly ; 
 but there was not so much as an atom which remained 
 uncrushed. 
 
22 • 
 
 The Hon. Samuel C. Cobb said : — 
 
 Mr. President, — If I consulted my own inclination at this 
 time, I should remain silent. It would be more in consonance 
 with the spirit which now possesses me, that I should listen to 
 others, who have come here to pay their tributes of respect 
 and esteem to the memory of the late first Vice-President of 
 this Society, rather than to raise my voice in this presence. 
 But I yield to a request which I have received, to say a word 
 in regard to our late friend and associate as a man of busi- 
 ness. My personal acquaintance with Mr. Deane covered a 
 period of nearly twenty years, beginning soon after his retire- 
 ment from active mercantile life. As directors of one of the 
 older insurance companies of this city, we met frequently. In 
 the discharge of the duties of that office, as in the execution of 
 all other trusts, he was constant, assiduous, and painstaking. 
 He combined great practical wisdom with a keen discrimina- 
 tion in solving the manifold problems of the financial and 
 commercial world. 
 
 If at times he seemed a little slow to apprehend a business 
 proposition, once he understood it, he was certain to reach a 
 correct solution of it. A man of the highest sense of honor, 
 of a matured and conscientious judgment, of unswerving in- 
 tegrity, and of unsullied character, his influence for good was 
 felt wherever his business relations brought him in contact 
 with others. It was in the field of historical research, how- 
 ever, rather than in the business world, that our friend found 
 his greatest satisfaction and achieved his greatest success. 
 
 Mr. Deane will be remembered as an honorable, exem- 
 plary, and useful Christian gentleman. He was a good citizen 
 and a true friend. We may not venture to intrude upon the 
 sacred precincts of the home which was illumined by the 
 transcendent beauty and loveliness of his character. 
 
 Who of us will ever forget his benign countenance, his win- 
 some smile, or his cordial manner? A good man has gone 
 from among us, — a man who performed his part in all the 
 varied relations of life with honor, ability, and discretion. 
 
 Dr. William Everett said that the charm of Mr. Deane's 
 familiar intercourse, alluded to by the other speakers, was 
 
especially conspicuous in his treatment of young men who 
 showed an interest in his own favorite studies. Young men 
 who enter on such fields as historical study are often received 
 by their elders in those pursuits in a manner neither generous 
 nor wise. Mr. Deane's reception of young historians and book- 
 lovers was absolutely free from exclusiveness, patronage, or 
 petting. He treated them exactly as he would his own con- 
 temporaries, opening to them the treasures of his library and 
 his mind with a total forgetfulness of Ihe fifteen or twenty or 
 twenty-five years which separated him from them. This genial 
 and brotherly treatment, while it was the best encouragement 
 to the young man to pursue his studies, only increased his pro- 
 found respect for his elder, which would have been shaken by 
 any dwelling on the difference of years. 
 
 Dr. Samuel A. Green" said : — 
 
 I am tempted, Mr. President, to relate a circumstance con- 
 nected with Mr. Deane at the very last meeting which he ever 
 attended. As is known to every gentleman here, this was the 
 Annual Meeting on April 11, which had been called at twelve 
 o'clock, instead of three o'clock, so that the members might en- 
 joy the hospitality of the President during the afternoon. On 
 that occasion there was a certain paleness about Mr. Deane's 
 lips and cheeks, quite noticeable ; and more than once at that 
 meeting my attention was called to this appearance. Im- 
 mediately after the adjournment, I went to him and asked how 
 he felt, when he said, " Not well at all," accompanying the 
 remark with a characteristic gesture of the hand, which you all 
 remember, over the region of the heart. I told him at once 
 that he must go straight home, and give up the President's 
 reception ; and that I was talking not only as a friend, but as 
 a physician. He replied that Dr. Ellis would not understand 
 the reasons of his absence, and that, if he was well enough to 
 be at the meeting, he ought to be well enough to go to his 
 house. To this I offered to make the necessary explanation 
 to Dr. Ellis, who certainly would agree with me in the advice 
 I volunteered ; when he replied that he would himself ex- 
 plain matters, and requested me to say nothing about it. The 
 conversation occupied less time than it takes now to relate 
 
24 
 
 it ; and the result was that he stayed away from the recep- 
 tion and went at once to Cambridge. On reaching Harvard 
 Square, he took a carriage for his own house in Sparks Street, 
 and never afterward left it again during his life. 
 
 Rev. Edmund F. Slafter then said : — 
 
 Mr. President, — I rise not with the hope of adding any- 
 thing important to what has already been said. But Dr. 
 Deane's spirit and method were so admirably illustrated in an 
 incident that came under my own observation some fifteen or 
 more years ago, that I cannot refrain from a brief allusion to it. 
 
 I had been occupied some time in examining the organiza- 
 tions in England for establishing colonies in America before 
 any actual settlements had been made, when I came to a very 
 complicated puzzle, which I was wholly unable to fathom. 
 At length, having exhausted all expedients, I wrote a note of 
 inquiry to Mr. Deane. I received a prompt reply, in which he 
 said, " Referring to m}' notes, I find I had written as follows." 
 He then quoted from his own manuscript what furnished a 
 solution of my diflBculty, at once satisfactory and complete. 
 
 I was greatly impressed then, as I have been many times 
 since, with the unselfish readiness and generous freedom with 
 which he placed the results of his own researches at the dis- 
 posal of others to whom he was not under the remotest 
 obligation. 
 
 I saw, too, that his method of study was to illuminate the 
 dark passages of history whenever he found them and as he 
 went along, incorporating his conclusions into rich and perti- 
 nent annotations to be used whenever they were needed at 
 any future time. 
 
 But there was another side to Dr. Deane's character, of 
 which I know a little ; others doubtless know much more. 
 
 A few years ago a friend whom I knew well, was brought 
 into association with him in the appropriation and dispersion 
 of charities. His spontaneous generosity, his warm and ready 
 sympathy, and his almost womanly tenderness left on the 
 mind of my friend an indelible impression of the exalted ex- 
 cellence and goodness of his heart. 
 
 Dr. Deane, like truly great and noble souls, was in accord 
 
25 
 
 with the refined, the cultivated, and the learned ; while his 
 sympathies reached down to the poor, the depressed, and the 
 suffering. With the one and the other he has left a fragrant 
 memory that will be long cherished as a precious inheritance. 
 
 " Far may we search before we find 
 A heart so manly or so kind." 
 
 Professor Changing spoke substantially as follows : — 
 
 As one of the j^oungest members of this Society, I wish to 
 give my testimony as to the influence exerted by our late asso- 
 ciate on the young men of the present day. It has been well 
 said Dr. Deane put forth no extended historical work, unless, 
 indeed, his edition of Bradford's "Plymouth Plantation" might 
 be so consider&d. But he did produce much work of great 
 value. And I venture to assert that his scholarly, conscien- 
 tious, and historically truthful papers have done much to place 
 the study of American histor}- on a sound and healthy basis in 
 this country. I well remember when fresh from college I 
 made what seemed to me an important historical discovery. 
 Full of the importance of this discovery, I went to Dr. Deane 
 and laid the matter before him. He listened patiently and 
 long to my exposition of the facts as they appeared to me. 
 He then asked me if I had consulted a certain book. I an- 
 swered in the affirmative. And then he proceeded to pull 
 down from his shelves book after book in refutation of the 
 statement contained in the first authority. It did not occur to 
 me till an hour or two later that my genial friend had in this 
 pleasant fashion exploded my carefully elaljorated theory. 
 
 Nor did Dr. Deane's sympathies with the young and inex- 
 perienced become chilled as he advanced in honors and years. 
 For the past few years it has been my fortune to teach our 
 colonial history in the college at Cambridge, and I can affirm 
 from my personal observation that he has stimulated by his 
 writings and words more than a score of young men to do 
 good honest historical work within the last eight years. And 
 how can any master of history use the gifts with which he has 
 been endowed better than by stimulating others to work as he 
 himself has worked ? 
 
26 
 
 The Eecording Secretary, Rev. Edward J. Young, 
 D.D., said : — 
 
 I have brought with me the hist letter which I received 
 from Dr. Deane, and which is probably one of the last he ever 
 wrote. The handwriting shows great weakness, but the tone 
 of it is characteristic of the man. It relates to a little book 
 upon which he had made some remarks that are printed in 
 the last volume of Proceedings. 
 
 Cambridge, Friday, 10th May, 1889. 
 Dear Dr. Young, — Very sorry not to have seen you when you 
 called. I have been trying to write you for two weeks, but had not 
 strength. I wanted to say that that little Morrell tract had better be 
 omitted. I have not strength to edit it. Near the foot of the page on 
 which I speak of the tract in a former Serial, I say it will appear at the 
 end of the volume. Those words had better be cancelled by Wilson in 
 the plate, and all will be right, and what I say about the tract all con- 
 sistent. Sorry to trouble you. When you get old and rheumatic I will 
 do as much for you, if I am able. Glad Mr. Winthrop got back safely 
 from New York. Take care of that precious man. I have just been 
 reading the excellent speeches of Dr. Ellis and Mr. Winthrop in the 
 " Post," as made at the Society yesterday. Sorry I could not be 
 present. 
 
 Faithfully yours, Charles Deane. 
 
 I may be permitted to add a word in reference to the warm 
 personal relations which existed between my father and Dr. 
 Deane. Not long after the " Chronicles of the Pilgrims " was 
 published, there appeared in one of the newspapers a notice of 
 the book, signed " C. D." The article showed such intelli- 
 gence and familiarity with the subject, that my father was 
 eager to know who was the author of it. On inquiry he found 
 that it was written by a young man who was then a commis- 
 sion merchant in Boston. He immediately sought him out, 
 and that was the beginning of a friendship which was inti- 
 mate and life-long ; and my father nominated Mr. Deane as 
 a Eesident Member of our Historical Society. 
 
27 
 Mr. R. C. WiNTHROP, Jr., then said : — 
 
 A number of members who much desired to be present this 
 evening have been prevented from doing so, either by en- 
 gagements of long standing, or by the dehcacy of their health, 
 or by the inclemency of the weather, which has caused several 
 of them to send excuses at the last moment. Two of them, 
 Mr. Parkman and Mr. Saltonstall, had fully intended to ad- 
 dress us. I will not take up time by reading all the letters 
 which have been received by me or by officers of the Society 
 on the subject of this meeting, but I have selected three 
 characteristic ones. The first is from Col. Henry Lee. 
 
 Brookline, Dec. 3, 1889. 
 
 My dear Mr. Winthrop, — My physician, who has held me by 
 the throat ever since Mr. Forbes's funeral, absolutely forbids my going 
 forth this evening. I am bitterly disappointed, as I held Dr. Deane 
 in esteem and affection, and I long to listen to the tributes to him and 
 to respond amen. We — all the descendants of the Puritans — are 
 virtuous, but we are not all attractive ; and Dr. Deane was. We all 
 long to cease from our labors, and dream to find happiness in mere re- 
 pose ; but many an honest merchant or bold navigator reaches this 
 long-sought haven only to find himself stranded, like his own " wealthy 
 Andrew, dock'd in sand." Dr. Deane, like a philosopher, realized his 
 dream of happiness by change of occupation, by a successful transfer 
 of his energies. 
 
 Meeting him, years ago, again and again in the Cambridge cars, my 
 curiosity was piqued to discover who was this gentleman with a kind 
 of Sir Henry Wotton aspect, an air of dignity and repose, the look of 
 one who in some cool, half-shaded library had beheld " the bright 
 countenance of truth in the quiet and still air of delightful studies," and 
 I did not rest until I discovered. I sought his acquaintance, which I 
 have valued more and more highly ever since. 
 
 Yours truly, Henry Lee. 
 
 The second letter is from one who was in former years a 
 familiar figure at our meetings, but whom, by reason of his 
 repeated absences in Europe, and his term of service as a 
 cabinet-minister in Washington, we have long missed. I 
 mean Judfje Endicott. 
 
28 
 
 Salem, Not. 27, 1889. 
 My dear Winthrop, — I regret to say that I have engagements 
 early next week which render it impossible for me to attend the meet- 
 ing of the Society at your house on Tuesday evening. I am especially 
 gratified that you should have asked me to say a few words on the 
 great loss we have sustained in the death of Dr. Deane, and if I could 
 be present I should take much satisfaction in doing so. Though dur- 
 ing recent years I have seldom met him, yet I formerly often had oc- 
 casion to consult him in regard to historical questions ; for you know 
 that the law sometimes turns upon a question of history, especially in 
 Massachusetts, where the methods and usages of our ancestors on pub- 
 lic matters, and a thorough examination of all the precedents, have 
 often settled disputed questions in the courts. I can remember one 
 case where Dr. Deane's sound learning and ready judgment may be 
 said to have been of service in the administration of justice. I could 
 recall other instances, did space and time allow ; but at this moment 
 we are probably all thinking more of the personal quality and influence 
 of the man, his gracious manners, his ready friendship, his open mind 
 absolutely fair, the confidence he inspired, the good work he gave in 
 every labor and for every object to which the Society is devoted, and 
 of the grievous personal and public loss that has befallen us. Hoping 
 and believing that others will do justice to the subject and the occa- 
 sion, I remain. 
 
 Very truly yours, William C. Endicott. 
 
 The third letter is from Dr. Henry M. Dexter, perhaps the 
 most competent living critic of historical material relating to 
 Plymouth Colony. In it he says : — 
 
 I recall with pain a positive engagement to be out of town on 
 Tuesday evening. I have been made personally so much Dr. Deane's 
 debtor by many undeserved personal kindnesses that I should con- 
 demn myself for serious ingratitude did I not, in spirit at least, join 
 most heartily and tenderly in all expressions which may take shape on 
 the occasion. I have always felt that his judgment as to any point in 
 connection with Plymouth history was worth more than that of any 
 other living man known to me. He always seemed to me about that, 
 as about everything else, to be a wonderfully exact man. He knew 
 all the jots and tittles of a subject, and he always seemed to know them 
 off-hand and at once, without going to the books, as most of us have 
 to go. I never detected him in a particle of that prejudgment which 
 is inhospitable to new evidence ; and J have often thought how mag- 
 
29 
 
 nificent it would have been if a journal of Brewster or of Robinson 
 could have been found in some forgotten heap of old papers, cover- 
 ing those vital years and pregnant events, and if we could have had 
 Dr. Deane edit it with that microscopic knowledge of all the related 
 facts and that loving tolerance toward every aspect which the most 
 poly-sided subject may present. But, alas ! such a joyrnal has never 
 yet turned up, and such editing as he would have given it is now no 
 longer possible. 
 
 The Treasurer, Mr. Charles C. Smith, was called on 
 by the President, as one who had been closely associated 
 with Dr. Deane for many years ; but he declined to 
 speak. It has been thought proper, however, in order 
 to complete the record of the tributes to our late asso- 
 ciate by members of the Society, to insert here an ar- 
 ticle written by Mr. Smith, which appeared in " The 
 Boston Post " of November 14. 
 
 The death of Mr. Charles Deane, the distinguished histori- 
 cal scholar, which occurred at Cambridge yesterday morning, 
 was not unexpected by his personal friends and his associates 
 in the studies to which he was so strongly attached. For 
 more than seven months he had been confined to his house 
 with gradually failing strength ; and now has come a not un- 
 welcome release from a struggle between life and death which 
 only a naturally strong constitution could have sustained so 
 long. But the close of a life so fruitful in work of great and 
 permanent value, and which it might reasonably have been 
 hoped would be prolonged with full vigor for another decade, 
 will be felt as a loss by every student of our early colonial his- 
 tory, and especially by every student of the earliest history of 
 Virginia and Massachusetts. In his knowledge of the early 
 history of these colonies, including the separate history of the 
 Plymouth Colony, Mr. Deane had no peer; and the numerous 
 monographs in which he made clear one or another obscure 
 point in their history must forever remain monuments of his 
 iinwearied diligence in research, the soundness of his judg- 
 ment, and his ardent love of truth. 
 
30 
 
 Mr. Deane was born at Biddeford, in what was then the 
 District of Maine, on the 10th of November, 1813, and com- 
 pleted the preparatory studies for admission to Bowdoin Col- 
 lege at the usual age ; but in consequence of the death in 
 college of an elder brother his plan of life was changed, and 
 at the age of nineteen he came to Boston to enter on a busi- 
 ness career. For this he was not less qualified than he was 
 for a literary life. In a few years he became a partner in the 
 great dry-goods firm of Waterston, Pray & Co., and in 1864 
 he retired from active business with an ample fortune. After 
 that time he devoted himself mainl}' to historical studies, to 
 which he had already given much attention. In 1849 he was 
 chosen a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and 
 two years later he was made a member of the American Anti- 
 quarian Society. In 1856 he received from Harvard College 
 the honorary degree of A.M. In 1871 Bowdoin College con- 
 ferred on him the degree of LL.D. ; and in 1886, on the 
 two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Har- 
 vard College, he received from the University the same hon- 
 orary designation, in recognition of his rank as an " antiquary 
 and historian, a master among students of American history." 
 These are only some of the many honors which he worthily 
 won, and wore with rare modesty. 
 
 In the investigation of historical truth, Mr. Deane's mind 
 always worked with absolute precision and accuracy. He 
 was slow and cautious in forming an opinion on disputed 
 questions, and was never hasty to print the results at which 
 he had arrived. But when he had reached a conclusion on 
 any question the most cautious investigators knew that he 
 had probed the matter to the bottom, and that it was scarcely 
 possible to learn anything more on the subject. He had a 
 marvellously retentive and accurate memory. Whatever he 
 had read, heard, or seen he could at once recall in its minutest 
 details, to the confusion of others who thought they remem- 
 bered everything, but whose memories were not so tenacious 
 as his. With a mind so thoroughly stored with the fruits of 
 patient research, largely conducted in his own priceless li- 
 brary, — the richest in early Americana of any private library 
 in this neighborhood, — he had no theories to maintain, and he 
 approached every question with absolute integrity of purpose. 
 
31 
 
 In his relations to other students of history no man could 
 have been more candid or more courteous ; and he was al- 
 ways ready to aid other investigators pursuing- similar lines 
 of inquiry. As a scholar, an associate, and a friend, he has 
 left none but gracious memories. 
 
 For twenty-five years Mr. Deane was an officer of the Mas- 
 sachusetts Historical Society ; and it was in this capacity that 
 his most important literary work was done, though his mas- 
 terly report on Burgoyne's Surrender and other papers were 
 first read before the Antiquarian Society, and he contributed 
 to other publications, besides printing some monographs in- 
 dependently. Eleven volumes of the " Proceedings of the His- 
 torical Society " were issued under his supervision ; and to all 
 of them he contributed important papers. He was at the same 
 time the most active and influential member of the committees 
 charged with the publication of eight of the Society's volumes 
 of Collections. But the work by which he will be longest and 
 most gratefully remembered is his carefully annotated edition 
 of Governor Bradford's manuscript " History of Plymouth 
 Plantation." He procured from England a transcript of this 
 precious manuscript, which had long been buried in the li- 
 brary of the Bishop of London at Fulham ; and he afterward 
 edited it for the Historical Society in a manner which left 
 nothing to be desired. If Mr, Deane had done nothing but 
 publish this volume, his position and rank as an historical 
 scholar would have been secure. But it is only the most im- 
 portant in a long series of works by which he won for himself 
 a foremost place among historical students. An enumeration 
 of them would fill far too much space here, and it is enough 
 to say now that they cover a wide range of topics, and not 
 one of them could well be spared from our historical literature. 
 As a writer Mr. Deane's style was remarkably clear, compact, 
 and direct. With no attempt at rhetorical display and with 
 no needless exhibition of wide and various reading, it was the 
 natural product of a full mind, intent only on carrying con- 
 viction to the minds of other inquirers. 
 
 The minute read by the President was then adopted 
 by a rising vote. 
 
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