PROCEEDINGS FIRST AND SUBSEQUENT ANNUflL UND SPRING MEETINGS FIRST AND SUBSEQUENT ANNUAL DINNERS FROM 1880 TO 1895 INCLUSIVE THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY IN THE CITY OF BROOKLYN ■> AND NAMES OF MEMBERS. VOL. II. Comprising proceedings from 1889 to 1895, inclusive. Printed for the Use of the Society. BROOKLYN. 1896. By transfer OCT 20 1915 CONTENTS VOL II. Tenth Annual Meeting of the Society, 1S89 President's Annual Report. Speeches at Tenth Annual Dinner i88g Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Society, 1890 President's Annual Report Speeches at Eleventh Annual Dinner, 1890 Twelfth Annual Meeting of the Society, 1891 President's Annual Report. Speeches at Twelfth Annual Dinner, 1891 Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the Society, 1892 President's Annual Report Speeches at Thirteenth Annual Dinner, 1892 Puritanism. Address by Mr. H. L. Wayland, D. D., at Spring Meeting, iSq3 Fourteenth Annual Meeting of the Society 1893 President's Annual Report Speeches at Fourteenth Annual Dinner - . 1893 Recovery of Governor Bradford's Lost Manuscript, "History of-) Plimoth Plantation." . . ..,.,. Address by Hon. John Winslow, at Spring Meeting. Fifteenth Annual Meeting of the Society 1894 President's Annual Report. Speeches at Fifteenth Annual Dinner, 1894 The Pilgrim Fathers and the Foundation of Civil Government, } ^^ Address by Professor Homer B. Sprague, at Spring Meeting, . ) Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the Society, 1895 President's Annual Report Speeches at Sixteenth Annual Dinner, 1895 Proceedings on Unveiling a Marble Bust of Hon. Benjamin D. Silli- man, presented to the Society by subscribers. May, 1S95, at Spring Meeting Opening Remarks of Hon. Stewart L. Woodford, President. - Letter from Rev. Timothy Dwight, President Yale University. . Presentation Address by Hon. John Winslow Address by Rev. Richard S. Storrs, D. D., LL.D. Address by Frederic A. Ward, Esq PROCEEDINGS ^T THE Tenth Annual Meeting AND TENTH ANNUAL FESTIVAL OF THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY IN THE CITY OF BROOKLYN. OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, COUNCIL, MEMBERS, STANDING COMMITTEES, AND BY-LAWS OF THE SOCIETY. BROOKLYN. 1890. CONTENTS PAGE. Objects of the Society, .......... 3 Terms of Membership, .......... 3 Past Officers, ............ 4 Officers, ............. 5 Directors, ............ 6 Council, ............. 6 Standing Committees, .......... 7 Report of Tenth Annual Meeting, ........ g Proceedini^s at the Tenth Annual Dinner, ...... 15 Bill of Fare 18 Address of President Willard Bartlett. ig " Hon. William T. Davis, ........ 21 Rev. A. J. F. Behrends, D. D., 27 " Hon. Benj. F. Tracy. ........ 34 " Hon. W. Bourke Cockran, ....... 3g " Rev. E. C. Towne, ........ 46 Certificate of Incorporation, ......... 51 By-Laws, ............. 55 Honorary Members, .......... 61 Life Members, ............ 61 Annual Members, ........... 62 Meetings of Society, ......:.... 67 Form of Bequest, ........... 67 OBJECTS OF THE SOCIETY. The New England Society in the City of Brooklyn is incorporated and organized to commemorate the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers ; to encourage the study of New England History ; to establish a library, and to promote charity, good fellowship and social intercourse among its members. TERMS OF MEMBERSHIP. Admission Fee, . . - . - $10.00 Annual Dues, - - - - - - 5.00 Life Membership, desic/es Admission Fee, - 50.00 Payable at clectioti, except Anmial Dues, which are payable in January of each year. Any member of the Society in good standing may become a Life Member on paying to the Treasurer at one time the sum of fifty dollars ; and thereafter such member shall be exempt from further payment of dues. Any male person of good moral character, who is a native or descendant of a native of any of the New England States, and who is eighteen years old or more, is eligible. If in the judgment of the Board of Directors, they are in need of it, the widow or children of any deceased member shall receive from the funds of the Society a sum equal to five times the amount such deceased member has paid to the Society. The friends of a deceased member are requested to give the Historiographer early information of the time and place of his birth and death, with brief inci- dents of his life, for publication in our annual report. Members who change their address should give the Secretary early notice. ^^ It is desirable to have all worthy gentlemen of New England descent residing in Brooklyn become members of the Society. Members are requested to send application of their friends for membership to the Secretary. Address, THOMAS S. MOORE, Recording Secretary, 102 Broadway, New York. PAST OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY. BENJAMIN D. SILLIMAN. ..... 1880 JOHN WINSLOW, ....... 1887 CALVIN E. PRATT, 1889 Ertusuttvl: WILLIAM B. KENDALL, ..... 1880 3^ecortiin2 Secretaries: ALBERT E. LAMB, ...... 1880 STEPHEN B. NOYES, ...... 1885 ©orresponDmfl Secrctar» : REV. A. P. PUTNAM, ...... 1880 IQistorioflriiptcis : ALDEN J. SPOONER . 1880 STEPHEN B. NOYES, ...... 1884 3B,ibrarfans : REV. W. H. WHITTEMORE, 1880 CHARLES E. WEST 1886 OFFICERS. 1890. President : VVILLARD BARTLETT. Fint Vice-President: Second Vice-President: BENJAMIN F. TRACY. WILLIAM H. LYON. Treasurer : CHARLES N. MANCHESTER. Recording Secretary:, Corresponding Secretary : THOMAS S. MOORE. WILLIAM H. WILLIAMS. Historiographer : PAUL L. FORD. Librarian : DANIEL L. NORTHUP. DIRECTORS. For One Year. Benjamin F. Tracy. A. C. Barnes. Henry W. Slocum. Frederic A. Ward. Nelson G. Carman, Jr. For Two Years. Benjamin D. Silliman. Hiram W. Hunt. George H. Fisher. William H. Williams. Ethan Allen Doty. For Three Years. William H. Lyon. Albert E. Lamb. William B. Kendall. Stewart L. Woodford. J. S. Case. Calvin E. Pratt. John Winslow. For Four Years. WiLLARD BaRTLETT. Chas. N. Manchester, Robert D. Benedict. COUNCIL A. A. Low. A. M. White. S. B. Chittenden. Jr., A. F. Cross. Henry Coffin. Charles Pratt. Thomas H. Rodman. Augustus Storrs. Arthur Mathewson. W. H. Nichols. Francis L. Hine. H. W. Maxwell. Seth Low. Isaac H. Cary. H. H. Wheeler. W. A. White. Darwin R. James. J. R. Cowing. John Claflin. M. W. Robinson. J. S. T. Stranahan. L. S Buknham. Henry Eakl. Jasper W. Gilbert, M. N. Packard. Edward F. Knowlton N. H. Clement. STANDING COMMITTEES. William H. Lyon. Benjamin F. Tracy. Finance . Albert E. Lamb. Charity : J. F. Knapp. Robert D. Benedict . Henry W. Slocum. Invitations : Willard Bartlett. Benj. D. Silliman. John Winslow. Annual Dinner: William U. Williams. James S. Case. Ethan Allen Doty. Publications : Nelson G. Carman, Jr. A. C. Barnes. Frederic A. Ward. Annual Receptions : President and Vice-Presidents. THE TENTH ANNUAL MEETING. The Tenth Annual Meeting of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, was held at the Directors' Room of the Academy of Music, on Wednesday Evening, December nth, 1889. Mr. John Winslow was called to the Chair, and Mr. S. L. Woodford was appointed Secretary. The minutes of the Ninth Annual Meeting, held December 5th, 1888, were read and approved. Mr. Williams made a verbal report from the Dinner Com- mittee. Mr. Manchester, the Treasurer, made his report, showing a balance on hand of $16,721.73, deposited in the following institutions: Brooklyn Savings Bank $3,o45-Oo South Brooklyn Savings Institution 3,047.50 Dime Savings Bank 3,060.00 Williamsburgh Savings Bank, 3,060.00 City Savings Bank 2,620.31 Franklin Trust Co., 1,000.00 Brooklyn Trust Co., , 888.92 $16,721.73 The report was referred to the Finance Committee for audit, and directed then to be filed. 10 The Annual Report of the President was then read, and ordered to be filed and printed in the Annual Report. THE ANNUAL REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT. In submitting this report, required by the By-Laws,! have the pleasure to state that the Society is prosperous, both in its membership and finances. The declared purposes of the Society are to encourage the study of New England history, to establish a library, to pro- mote charity, good fellowship, and social intercourse among its members, and to commemorate the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers. These objects have been kept in view since the organization of the Society. That the success of the last Annual Dinner, both as to the quality of the dinner and the brilliancy and high character of the speakers, was appreciated, is seen in the fact that there are so many applications for tickets to the next dinner. The Society has sought to make this Annual Festival a notable event in Brooklyn, and its success in that respect is generally recognized. The indications are that the next Annual Dinner wall be largely attended. The high standard that the Society has thus far maintained for these annual occasions will be firmly upheld. It is provided by Article 24 of the By-Laws that if, in the judgment of the Directors, they are in need of it, the widow or children of any deceased member shall receive from the funds of the Society a sum equal to five times the amount such deceased member has paid to the Society. There have been several occasions when help in this manner has been given under the direction of the Committee on Charities. The report of the Treasurer shows that there is in the treasury at this date the sum of $16,721.73. Most of this sum is deposited in the five leading savings banks of the City of Brooklyn. The Historiographer's Report shows that four members of the Society have died in the past year. They are as follows: Simeon Baldwin Chittenden, son of Abel and Anna Hart (Baldwin) Chittenden, was born at Guilford, New Haven County, Conn., on the 29th of August, 1814. His family was founded in this country in 1639 by William Chittenden, a native of Cranbrook. County of Kent, England, who was one of the first settlers of Guilford. Mr. Abel Chittenden died while his son was still young, and the boy began his business life in his fourteenth year as a clerk in a store in New Haven, whither he was persuaded to go by his pastor, under II whom he was at the time preparing to enter Yale College. From that time his schooling was confined to such as he could give himself in the scant leisure of a life of hard work ; but it may be said here that this difficult schooling served to develop mental qualities of a very high order, and that both as a speaker and a writer in his maturer years he was the master of a clear, cogent, and often brilliant style ; that his range of expression, the accuracy of his reasoning, the logical order of its development and the luminousness of his illustration, were such as a trained scholar might envy. It may be added, also, that he showed throughout his life a keen appreciation of the value of education, and that the generosity of his gifts, when he had gained wealth, to promote education, was only equalled by the intelligence and foresight with which they were directed. After a few years of business in New Haven, Mr. Chittenden established himself in the wholesale dry goods trade in New York in 1842, and remained in it until 1874, when he retired. During that time his career was an honorable and a prosperous one. He passed unscathed through the commercial and financial crises of 1846, 1857 and 1S73, and won a reputation for scrupulous observance of his obligations, as well as for courage, sagacity and activity. He became connected with a number of financial institutions, was for nearly thirty- three years an active member of the Chamber of Commerce, and a Vice- President from 1867 to 1869 ; one of the founders of the Continental Fire Insur- ance Company and of the Continental Bank ; a Trustee of the United States Trust Company, a Director of the Union Ferry Company, and in several railway companies, and President of the New Haven and New London Railroad Company. In Brooklyn Mr. Chittenden always took a prominent and honorable posi- tion. He was one of the originators of the Union Defence Committee and of the War Fund Committee, and was an incorporator of the Brooklyn Union as an Administration and Union paper in the Rebellion. These, and other public services, were recognized by his own city by an election to Congress in 1874 and two successive re-elections to that body. In Congress he at once took a prominent position on the finances of the country, and was one of the most out- spoken in favor of a sound currency. Mr. Chittenden was twice married, hi.s first wife being Miss Mary E. Hart- well, daughter of Sherman Hartwell, by whom he had a son and daughter, the former of whom survives him. His second wife was Cornelia Baldwin Colton, widow of Rev. Walter Colton, of Philadelphia. He died April 14th, 1889, in the seventy-sixth year of his age. Oliver Ayer Gager died at his residence, 120 Hicks Street, on Sunday, October 20th. Mr. Gager was born at Franklin, Conn., December 19th, 1824, and was therefore in his sixty-fifth year at the time of his death. His father was Othniel Gager, who was for thirty-seven years Town Clerk for the City of Norwich, and who died last June in that city at the advanced age of ninety-five years. His mother was Freelove Ayer Gager, who died in early life. When twenty-three years old, September 20th, 1847, Mr. Gager was married to Mary M. Willard, of Fall River, who survives him. 12 I\Ir. Gager's business career was a varied and eventful one. He began his business life in Fall River, Mass., where he opened a retail crockery store, and continued in it until, his health failing, he was obliged to abandon such confin- ing business, and went to sea soon after. His health becoming re established, he returned once more to the pottery business, and has been connected with different branches of it during most of his life. He was at one time one of the proprietors of the United States Pottery Co., in Bennington, Vt., and after leaving there followed the same line of business, first in Boston and then in New York, becoming in 1871 a member of the firm of Chas. Field, Haviland & Co., of Limoges, France, and New York. In 1881 Mr. Gager bought out his partner, and continued the same importing business, at first singly and after- ward under the firm name of O. A. Gager & Co., in which firm he remained the senior partner up to the time of his death. Mr. Gager was a great traveller by sea and land, having crossed the Atlan- tic Ocean nearly ninety times, mainly in the interests of his business. He had also travelled extensively through Central America and the western part of our own country. In 1849 he was one of the pioneers who went to California from the east, and since that time has been almost constantly connected with, or interested in, mining operations in that part of the world. Mr. Gager had been a resident of Brooklyn about seventeen years, having continuously occupied the same house in which he died. During all of that time he had been connected with Plymouth Church, having been during the past few years one of its Trustees. One prominent trait in his character was his charitable disposition— charit- able not only in his liberality in dealing with those with whom he came in con- tact in business, but this trait even more prominently appearing in his charity of thought and speech ; and none who knew him ever heard him say an unkind word to or about any one. Throughout his life he entertained the strongest sympathy for the poor and afflicted, and his nature was of that practically religious character so rarely met with among business men, and no one who came to him needing counsel or advice was ever sent away without that which he sought. Among his trade associates he was not only prominent, but pos- sessed their confidence and affection to a marked degree. The funeral services were held at his late residence October 23d, the Rev- erend Dr. Lyman Abbott officiating. Charles John Lowrey, second son of Waite Lowrey and Hannah Almira Lowrey, was born in Burlington, Conn., October 21, 1820. During his boy- hood he removed with his father's family to Whitesboro, N.Y. Here his prepa- ration for college was made at the Whitesboro Academy, while Rev. Abner Henderson was its principal. After his graduation he was a law student in the office of Hon. David L. Seymour, of Troy, until his admission to the bar, in 1844. Then he removed to Brooklyn, and in 1845 he formed a law partnership with Cyrus P. Smith. In 1855 (or thereabouts) Mr. Smith withdrew from prac- tice, and a new partnership was formed with the title of C. J & C. Lowrey. 13 This firm continued until May, 1871. For seventeen years Mr. Lowrey had no partner, although he occupied the same office, and was in close business rela- tions with James E. Pearson. He died of rheumatic heart trouble in Brooklyn, December 8th, 188S, aged sixty-eight, and was buried in Oakwood Cemetery, in Troy. He was never married. Four sisters survive, one of whom is Mrs. Ira M. Gifford, of Daven- port, Iowa ; two children of a deceased sister also survive. An elder brother, Samuel Waite Lowrey (Class of '37), died in Duluth, Minn., October 27, 1875. Charles J. Lowrey was a successful lawyer, and held a high rank in his profession, although he seldom appeared in Courts, and had no thirst for official prominence. Notwithstanding his retiring habits, he was one of the best known lawyers in Brooklyn ; his large and lucrative practice came without seeking. He was the executor of large estates and counsel for large corporations. He was faithful to every trust, and true to the highest claims of kinship and friendship. Ebenezer Roby, who died Christmas night, 1888, in his sixtieth year, was born at Cambridge, Mass., on the 12th day of November, 1829. His ancestors on both sides had been New Englanders for generations, and he was the eighth in his line of the same name born there, and the first to leave Massachusetts and settle elsewhere, which he did in 1856, when he took up his residence in Brooklyn, first in Dean Street, then in Gates Avenue, and finally at No. 97 Pierrepont Street, where he died. He was prepared for Harvard University, and would have entered the Academical Department but for the death of his father. Then in 1S49 the gold fever drew him to California, and it was there, it may be said, he laid the foun- dations of his future success in life. His sea life on shipboard around the Cape, the touching at Juan Fernandez, and the crossing of the Isthmus, were inci- dents in his life to which he often referred. On his return he entered the employment of manufacturers of India Rubber in Boston, and afterwards con- tinued in the same business in Park Row, New York City, for thirty-eight years, until the time of his death. To this business he gave most of his life, and like many, found it his recreation as well as his work. He was strict and regular in his habits, and until a few months before his death, was always blessed with a robust constitution and high spirits. His greeting was always genial and hearty. He was what is called a clubable man, and was a frequent visitor at the Brooklyn and Hamilton Clubs. His summers he was in the habit of passing with his family at Southampton, Long Island. Five or six Ebenezer Roby's lie buried in the old family burying ground at Wayland, Mass., where his remains now are. One of them, Dr. Ebenezer Roby, was graduated at Harvard in 1717. C. E. PRATT, President. 14 On motion, the Chair appointed Messrs. Hunt, Ward and Cross, a Committee, to nominate five Directors for the ensuing four years. Such Committee reported the following candidates: Calvin E. Pratt, John Winslow, Willard Bartlett, Charles N. Manches- ter, Robert D. Benedict, who were then unanimously elected. On motion adjourned. STEWART L. WOODFORD, * Secretary pro tern. PROCEEDINGS AND SPEECHES AT THE TENTH ANNUAL DINNER, Saturday, December 21, 1889, /// commemoration of the Tivo Hundred and Sixty-ninth Anniversary of the Landing of the Pilgrims. The Tenth Annual Dinner of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, was held in the Assembly Rooms of the Academy of Music, and in the Art Room adjoining, on Satur- day evening, December 21, 1889. The reception was held in the Art Room, and at six o'clock the dinner was served. Two hundred and eighteen gentlemen were seated at the tables. The President, Hon. Willard Bartlett, presided. Upon his right sat HoN. Benjamin F. Tracy, Hon. Ben- jamin D. Silliman, Hon. W. Bourke Cockran, Rear Admiral D. L. Braine, U. S. N., President St. Nicholas Society, President St. Patrick's Society. On the left of the President sat Rev. A. J. F. Behrends, D. D., Hon. John Winslow, Rev. E. C. Towne, Hon. Wm. T. Davis, Rev. Wesley R. Davis, President New Eng- land Society in the City of New York. i6 The members of the Society were seated as follows: Table A. — Alonzo Slote, F. A. Van Iderstine, L. G. Hampton, J. E. Richardson, Thos. E. Pearsall, Daniel L. Northup, Samuel S. Utter, Edwin C. Wallace, W. G. Clapp, Benj. C. Dean, R. B. Hinman, Sanford H. Steele, J. N. Kalley, P. H. Kretschmar, John E. Jacobs, Henry Elliot, E. A. Dinzey, Chas. M. Englis, F. Quimby, B. H. Knapp, James E. Dean, William C. Wallace, Quincy A. Atwood, N. Townsend Thayer, James M. Fuller, David Barnett, W. S. Sillcocks, D. R. Morse, W. S. Taylor, O. J. Geer. Table B.— C. N. Manchester, W. C. Boone, J. W. Hyde, Auguste J. Cor- dier, A. de Riesthal, Richard Lacey, Arthur R. Jarrett. Wm. H. Buffum, Wm. L. Vandervoort, Walter S. Badger, John Tweedy, Chas. H. Wheeler, Geo. Wilcox, H. H. Wheeler, N. G. Carman, Jr., H. D. Polhemus, Jas. W. Ridgway, Alden S. Swan, Wm. C. Sheldon, Jr., Wm. G. Merrill, John L. How, F. H. Lovell, Geo. H. Southard, C. B. Davenport, Franklin Allen, Geo. A. Evans, S. H. Bacon, H. B. Moore. Table C— W, B. Kendall, E. M. Cullen, J. F. Talmadge, J. N. Partridge, G. W, Wingate, F. A. Ward, William Berri, W. N. Dykman, E. T. Hunt, Adolph Simis, W. J. Gaynor, J. E. Hayes, W. B. Davenport, G. P. Merrill, A. E. Lamb, C. S. Higgins, A. E. Mudge, D. P. Morse, Wm. J. Matheson, M. L. Towns, J. T. Marean, Edward Fackner, Leonard Moody, Jesse Johnson, E. J. Knowlton, E. F. Knowlton, N. H. Clement, S. W. Boocock. Table D. — James S. Case, Charles A. Moore, Richard S. Roberts, Henry R. Heath, Frank Squier, Herbert L. Denny, Alfred T. Martin, John P. Adams, Nelson J. Gates, Wm. Adams. C. H. Parsons, James S. Bailey, James Brady, Chas. H. Requa, H. A. Tucker, H. A. Tucker, Jr., A. D. Wheelock, R. W. Ropes, A. G. Jennings, A. S. Higgins, Wm. H. Hill, Robert Proddow, Chas. M. Stafford, Leon S. Tucker, T. L. Woodruff, Alexander S. Bacon, Henry S. Manning. Table E.— John B. Woodward, Charles Pratt, W. S. Perry, W. C. Pratt, F. B. Pratt, Wm. T. Cross, D. M. Somers, James M. Leavitt, J. Q. Adams, C. E. Staples, J. P. Wallace, S. E. Howard, Isaac H, Gary, Sidney V. Lowell, Edward Atkins, Wm. G. Creamer, J. G. Johnson, George C. White, Jr., H. C. Hurlbert, C. A. Denny, E. H. Kellogg, G. S. Hutchinson, Alfred T. Cross, Wm. R. Bryan, Wm. D. Wade, H. L. Babbitt, C. M. Pratt, F. E. Taylor, Edwin Packard. Table F.— Ethan Allen Doty, J, S. T. Stranahan, Ellis H. Roberts, C. S. Brainerd, Jr., John A. Taylor, C. D. Wood, Geo. N. Gardiner, W. B. Maben, A. Melvine Snedeker, William H. Lyon, Jr., Howard O. Wood, Marvin T. 17 Lyon, Geo. G. Bradford, James Hull, R. Lamb, Rev. S. H. Camp, Charles E. Ladd, Wm. G. Richardson, James H. Pittinger, H. L. Coe, George M. Nichols, Rufus L. Scott, Joseph B. Brown, John R. Wilmarth, Valentine Snedeker, Dr. J. B. Elliott, William H. Lyon. Table G. — Wm. H. Williams, Darwin R. James, George J. Laighton, Thomas S. Moore, C. S. Van Wagoner, George L. Pease, M. W. Robinson, R. M. Nesbitt, M. C. Ogden, John S. James, C. H. De Silver, W. T. Lawrence, W. T. James, C. M. Stevens. George F. Dobson, Brooklyn Eagle, Brooklyn Times, Brooklyn Standard-Union, Brooklyn Citizen, New York Times, New York World, New York Tribune, A. H. Topping, W. G. Clapp, H. H. Beadle, Benjamin Estes, Walter S. Logan, Horace E. Deming. Table H. — Robert D. Benedict, George C. Blanke, George H. Cook, H. D. Brookman, Thomas Nelson, L. W. Manchester, Vv^illiam W. Buttle, Chas. W. House. i8 Broth Reyniere. Olives. Salmon, Montebello Style. BILL OF FARE. Oysters. Soups. Green Turtle, Morton fashion. Side Dishes. Radishes. Timbales Dumas. Fish. Potatoes Hollandaise. Joint. Fillet of Beef, Perigueux. Baked Cauliflower. Entrees. Estomac of Turkey, Montpensier. French Peas. Sweetbread fine herbes. Stringbeans. Terrapin, Newberg fashion. Punch Sumner. Celery. Fried Smelts. Canvas-back Duck. Game. Quails. Fruits, Coid. Terrines of Goose Liver Pstte, Strasbourg fashion. Lettuce Salad. Sweets. Plum Pudding with Rum. Raine Claud Jelly. Russian Charlotte. Pyramids. Fancy Ice Cream. Mixed Cakes. Coffee. Saturday, 21st December, iJ Delmonico's. 19 When the company had assembled at the tables, Rev. Weslev R. Davis, D. D., said grace. ADDRESS OF HON. WILLARD BARTLETT, PRESI- DENT OF THE SOCIETY. Gentlemen of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn : The objects of this Society, as stated in its first by-law, are to commemorate the landing of the Pilgrim fathers, to encour- age the study of New England history, to establish a library, and to promote charity, good fellowship and social intercourse among its members. We have met here this evening in ful- fillment of two of these purposes — the promotion of good fellowship and social intercourse and the commemoration of the landing of the Pilgrim fathers. The material portion of the banquet is past. We now come to the " feast of reason and the flow of soul ;" and, in accordance with the time- honored custom of your presidents, the duty devolves upon me to say a few words of introduction to this part of your en- tertainment. There is one question which the occasion naturally sug- gests : What is it that makes it worth while for us to meet, and eat, and drink, and talk together on this anniversary — not merely as friends, not merely as acquaintances, not merely as citizens of Brooklyn, but distinctively as sons of New England? The answer is or ought to be obvious. It is because we find in the history and characteristics of the New England Pilgrims of the Seventeenth Century some teaching, some suggestion, something of inspiration — it may be something of warning — which tends, here now in the State of New York, at the end of the Nineteenth Century, to make our own lives — the lives which we are living here in Brooklyn to-day — nobler, and wiser and better. {Applause.) But, gentlemen, I shall not attempt to state, much less to illustrate, the lessons which are to be derived from the example set us by our forefathers in New England. I leave that task to the distinguished speakers who are to follow me. But I will venture to call your attention to one or two matters of interest which have been suggested to 20 me in connection with the observance of this anniversary. We are to celebrate, two years hence, the anniversary of the dis- covery of America by Columbus. That great explorer himself was a God-fearing man, actuated by the highest, the purest and the noblest motives; but it was not so with his immediate fol- lowers or successors. The Spanish gold-seekers came across the sea to America not like the Pilgrims, in search of a spot where they might live rightly, but in quest of riches, of con- quest and of power. And, strangely enough, the early colonies founded by Columbus himself on the shores and amid the rich gold fields of Hispaniola have utterly disappeared, and the very memory of their names is almost extinct, while Ply- mouth Rock is known to almost every schoolboy in forty States, and the landing of the Pilgrims will never be forgotten among the English-speaking people on this continent. Love of righteous living makes a deeper impress on the page of his- tory than love of gold. But, gentlemen, in the course of time the desire to live rightly led the early inhabitants of New England to place great reliance upon law as a moral agent. It is my fortune to be descended from ancestors some of whom came from Massa- chusetts and others from Rhode Island, and those who re- mained in the colony of Massachusetts Bay entertained a very different idea of the place law ought to assume in the adminis- tration of human affairs from the idea entertained by those who went with Roger Williams to the Providence plantations. The latter felt that there was too little liberty and too much law in Massachusetts. It is not for me, owing this divided allegiance, to criticise or commend either ; but I will call your attention to one fact which may indicate that we are imitating our Pilgrim fathers, or, at all events, moving along the same road — in the direction of over-legislation. There is nothing more remarkable in their law-making than in the statutes of this State, which make it a crime for a man to jump on a rail- way car while in motion, or for his little child to throw a crumb of bread to an English sparrow. Since the first dinner of this Society no fewer than 5,321 new laws have been passed in this State, every one of which you gentlemen are assumed to know; for every one is assumed to know the law — except the judges. 21 It is deemed so probable — by the people in their wisdom — that the judges will not know the law, that they have established Courts of Appeal to set them right. {Laughter and applause.^ Finally, gentlemen, no one regrets more than I do the ill- ness which has deprived you and me of the pleasure of sitting at this banquet under the presidency of my gallant and dis- tinguished friend and associate. Judge Pratt. I recognize the difificulties of the task which I have been unexpectedly called upon to perform in his place. For any shortcomings which you may observe I crave your kindly indulgence, and I ask the favor which was invoked in behalf of the musician in the saloon out West : "Don't shoot the man at the piano ; he is doing the best he can !" The Chair: — Gentlemen, we will now drink the first toast on the programme. " THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES." (Drunk standing, after which three cheers were given for the President.) Second toast — "THE DAY WE CELEBRATE." The Chair : — Gentlemen, Lord Palmerston once said that there was only one man in Europe who understood the Schleswig-Holstein question — and he didn't understand it ! Now, I will not say that there is only one man in the United States who understands the history of Plymouth ; but I will say, on the authority of my distiriguished friend, the Hon. John Winslow, that if there is one man in the United States who understands the Pilgrims and understands Plymouth, it is the Hon. Wm. T. Davis, who will now address you. ADDRESS OF HON. WILLIAM T. DAVIS. ATr. President : Seven years ago I sat at this board and responded to the call of your venerable predecessor, whose seat on your right I 22 am som- to see vacant to-night, and since that time nothing- has been farther from my thoughts than a second invitation to become your guest. I can only attribute it to the belief of your committee that a live Plymouthian, born within 150 feet of Plymouth Rock, freshly caught, is a natural curiosity in the shape of a diluted Pilgrim, worthy to be exhibited at your feast. Though my home is remote from your metropolitan civilization, I assure you that in common with my people I endeavor to keep touch with your larger world ; and. presum.p- tuous as it may seem, to form sometimes pretty positive opinions on its passing events. We are aware, for instance,, that one of your distinguished fellow-citizens, a vice-president of this Society, whom I am glad to see here to-night, is making able and patriotic efforts to breathe into our Xa\y the breath of a worthy life. [Cheers^ We are aware that the Trustees of Columbia College, listening to your prayer, in the words of Milton : '" What in us is dark, illumine ; what is Low, raise and support," — {laitgJiter) — have elevated another of your dis- tinguished members to their presidential chair, and we think that between the president and the college the honors are easy. We have followed one of your distinguished clerg\' in his travels abroad, and, judging from the rapidity of his jour- ney, we are willing to lay our wager on him as the winner in the seventy-five days' race round the globe. We have watched the growth of your city, sometimes called by your neighbors across the Bridge, the Chamber of New York; and we have wondered how long it will be — with your ample opportunities for expansion, with your noble water-front extending almost to the sea, and with your prospective railway communications with the main — before the Chamber will be larger than the shop. We have heard it rumored, too — perhaps erroneously — that the monument to General Grant is not yet finished. I have said, sir, that we sometimes form positive opinions. Among these is the opinion that the celebration in 1S92 of the anniversar}' of the discovery- of America should be held within the limits of your sister city. We fail to see how an exposi- tion intended to illustrate the development of the factors of civilization can be complete without a display of those grand triumphs of naval architecture which have been reached 23 through a process of evolution from the rude vessels of Columbus, by means of which that discovery was made. There could be no more splendid or appropriate pageant to mark the opening day of the celebration than a procession composed of the latest examples of our shipwrights' skill, escorting the Santa Maria, the Pinta and the Nina up your harbor and river to the shore-grounds of the Fair. It is needless to say that such a pageant would be impossible in Chicago, and less practicable and imposing elsewhere than in Xew York. But, sir, I am reminded of the sentiment which you have proposed. As I left my home, the earliest rays of the morning sun were kissing the brow of the Statue of Faith on the na- tional monument to the Pilgrims. Thus on every fair morning of the year the monument which we have recently dedicated is consecrated anew by Heaven's baptismal touch. The mes- sage I bear from the Pilgrim land is the lesson which that statue teaches of faith in God and of faith in ourselves, with- out which no great or memorable work can be achieved. Full of that faith, the little Pilgrim band gathered about the manor house at Scrooby, parted with houses and land and worldly goods, and prepared to enter upon a life of exile, obedient to the words of the IMaster, " Sell all that thou hast and follow Me." Sustained by that faith, they dwelt twelve years in Holland, strangers in a strange land, trusting that, in the Providence of God, after a season of privation and toil they would be made "to lie down in green pastures, and be led beside the still waters," and at some time and in some way the problem of their destiny would be solved. Guided by that faith, they embarked at Delfthaven on their perilous wintry voyage ; and, by that faith inspired and f!;lorified, they stood on the shores of Plymouth when one-half their number were sleeping in their graves, and sent the ^Mayflower, their only refuge, back across the seas, and sought with a serener confi- dence the guidance and protection of their God. That is the faith which is symbolized in the monument at Plymouth, and for that monument's dedication what more fitting day could have been chosen than the anniversary of the embarkation — an event in which that faith was so signally displayed ? But, sir, we celebrate the landing to-night. Now, sir, there 24 was nothing very significant or heroic about that landing ; it was the easiest thing in the world, I have seen, myself, the time when I have been out, after a northeast storm, and thought that the landing was the happiest event of my life. Why, sir, if you and I had been there, we should have landed without a thought that our act would ever be celebrated. To be sure Governor Bradford says, in his " Relation," that they depended on the captain of the Mayflower for their beer, and it is possible that that might have kept us on board. But the Pilgrims were surfeited with beer, and nothing at Plymouth attracted them so much as the " three or four rivulets of as sweet water as ever we drunk, flowing into the sea," But, notwithstanding the fact that a contemporaneous obituary of Elder Brewster, who died in 1643, says "he drank nothing but water for many years together — yea, till within five or six years of his death," if we may rely upon a Pilgrim poet who flourished in 1630, only ten years after the landing, we may be pretty certain that the other members of the colony had at that date returned to their beer. This poet says: " If barley be wanting to make into malt, We must be contented and think it no fault ; For we can make liquor, to sweeten our lips, Of pumpkins and parsnips and walnut-tree chips." This they called " Small Beer," and the price was fixed by the General Court at two pence per quart. The poet who immor- talized it, according to Shakespeare, was plainly fit — " To suckle fools, and chronicle small beer." But, looking at the landing from a more serious point of view, on that memorable 21st of December the foundations were laid not only of New England, but of a republic the grandeur of which the finite vision of its founders could not foresee, — which has extended from colony to colony, from province to province and from State to State, — until at last, through the enterprise of men of faith, in our own day and generation we are permitted almost literally to see, in the words of an early Pilgrim hymn — 25 " A new empire's splendent wheels Roll o'er the top of western hills " — finding no other resting place than the shore of the Pacific Sea. With such a fabric, resting on such a foundation, it has been thoughtlessly said that the Pilgrims builded better than they knew. Yes, thoughtlessly said : for not as the architect did they build, who sees in his cunning design the noble edi- fice, complete from corner-stone to dome ; not as the sculptor did they carve, who traces in his imagination the outlines of the perfect statue before his chisel has touched the virgin marble ; nor as the painter did they create, who transfers to the canvas the finished ideal of his immortal art. Judged by such standards as these, it might perhaps be said that they were unconscious of the magnitude of their work. But grander far than edifice of architect, or sculptor's statue, or master- piece of art was the work which the Pilgrims were called upon to perform. They established a principle containing within itself the elements of everlasting growth ; they planted a seed whose germinating force they knew, and therefore no man can truthfully say they builded better than they knew. You do well, Mr. President, to celebrate this day. It is re- freshing at times to release ourselves from the cares of the present and to forget our plans for the future ; and, recurring to the past, to examine the part our fathers performed in the consummation of that civilization which, with an unworthy boast, we are too apt to call our own. While we are rearing aloft our national structure, it will be profitable occasionally to inspect the foundation on which the structure rests. A nation and people who ignore the past and forget the lessons it teaches, can no more reach the highest and noblest stage of development than the buds of spring can burst into bloom and ripen into fruit when severed from the branch through which they derive their sustenance and life. I trust that neither you nor your children, nor children's children, will cease to com- memorate this day ; but that in each recurring year, at this festival season, you will mingle with the voices of thanksgiv- ing, and with Christmas praise, ascriptions of honor and glory to th* memory of the fathers of New England. {^Applause.) 26 Third toast — " THE PILGRIMS IN HOLLAND." The Chair: — Gentlemen, if the Pilgrim Fathers could look in at this scene, I really wonder what they would say. I am afraid they would imagine that they were at a feast in the Italian City of Sybaris, rather than at a banquet intended to commemorate Puritan virtues ; and nothing would astonish them more than the assemblage of guests at this table. Your committee have selected their speakers this evening — and, gen- tlemen, I had no hand in this — entirely from two distinguished professions, the law and the clergy. You will discover that there is entire harmony among us. It has not always been so; and this harmony has been particularly lacking in New Eng- land, and among the forefathers whose virtues we have met here to celebrate. I want to detain you just half a minute to read you what a lawyer and a clergyman said about each other in the Connecticut Colony 128 years ago : The Lawyer — "Are ministers composed of finer clay than the rest of mankind, that entitles them to this pre-eminence? Does a license to preach transform a man into a higher order of beings, and endow him with a natural quality to govern ? Are the laity an inferior order of beings, fit only^to be slaves and to be governed ? Is it good policy for mankind to subject themselves to such degrading vassalage and abject submis- mission?" The Minister — The lawyer is " destitute of delicacy, decency, good manners, sound judgment, honesty, manhood, and hu- manity ; a poltroon, a cat's paw, the infamous tool of a party, a partisan, a political weathercock and a ragamuffin." {Great laughter.) Now we have changed all that. We vie with each other in the bestowal of compliments ; and when you have heard what my distinguished friend. Dr. Behrends, has to say, you will agree with me that no compliment to the clergy can be too high. 27 ADDRESS BY REV. A. J. F. BEHRENDS, D. D. It has been said with great felicity of statement, and with equal correctness and comprehensiveness of logical grasp, that "the four most prominent events of modern history are the invasion of the barbarians which blended the German and Roman elements of civilization, and subjected the new nations to the influence of Christianity : the Crusades, which broke up the stagnation of European society, and by inflicting a blow upon the feudal system opened a path for the centrali- zation of the nations and governments of Europe ; the Refor- mation, in which religion was purified a*nd the human mind emancipated from sacerdotal authority ; and the French Re- volution, a tremendous struggle for political equality." Of these four events, that of the Reformation is the one concerning whose origin, significance and ultimate issues there always have been and still are the most divergent and hostile judgments ; an evidence that it was a movement more radical and intricate than any that preceded or followed it. It was attributed by some to occult and malignant astrological influ- ence, " which scattered the spirit of giddiness and innovation over the world." Leo the Tenth made light of it as a squab- ble of Saxon monks, and Voltaire regarded it with the same supreme and supercilious contempt. Guizot interpreted it as "an insurrection of the human mind against the absolute power of the spiritual order," an intellectual revolt which haslong since overleaped the limits within which its great leaders meant to keep it. By some this emancipation of the reason has been hailed with the most unqualified and enthusiastic admiration ; while others, certainly not less candid and conscientious, have condemned it as the most serious moral apostasy of history, logically issuing in the wild domination of atheism and anarchy. But whatever our critical judgment may be, it is clear that the originating impulse of the Reformation was religious, as that of the French Revolution was political ; and that both are facts with which it is worse than useless to quarrel, and to which the ecclesiastical and civil life of the future must adjust themselves. 28 The French Revolution, following closely upon the fall of the house of the Stuarts in England, and upon the War of Independence, dealt a staggering blow at hereditary and irre- sponsible sovereignty, from which it can never recover. Re- publicanism is in the air. It has already spread its brooding wings over the whole of our Western Continent, and every year added to the stability of the French Republic makes the European ascendancy of democratic thought more certain. Dom Pedro is not the first, and he will not be the last, in a long and silent procession which will make an end of palaces and thrones. It is a movement fraught with the gravest dangers, but it is one which is as irresistible as the tides of the Atlantic or the torrent of Niagara. We must make the best of it, and then the best will come out of it ; for I am one of those who most firmly believe that the evolution of history is the march of God. And the time must come when the Reformation must be accepted as a fact ; when the issues which provoked it must be buried, and when the combatant communions must face the future upon the common ground which the history of four centuries has made. The perpetuation of feuds is an outrage upon good sense. It is unphilosophical and idiotic. The fiercest controversies are only the eddies and foaming rapids in a stream which is hastening to the sea. The rivalries of race and religion are not so fundamental as the solidarity of man. We are friends, not foes, even when the sabers flash and the anethemas are hurled. And I want to say here that it is not the mission of Protestantism to exterminate Catholicism, nor the mission of the Roman church to exterminate Protestant heresy, but to unite in the common object of teaching men the fear of the Lord. Catholic prelates are demanding that their communion shall wear the garments of the Twentieth Century and discard the outgrown and obsolete apparel of the mediaeval days. No man could read the speeches at the recent Catholic Congress in Baltimore without feeling that there is a good deal of American temper in the Roman Catholic hierarchy of the United States, and the men who cherish that temper are shap- ing the future of that old communion in this Western Continent. It was anything but an irreligious spirit that laid the 29 foundations of our National Commonwealth. Puritanism was a sturdy revolt against Canterbury, as Canterbury had revolted against the Vatican ; it was only carrying the right of private judgment a step farther, and the movement could not be checked until political authority had been completely divorced from interference with liberty in religious thought. Deeper than any definition of dogma, more vital than any de- bate about vestments and images, was the slowly maturing conviction that Christianity must work out its own problems, stand or fall on its own merits, independent of artificial and statutory support, mightiest and purest when it only asks leave to be, and when it influences government by making better citizens, when it builds men up into heroic stature, estimating themselves and the lowliest of their kind as the sons of God. It was the old debate in a new form. It was the contention of Hildebrand against the political imperialism of his day, which sought to revive the old idea of pagan Rome that re- ligion was an affair of state etiquette. The logic of the Middle Ages did not grasp the thought of the state and the church as two independent and interdependent bodies, differing in their principles of organization and in their practical aims, yet linked to each other by their equal devotion to the highest welfare of man. It seemed as if the choice must be made between the rule of princes or the rule of priests ; and there was a moral argument behind the sword which gave the victory to the Bishop of Rome. But when the Vatican became a palace in- stead of an oratory ; when the chief priest became himself a prince and a soldier, the Church was once more reduced to slavery, though vested with a nominal and dazzling sovereignty, And so the conflict broke out once more, on a wider area and with increased energy. Henry the Eighth was found to be no improvement upon Leo the Tenth, and Elizabeth was as tyrannical as Gregory the Seventh, or Innocent the Third. Men did not at once perceive that a pure Church must be a free Church ; free in wholly renouncing political ambitions and seeking only to worship and serve God. Puritanism had no other thought, at first, than the establishment of a national religion by political authority, and separation grew out of de- feat and the impossibility of conscientious conformity. The 30 story is a long one, but the unconscious logic was forcing to the front the modern idea, which may be said to have been borne to these shores in the Mayflower, that the prince must not rule the priest, nor the priest rule the prince ; that politics must be free from interference by religion, and religion un- hampered by politics. Under this system we are sure that both will do their best work. This is the American idea, the formative principle of our institutions, to which every party in State and in Church must bow. There is a progressive party in the Roman Catholic Church in this country, whose loyalty and zeal none can question, which has come to see that the demand is rational, and which insists that the squabble about the temporal power of the Pope shall cease. Plymouth Rock underlies the broad acres of this continent, and the time will come when its granite shall be seen to rib the round globe, bedded beneath all seas, the security of all nations. It is no sectional triumph which we are celebrating; it is the cause of universal humanity. For all true thought is catholic, and every true man makes his work immortal and inclusive. This is the wonderful alchemy of history, turning all solid work into gold for the permanent enrichment of all. We are brothers, what- ever our ancestry, whatever our creeds, whatever our political associations. The truth conquers us all at last. Tendencies are always mightier than parchments, and the gravitation to unity is more persistent and powerful than any and all divisive agencies, just as the centripetal power of the sun holds in check and regulates the centrifugal energy of every planet. Cables and railways, and steamships, and electric wires are knitting the nations into compactness, and it is the very essence of Christianity that it makes every man my brother. If the most recent definition of Puritanism, as an intelligent and brave de- votion to truth and righteousness, be accepted as the true one, then the peculiarities of Pilgrim and Roundhead drop away from their stalwart forms, and their crusade, with whatever excesses it may have been conducted, inures to the weal of uni- versal manhood. For " I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns." 31 All this I can say at a New England dinner, 259 years after the landing on Plymouth Rock, without provoking your dissent or displeasure. I could not have said it in the cabin of the Mayflower without being unanimously and emphatically ■condemned. But I am to speak of the Pilgrims in Holland ; and you are probably wondering how long I mean to talk, if my introduc- tion has occupied fifteen minutes, or more. The law of after- dinner speeches is that the subject of the toast shall be very modestly treated. You need to be kept in an expectant mental mood, wondering when the speaker will get at his theme, when he will get through with it, and unable to discover at the end what he has said about it. My theme suits me. It would be easy for me to grow eloquent and tedious in its handling. In the year 1 567 began that invasion of the Netherlands which inaugurated a war continued through eighty years, broken only by the twelve years' truce, during which the Pilgrims lived in Leyden. The bitter theological strife of those years of peace is a dark chapter in the history of Holland. Barneveldt was put to death, and Grotius sought safety in flight. But these excesses of feeling and action, in an age when mighty forces were in ferment, and when theological and political theories and tendencies were in close alliance, should not blind us to the fact that Holland bore the brunt of a terrific on- slaught upon liberty without flinching, with undaunted cour- age, and without regard to cost, and that it was the only place in all Europe where the Pilgrims could be secure. They were made welcome. They were protected in their persons and in their property. They were unmolested in their wor- ship, and though John Robinson entered the lists against the Arminian party, no conspiracies were set on foot against him. Things look differently to an outsider than they do to one whose interests and prejudices warp his judgment, and I have no doubt that the men of Scrooby, with their learned pastor, gained in wisdom and character amid the din of controversy filling the air of their peaceful pursuits. For in England the Episcopalian persecuted the Presbyterian, and the Presbyterian had retaliated on the Episcopalian, and the Independent had made war on both when he got the chance. Even the Pilgrims 32 organized a theocracy in the cabin of the Mayflower ; though it is to their eternal honor that they discarded persecution for conscience sake ; and their residence of thirteen years in Ley- den must have greatly contributed to their abhorrence of political tyranny in any form. They found it hard to stay in England, and they found it hard to get away. They found it hard to get into Holland, and they did not find it easy to make a living there. They found neither its climate, nor its language, nor its customs congenial. They wanted to get away by them- selves. They thought more of their children than they did of their own comfort. They couldn't twist their tongues into the uncouth forms of the Dutch phraseology. There was too much English about them to be swallowed up. They missed their quiet Sabbaths, and longed to be away where they could try their own notions of housekeeping. They never took root, and God never meant they should ; for they were so made that no other nationality could digest them. They did a wise thing in leaving — wiser than they knew ; and the Dutch are entitled to credit for letting them go peacefully, without a word of reproach, and with only the warmest benedictions. And it was fitting that in later years the best history of the Dutch Republic should be written by John Lothrop Motley, himself a native of that New England which the Pilgrims have made so great. There is no tougher national fiber than that of which the Pilgrims were made. The English stomach is omniverous and beyond the reach of dyspepsia. It can digest anything, and defies digestion by anybody else. All is grist that comes to its hopper. You take a full-blooded Dutchman like myself, and in twenty years you grind all the nationality out of him. Even a Yankee wife gobbles him up, and he soon finds out that there is no use in fighting against fate. You are the men and your's are the women ; there's no use talking ! No man can live with you without becoming like you ; without forgetting that he ever lived under any other flag than the Stars and Stripes. Seriously, gentlemen, it is wonderful. The May- flower was a prophecy. It opened a new chapter in the world's advance, when the English speaking race girded itself for a bold and brilliant venture — the boldest and most brilliant 33 which the world has ever known. The half has not yet been told, and it will take 200 years more to get into the middle of the wonderful chapter. What can we not do — I say we, be- cause I am yours, body and soul, in tongue and thought, in private meditation and public utterance — if we will only culti- vate the closest alliances? We are 120,000,000 strong. We have unsurpassed wealth and unconquerable energy. We are colonists and conquerors by nature. We are masters of the seas and abundantly able to defend our rights. We are haters of tyranny and the advocates of universal liberty. And, with- out disrespect to other nations, the purest Gospel which is preached on this globe is voiced in the' English tongue; the most vital and aggressive Christianity is that of the Anglican race. Continental Europe is rocking above an earthquake. In Germany alone one million armed men are looking East, and another million armed men are looking West. The storm may burst at any moment ; and when it does break loose, somebody will get terribly hurt. It will mean extermination to some- body, and bankruptcy to all. I pray God it may not come, this Armageddon looming against the murky sky. But should it come, the banners of Christian civilization will not go down in the smoke of battle. The English-speaking race will rush to their rescue, carry them aloft, and plant them in all the lands of the earth. Gentlemen, there must be no strife between^us. England is our ally. Canada and Australia are our brothers. Twine the flags together. We are of one blood and have a common literature. Tennyson is ours, and Longfellow is crowned with wreaths in Westminster Abbey. We read the same Bible and worship the same God. Ring out the wedding bells ! We may be the advance guard of liberty and right- eousness, bringing in the millenial glory of the kingdom of God upon the earth. Fourth Toast — "OUR NEW NAVY." The Chairman : — Gentlemen, there is no rhetorical image which seems to have a greater charm for orators than the 34 "Ship of State." There is one Ship of State in which we are all very much interested at the present time — that is, a man- of-war fleet enough to catch any enemy, and strong enough to capture that enemy when caught. {Applause^ The gentle- man at my right hand, who is prepared to give this country that sort of ship, will now address you, the Hon. Benjamin F. Tracy. {Cheers for Gen. Tracy.) ADDRESS OF HON. BENJ. F. TRACY. Mr. Chairman, Felloiv-Citizens and Members of the Netu Eng- land Society in Brooklyn : For the kind greeting which you have extended to me I earnestly thank you. That greeting is due largely to the fact that I happen to represent a Department of the Government in whose success the people of this nation feel a great and important interest. There never was a public question, prob- ably, on which the sentiment of the country was so unanimous as this, that the United States must have a navy powerful enough to defend and protect its sea-coast. At the close of the Civil War the United States had the largest and most powerful navy in the world ; but, at the con- clusion of peace, we disbanded our armies, neglected our navy, and devoted the energies of our people to building inland transportation routes and developing internal trade and com- merce. But while we built railroads, other nations built navies. Now, at the end of twenty-five years, we find that we have dropped from the top to the very bottom of the list of naval powers. In 1865 we had 700 naval vessels; in 1889 we have only about 40; while England, when she shall have completed the addition to her fleet already authorized will have 367 ; France, 260; Russia, 168; Germany, 105; Holland, 94; Spain, 90; Italy, 86; Turkey, 81; China, 73; Sweden and Norway, 64; and Austria, 56. The war vessels of little Holland, having a population less than the State of New York, outnumber those of the United States by more than two to one. 35 From the close of the war until 1882 our efforts at naval construction were limited to the repair of wooden vessels — vessels that proved to be worth less when repaired than the amount of money expended in repairing. But in 1882 there came a change in our naval policy. Under the administration of President Arthur there were authorized the building of four steel vessels — viz., the Boston, Atlanta, Chicago and Dolphin. Although not as fast as ships constructed to-day, yet for structural strength, workmanship and endurance these four ships are the equal of any ships now afloat. {Cheers.^ The new naval policy inaugurated by President Arthur was carried forward with brilliant success by his successor. President Cleveland. {Cheers?) And as the result of that administra- tion we already have the Yorktown, Petrel, Charleston and Baltimore, and shall soon have the Concord, Bennington, San Francisco, Philadelphia and the Newark. The Baltimore, designed to have a speed of 19 knots, made on her recent trial 20.2 knots per hour for a run of four hours, and during the best hour she ran 20.39 knots. She is un- doubtedly the fastest ship of her displacement in the world. {Applause^ And I have no doubt but that she can whip any ship now in commission that can overtake her, and can run away from any ship that can whip her. {Laughter and ap- plause.') Thus in seven years we have established the fact that we are capable of building steel ships that are equal to the best ships in the world, and that our designers and artisans can, if we but give them the opportunity, place this country where it was fifty years .ago, when our war-ships were conceded to be superior to the war-ships of any other nation. Thus far we have confined ourselves almost exclusively to the building of that kind of war-ship known as the cruiser. The cruiser is designed for speed — for the destruction of com- merce rather than for its protection. We have in existence and authorized about thirty gunboats and cruisers, but we have as yet no battle-ships, and will not have for at least two years. You understand, of course, the difference between the cruiser and the iron-clad. Both are steel ships, but in one the side- plates are but f of an inch thick, with a deflective deck from 2 36 to 4 inches in thickness, while the battle-ship has upon its sides armored steel from 8 to 20 inches in thickness. The cruiser is not a fighting ship within the strict meaning of that term. She carries a light battery, and her thin sides would be pierced by the projectiles of the modern guns. Cruiser may meet cruiser, but a modern iron-clad would sink or put to flight a half dozen cruisers. It was undoubtedly a wise policy in the beginning to con- fine our efforts to the construction of fast cruisers. They are a moral force that is well calculated to restrain the aggressions of commercial nations, because with them we may destroy the commerce of an enemy. But we have 13,000 miles of sea- coast, with twenty large commercial centers, which to-day stand absolutely unprotected. One hundred ships such as we now have are not competent to give that protection. Nothing but the iron-clad can protect our cities from blockade or bom- bardment, and of these ships we have absolutely none. The time has come for the Government to inaugurate, in that re- spect, a new policy. If we would guard our coasts from as- sault by sea we must build battle-ships — ships that can not only protect our cities from bombardment, but are also able to pursue and punish an enemy that would assault us. The only navy that can protect us from war is a navy that is capable of waging war. {Applause.^ For war defensive in its nature may best be carried on by being offensive in its operation. I see it suggested in some quarters that our coastwise cities may be defended by means of forts and land defenses. There was a time when a fort on Governor's Island was thought to be a protection to the city of New York. With the improvements of modern times, it was thought necessary to move the fortifi- cation down to Fort Hamilton at the Narrows ; but to protect the city from the guns of the present day our land batteries must be planted on Sandy Hook. The modern 100-ton gun has a range of from twelve to fifteen miles. It would not do, therefore, to allow an enemy's ship, carrying one or more of these guns, to cross the bar at Sandy Hook ; for, from below the bar, she can throw one of her projectiles weighing a ton, filled with dynamite, into the very heart of the city of New York. The iron-clads of an enemy must be kept outside of 37 the lower bar. You cannot safely rely on a land battery alone to do this. Iron-clads have, and may again, run past land batteries. The only safe reliance for the defense of our great cities is to supplement the land battery with floating fortresses; carrying armaments as heavy as those carried by any ship that can enter our harbors. A portion of the public press has assumed that the Navy Department recommends the building of battle-ships equal in size to the largest battle-ships of Europe, carrying loo-ton guns. This is a mistake: the Navy Department has made no such recommendation. The largest battle-ships of Europe have a displacement of between fourteen and fifteen thousand tons, and they draw from twenty-eight to thirty feet of water. Such ships would be excluded from a majority of our harbors on the Atlantic coast, and for this reason if for no other, the Navy Department will not, I assume, ever recommend their construction. The largest ships that it is proposed to build are ships having a displacement of from nine to ten thousand tons, carrying from lo to 13-inch guns. A 12-inch gun carries a projectile weighing 850 lbs., and it will penetrate 26 inches of solid iron. Its range is from 8 to 12 miles. A ship can carry two or three of these guns where it can carry but one 100-ton gun. You can fire them much oftener, and thus you multiply by many times your chances of hitting the enemy's ship. But not only must we have battle-ships as well as cruisers, but we must have officers and men to command them. A ship in battle is worth no more than its battery, captain and crew are worth. I care not how strong the ship or how heavy the battery, if the officers and crew have not the skill and courage and daring to fight her she is worthless. Both our officers and our crews are unfamiliar with the hand- ling of modern ships and modern guns. The first fleet of modern ships, armed with modern guns, left your port re- cently for a foreign cruise, and a telegram to the Department received this evening informs me that it has just arrived in the Mediterranean. We must not only give attention to the building of ships, but we must give still greater attention to the training of our officers and crews. All the battles we won from the English in the War of 1812 we won by our superior gunnery. Our seamen were better marksmen than the Eng- lish. This was admitted by England. If we would succeed with our new navy, we must raise our crews to the same stand- ard of efficiency that they possessed during that war. That the present Congress will continue the work so suc- cessfully begun I have no doubt. Fortunately, upon this subject there is no party division. Each political party is vying with the other to see which can do the most for the Navy. This unanimity of sentiment among our people will undoubtedly continue until we have a naval force sufficient to give ample and complete protection to the important interests that are now so greatly imperiled. {Great applause^ The Chairman : — The company will now rise and sing two verses of the hymn " America," led by the cornet. " My country 'tis of thee. Sweet land of liberty, Of thee I sing ; Land where my fathers died, Land of the Pilgrims' pride, From every mountain side Let freedom ring ! " Our fathers' God, to Thee, Author of liberty, To Thee we sing ; Long may our land be bright With freedom's holy light, Protect us by Thy might. Great God, our King ! " Sixth toast — "OUR CONSTITUTIONAL SYSTEM AS TESTED BY A CENTURY." The Chair : — About a quarter of a century ago, gentlemen, when I was at the Polytechnic with such boys as Seth Low, and George Abbott, and other unknown citizens, there used to 39 be a story about a student who got himself into disgrace at the time of examination in endeavoring to give the solution of a certain problem, and state the reasons for the solution which he gave. He wrote on his paper that there were 222,222 rea- sons, but he had time to state only one. Now, gentlemen, there are almost an equal number of reasons why New England should pay a debt of gratitude to Ireland. I will not endeavor to state them all to-night; I will state three: the first is that, indirectly, we owe the beautiful poem of Mrs. Hemans upon the landing of the Pilgrims, to Ireland, for the poet was of Irish parentage. In the second place, the New England of the pres- ent day owes a great deal to Ireland in the willingness of her sons to take possession of the farms which the descendants of our New England forefathers deem unworthy of their further occupation, and Irishmen have turned many of those farms into a land flowing with milk and honey. The third reason you will discover after you have heard my friend from New York, the Hon. Wm. Bourke Cockran. ADDRESS OF HON. W. BOURKE COCKRAN, Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Nexv England Society : I might be permitted to add a fourth reason which the Irish race will soon establish, to the gratitude of New England. Your Chairman has told you that they have already taken pos- session of the vacant farms, and I promise you that in the future they will be ready to take possession of the vacant ofifices. This is the second time that it has been my fortune to be hon- ored by an invitation to a dinner of the New England Society, and each time that I have attended the festival I have become impressed with a more enlarged notion of the splendid destiny which lies before this Republic. I have watched with some attention and curiosity the distinguishing features of this feast, as contrasted with those of the one at which I was permitted to assist in New York; and I feel bound to add my expression of wonder to the feeling that might fairly be attributed to a re- turned New Englander, if he were permitted to assist at this 40 banquet to-night. As I watched the color of the liquid in your glasses, I have become firmly persuaded that such is the strength of your devotion to your New England ancestors you have become fully resolved that, until you can return to that spring which the gentleman from Massachusetts described to- night, you will never slake your thirst with water. {Laughter.) I have been highly edified with much that has been said here this evening. As I listened to the distinguished Secretary of the Navy, I was filled with admiration for the chivalrous spirit which prompted him to recognize the good work of the late administration, as well as to celebrate the good work of this, in the rebuilding of our Navy. {Applause.) I became deeply imbued with the conviction that these leviathans of the deep lately constructed by American genius will not be the only vessels which will leave our shores bearing the American flag into foreign climes. The same spirit, the same genius and the same industry which have created these marvels of marine archi- tecture will, I fondly believe, resurrect our merchant marine ((T/)- plause\2in6. within a few years restore our vessels to the bosom of the deep, refreshing our patriotism as we once more feel that the white sails of American commerce are being wafted by every breeze that blows across the ocean ; that the prows of our vessels are parting the waters of every harbor, from the Brama-Pootra to the Hudson; and that the American flag, fly- ing from the masthead of American ships, will be as familiar a sight within the shadow of St. Sophia as it is within the shadow of Trinity Church, in your neighboring city. {Applause.) And I may say that, as I listened with the utmost interest to the eloquent speech of Rev. Dr. Behrends, and followed the retro- spect which he made of the history of the world, from the eruption of the Northern barbarian across the provinces of Eu- rope, through all the mutations of the warfare of the Crusades^ through the Reformation, and down to the French Revolution, I became profoundly impressed with the force of that maxim which has been laid down by the greatest of English historians, " That all human institutions are but phantoms, disappearing at cock-crow ; if not at the crow of this cock, then at the crow of that cock ;" and that the governments that seem to us the most durable and the strongest are destined some day to dis- 41 appear in noise, disaster and confusion, into that womb of time in which are engulfed the Merovingian kings the dynasties that sprung into existence upon the disso- lution of the Carlovingian Empire, and all the kingdoms and the principalities that even one hundred years ago covered the face of Western Europe. Now like all maxims of similar character, this is to some extent sound, and to some ■extent unsound. Govermental forms are indeed perishable. Nations change their names, their boundaries, their creeds and their languages. The altars of yesterday are but the curios of to-day. The temples that have been raised to the worships that have now disappeared from the face of the earth but move our wonder that beliefs so simple and so transparent should have nerved the minds of men to raise such marvels of architecture. But though creeds and dynasties and languages are ephemeral, the principles of justice are eternal ; and this Government, founded and built upon them, will, I believe, last to the end of time. {Applause.) I have been given to-night the toast of "Our Constitutional System as tested by a Century." What is this Constitutional System ? Does it consist of executive officers, clothed with extraordinary powers, beside which the meager prerogative of constitutional monarchs shrink into insignificance ? Does it ■consist of a judiciary armed with power over life, limb and pro- perty? Does it consist of legislators, that they may be ena- bled and authorized to prefix the title "Honorable" to their names ? Does it consist of the mere parchment upon which certain figures may be traced and certain words may be read ? No ! Our Constitutional System consists of the application •of the eternal principles of justice to the relations of men to each other under our social compact. {Applause?) In the provisions that no man can be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law ; that all men shall take an equal part in the affairs of government ; that the privilege of habeas corpus shall never be denied ; that no private prop- erty shall be taken for public uses without proper compensa- tion, you have the essence of our Constitutional system, and you have the principles of justice made the birthright of the American citizen, beyond the reach of any disturbance from 42 any source whatever. {Applause^ You have the rule of equity applied to your every day existence. You have rights guaranteed to every citizen which the strongest may not in- vade, which the weakest is free to invoke for his own protec- tion. And these principles are not of yesterday, they are not of recent discovery. Their origin cannot be traced by history. Their source is lost in the mists of antiquity. Those same principles flourished under the ancient English common law^ and 'twas but the declaration of them that was contained in the great charter extracted from John at Runnymead. Through the darkness of years we can discern the harbinger of the common law, when Alfred reconstructed, a thousand years ago^ the ancient English system of jurisprudence, and defended it from foreign invasion and domestic tumult. These principles existed and were recognized among the rugged inhabitants of the Northern forests, when dastard rulers had denied their ex- istence and refused them recognition in the crowded cities and in the palaces of Europe. They lived, they flourished, they came across the impassable frontiers of the northern morass ; they were borne into the farthest parts of Europe ; against King and Court they were asserted, and they lived to nerve the arms and fire the hearts of the oppressed till they achieved triumph amid the wreck of dynasties and the falling heads of tyrants. If I were asked what it is that is significant in your festival to-night I would answer that it was the com- memoration of the carrying of these eternal principles of jus- tice and sound government across the sea and the planting of them in American soil. I would tell you that that first agree- ment in the cabin of the Mayflower, that first charter which was first established as the rule which would govern these Pil- grims upon their landing on the bleak and desolate shore of Massachusetts, was the germ of our Constitutional System; was the seed which, though cast in a rocky and forbidding soil, has grown and flourished until it has become a tree whose branches and shade have overspread this continent, and whose fruits are culled by the eager hands of the patriotic all over the world, that they may be planted in other soil, and bear fruit in other climes. {Applause.') The significance of this festival is, then, the birth of our "Constitutional System." But, sons 43 of New England, constitutions are more than paper docu- ments. I doubt if there has been an invention of human genius more often copied than our Constitutional System. I doubt if there has been anything which has been so often created, and so often violated as a new constitution in other countries. We have seen well within the lines of recent his- tory a great nation honestly bent on achieving independence and free institutions, conducting a heroic and successful strug- gle against a despotism of 800 years ; emancipating itself, against odds which no man thought at the beginning could be overcome, when liberty was in its hands framing a con- stitution with more elaborate declarations of rights even than ours possess ; and yet, within a few years the whole system went down in ruin, disaster, tyranny and universal distress. It is not any constitutional system that may be reduced to paper that is the genius of our Constitution. The noblest, the strongest declaration of rights may be mere maxims discarded at pleasure. It is the genius of a people that makes a consti- tutional system. That spirit which took expression in the cabin of the Mayflower is the spirit which has dominated this land to this day, and given us this Republic, the marvel of the world, destined to be the source of enlightenment to all Christendom, for all generations to come. We have, under our Constitutional System, achieved greatness ; but more than that, we have achieved rational freedom. We have made a majority all powerful for every salutary purpose. In the powers that we confer we keep alive the spirit of liberty. In the limitations which we place upon that power we do even more to preserve the genius of freedom to our people. If we are asked what have been the practical effects of this Constitutional System, we have but to tell our questioner to look around him. In the sight which will meet his eye will be found the answer to his question. On every hand we see liberty and order, prosperity and happiness. We see fields radiant with prosperity, homes on every hillside, where the fires of liberty are kept alive on the hearthstones ; neither fort- ress nor arsenal casting its grim shadow across the highway ; laws dictated by public opinion and obeyed by universal con- sent. A nation is reunited after a terrible conflict ; and were 44 our soil to be molested by foreign invasion, throughout the whole entire country, in the North and in the South, in village and in hamlet, a million citizens would become soldiers, a million swords would leap from their scabbards ; a million breasts would be bared to the shot of the foe ; a million hands would be prepared to wipe out in blood any insult that might be offered to the integrity of our flag. Nor is it alone in material prosperity that the triumph of our Constitutional System is apparent. It is equally proven by the moral development of our people. Wealth has been enjoyed by other nations and wealth belongs to this Republic. Freedom, too, has been known in this world, and freedom is the corner-stone of our Government. But here alone have we solved the problem that freedom and wealth are consistent ; that property may be secure while the largest power is con- fided to the hands of the masses; that the virtue of the peo- ple is a better shield for the security of the citizen than armed force or uniformed troops, and that the American spirit is the truest protection to life and to property. I have listened with surpassing pleasure to the liberal sen- timents which were expressed by Rev. Dr. Behrends, when he was discussing this banquet even as a Protestant festival, and I may say in reply to him that I believe I voice the sentiment of every person who kneels before any altar in this country when I say that, however different may be the roads on which we start, we all believe that we may hope to come together at the gates of Heaven. I may say that, no matter what the character of the edifice whose doors will be opened for wor- ship to-morrow, whether the services be conducted by robed priest or by plainly dressed preacher; whether the petitions rise from marble altar or from plain reading-desk, wherever through stained-glass windows the sun of Heaven shall shine down upon the heads of worshipers to-morrow, one prayer will rise to God alike from the hearts of all, and that prayer will be for the safety, security and prosperity of this Government, of this land, and of its Constitutional System. {Cheers.^ It may be that all things human are ephemeral ; it may be that this Government, which we love so well and in whose future we believe so deeply, will be found at the dawn of some day to 45 have disappeared. And yet I feel justified in believing that, as the principles of justice are eternal, the government which is founded upon them will last forever. Not as she stands to- day ; I know that nothing in nature can remain inert; but I believe she will live to the end of time, forever progressive, ever freer, ever greater, ever stronger, ever more durable. {Applause.) I believe that with each succesive force which is liberated from nature ; with each new development of science ; with each new element that may enter into the daily lives of men, creating vast additions to our wealth, annihilating space and multiplying the fields of industry, our Constitutional Sys- tem will be found elastic enough to include them, strong enough to regulate them, and that here in these two cities, lying side by side, at the very gateway of Western com- merce, linked together now by physical bonds as well as by common ends and aims, will ever flourish the truest and strongest types of American democracy, maintaining institu- tions which will forever stimulate patriotism, strengthen virtue and illuminate the world with the light of freedom, revealing liberty, hand in hand with order and prosperity. {Cheers). Seventh Toast : "JOHN ROBINSON, THE PILGRIM PASTOR." The Chair : — When a lawyer comes into court, and wants to say something very complimentary to the judge, he is wont to refer to some case reported, for example, in the 123d Ar- kansas Reports, of which the judge never heard, and he will say, " Of course, your Honor is familiar with the case of Jones vs. Smith, reported in the 123d Arkansas." Now, gen- tlemen, of course you know all about John Robinson, the Pilgrim Pastor. I will not^try to tell you anything about him, but what little you don't know will be told you by the Rev. E. C. Towne, who will speak to this toast. 46 ADDRESS OF EEV. E. C. TOWNE. Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, of the New England Society : The Secretary of the Navy has told us that the value of a ship is the value of its captain and crew. An unfortunate circumstance has prevented American history from taking note, as it otherwise would have done, of the Captain of the great Pilgrim enterprise. That saintly and statesmanlike pastor never succeeded in following his flock to this country, but died on the ist of March, 1625, in Holland. And when I tell you how it was that he failed to come, you will learn, I think, a lesson in history which has not been sufificiently noted. The Pilgrim pastor, John Robinson, and his church stood ab- solutely alone in the spirit in which they cultivated their own faith and tolerated all other types of Christian religion, and they were so antagonized by all the English Puritans of the time that even owners of the colony in London, who were largely Puritans in their preferences, did all that they could to prevent Mr. Robinson from coming over to America; and they succeeded, for he died in 1625 before he had an opportunity to come. Now, sir, in modern times there has been no more distin- guished Protestant pulpit than that of Westminster Abbey when occupied by Dean Stanley ; and when Dean Stanley went up into Scotland, the home of Puritanism, to deliver an address on the Hopes of Theology, before one of the uni- versities of Scotland, he quoted to them some words of John Robinson, and declared that "These words are the charter of the future glories of Protestant, and perhaps of Roman Chris- tianity." Those words were no more than just to the pecu- liarities of the Pilgrim pastor. Mr. Mathew Arnold, whose felicity in the manner of what he said was always so very great, and yet who was sometimes singularly infelicitous in the mat- ter of what he said, especially when he applied his English omniscience to American subjects, never struck a falser note than when he commented on the undertaking of the Pilgrim Fathers, in this wise : " Notwithstanding the mighty results of 47 the Pilgrim Fathers' voyage, they and their standard of per- fection are rightly judged when we figure to ourselves Shakes- peare or Virgil, souls in whom sweetness and light and all that in human nature was most humane were eminent, accom- panying them on their voyage, and think what intolerable com- pany Shakespeare or Virgil would have found them !" Well, gen- tlemen, I take leave to say that if there is a type of mind in the history of English culture worthy to be placed beside the mind of Shakespeare ; if there has ever been a man, speaking in the name of religion, who spoke in a spirit as large as that of Shakes- peare, when he embroidered the curtain of the rude English theater with spiritual beauties that made it seem like the gates of the Kingdom of God, that mind was the Pilgrim mind, and that man was the contemporary of Shakespeare, John Robin- son, the Pilgrim pastor. The story is too long to be related, and as your chairman has intimated, is one which is little known. If there should ever come a time when the story of Plymouth Church could be told without any particular ref- erence to Henry Ward Beecher, it will be much like telling the story of the Pilgrim Church without any particular refer- ence to John Robinson, That very admirable historian, Mr- Motley, when he came to the passage in Dutch history, where he had to touch upon the Pilgrims and John Robinson, said that there was nothing to show how John Robinson felt, and how his companions felt, in the presence of the proceedings of the Dutch Calvinists in connection with the Synod of Dort. There are many passages in John Robinson's writings which show us that the one thing of all others which moved them in getting out of Holland was, that they were entirely out of harmony with their co-religionists. It is matter of com- mon report that John Robinson, in the discussions of the time, took the side of the Calvinists ; but there is a beautiful story — more than one in fact — which show how the discussions of that time took place. It was a very earnest and ardent dis" cussion between the regular Calvinists and the new-departure people of that time, called Arminians, and in the discussions there was very hot debate. The debate was conducted in the Latin language, and yet the Arminians constantly prevailed ; and when one Dutch burgher was asked how it was that, as 48 lie didn't know any Latin, he could be persuaded by the argu- ments of the Arminians ; his answer was : "He that first gets angry, I know that he has lost." Now when Robinson ap- peared on the Calvinistic side the historian reports that the Arminians were put to an apparent nonplus, and that Robin- son was remarkably successful in the discussion. But the secret of it was not in Robinson's logic, or Latin dogmatics, but it was this : the Arminians were of a gentle and tolerant type, and when John Robinson came among them they beheld a still more gentle and tolerant spirit. If you ask to-day how a man like Mr. Beecher came out of the Calvinism of New England, you learn that he came out of it simply by his rare manhood ; by his gentle and beautiful nature. So John Rob- inson, though nominally on the Calvinistic side, was really out of Calvinism. I could tell you, if time permitted, many things that would show you that the spirit of the Pilgrims, in this pastor of theirs, was the spirit of perfect toleration, the spirit of perfect charity, the spirit of perfect liberality. It is a com- monplace in American history that toleration began with Roger Williams, in Rhode Island. Robinson had taught com- plete toleration before Roger Williams, and a spirit of liber- ality beyond that of Roger Williams. Our friend who spoke of the Pilgrims in Holland said that his sentiments would not have been listened to in the cabin of the Mayflower. If I have read history to any purpose, I am confident that there have never been men who would have listened to those sentiments more cordially than those Pilgrims in the Mayflower. They were men led by the inward light ; men of earnest faith in God, but ever seeking to go further and to learn to know bet- ter what the will of God was. But I must not detain you. I can never come to this Christmas season without having a double thought towards the past. I go back to my grandfather, who had fought in the Battle of Bunker Hill and the Battle of Long Island, and who was with Washington 113 years ago this night on the banks of the Delaware. Then I go back to the time when the Mayflower cast her anchor in Plymouth Harbor, December 26, 1620; and I say that there are no two themes in history more worthy of our eloquence, if we have eloquence, than the 49 character and the genius of the man who in the deep midnight of the Revolution led a ragged army, with bleeding feet^ through the waters of the Delaware, and, on the 26th of December, sent the battle of Trenton ringing down the grooves of time — one of the smallest battles, but one of the greatest victories in the history of the human race ; and, on the other hand, that band, of the best of England ; not a company of Northern peasants, as they have been called, but a company representing the finest of the English yeoman race ; who solved, under Robinson and Brewster, in their eleven years' residence at Leyden, the problem of liberty ; and not the problem of liberty alone, but the problem of liberality ; for they always said, while they reserved absolute liberty to every individual, it was to form their own faith, and not to impose it on any- body else ; who solved the problem of peace ; who solved the problem of charity ; who solved the problem of the sweet humanities ; and then having in their hands a type of church government which made the individual absolutely free, car- ried it over to the individual and the State, and brought to these shores the ideals of the commonwealth as well as of the church ; the perfect, pure idea of a complete democracy ; and landing there in that winter time, after a sea voyage, and a weary tarrying along the coast, of 133 days, witnessed their faith, their patience and their courage, by quietly submitting, while disease carried them — (six in the month of December, eight in the month of January, seventeen in the month of February and thirteen in the month of March)— into their graves, until forty-four per cent, of the colony were dead. They all acted as if they truly understood it ; and if you go back to the words of their captain you will find that he wrote to them out of Holland, " It is not thought but in battle some must die." That witness was borne to true democracy ; and I make bold to say that the church, the commonwealth, does not yet exist which fully carries out the spirit which John Robinson had taught to the Pilgrim Fathers. It was the prin- ciple of the most absolute liberty and the most absolute liber- ality. The time will come when we shall see that here is the brightest page in English history. 50 But we have before us the dawn of the Sabbath ; the Pil- grims loved the Sabbath ; they first kept it on Clark's Island and on the Mayflower. They kept it in the spirit of liberty. They judged no one, but only pursued their own way in reli- gion, and left all others to pursue theirs. I thank you for listening to me, gentlemen, on this theme, and hope that in the years to come the history which tells about John Robinson and Brewster, Winslow and Bradford, will be more studied and better understood than it is now. The exercises were brought to a close by the singing of the long-metre Doxology. " Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him all creatures here below, Praise Him above, ye heavenly host, Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." PROCEEDINGS AT THE Eleventh Annual Meeting AND eleventh annual festival OF THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY IN THE CITY OF BROOKLYN. OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, COUNCIL, IVIEMBERS, standing committees, AND BY-LAWS OF THE SOCIETY. BROOKLYN. 1891. CONTENTS PAGE. Objects of the Society, ....... 3 Terms of Membership, ....... 3 Past Officers, ....... 4 Officers, ......... 5 Directors, ......... 6 Council, . . ...... 6 Standing Committees, ... . . ■ • 7 Report of Eleventh Annual Meeting, ..... 9 Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Dinner, . . . .25 Bill of Fare, ........ 28 Address of President Willard Bartlett, . . . . • ^9 " Genl. Wm. T. Sherman, ..... 32 " Rev. H. Price Collier, . . . . -41 " Hon. Wm. C. P. Breckinridge. .... 47 " Genl. O. O. Howard, ... ... 52 Hon. John S. Wise, ..... 56 Letter of Geo. Wm. Curtis, . . . . . .38 Rev. A. P. Putnam, D. D., ... . 62 Rev. Timothy Dwight, LL. D., . . . . .65 Hon. Wm. P. Frye, ...... 65 Certificate of Incorporation, ...... 67 By-Laws, ...... ... 71 Honorary Members, ....... 77 Life Members, ....... 77 Annual Members, .... ... 78 Meetings of Society, ..,.,,. 84 Form of Bequest, ...... 84 OBJECTS OF THE SOCIETY. The New England Society in the City of Brooklyn is incorporated and organized to commemorate the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers ; to encourage the study of New England History ; to establish a library, and to promote charity, good fellowship and social intercourse among its members. TERMS OF MEMBERSHIP. Admission Fee, . . - . . $10.00 Annual Dues, ...-.- 5.00 Life Membership, Ifesides Admission Fee, - - 50.00 Payable at election, except Annual Dues, which are payable in January of each year. Any member of the Society in good standing may become a Life Member on paying to the Treasurer at one time the sum of fifty dollars ; and thereafter such member shall be exempt from further payment of dues. Any male person of good moral character, who is a native or descendant of a native of any of the New England States, and who is eighteen years old or more, is eligible. If in the judgment of the Board of Directors, they are in need of it, the widow or children of any deceased member shall receive from the funds of the Society a sum equal to five times the amount such deceased member has paid to the Society. The friends of a deceased member are requested to give the Historiographer early information of the time and place of bis birth and death, with brief inci- dents of his life, for publication in our annual report. Members who change their address should give the Secretary early notice. [I^° It is desirable to have all worthy gentlemen of New England descent residing in Brooklyn become members of the Society. Members are requested to send application of their friends for membership to the Secretary. Address, THOM.\S S. MOORE, Recording Secretary, 102 Broadway, New York. PAST OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY. l88o 1887 t88o BENJAMIN D. SILLIMAN, JOHN WINSLOW, CAT.VIN E. PRATT, VvILLARD BARTLETT, STrcasuccr : WILLIAM B. KENDALL, aaecoiDtnfl Secretaries : ALBERT E. LAMB, ••..... 1880 STEPHEN B. NOYES, jggg €:orrfsiponDin2 Sfcvrtavi) : REV. A. P. PUTNAM, D,D., .... tSRo ?l^isloiioflra4)|)fvs ALDEN J. SPOONER, STEPHEN B. NOYES, PAUL L. FORD, Hilirarians : REV. W. H. WHITTEMORE, ..... 1880 CHARLES E. WEST. ...... 1886 OFFICERS. 1891. President : CALVIN E. PRATT. First Vice-President: Second Vicf -President : ROBERT D. BENEDICT. STEWART L. WOODFORD. Treasurer : CHARLES N. MANCHESTER. Recording Secretary: Corresponding Secretary: THOMAS S. MOORE. WILLIAM H. WILLIAMS. Historiographer : W. L. BARDWELL. Librarian : DANIEL L. NORTHUP. DIRECTORS. For One Tear. Benjamin D. Silliman. Hiram W. Hunt. George H. Fisher. William H. Williams. Ethan Allen Doty. For Two Years. William H. Lyon. Albert E. Lamr. William B. Kendall. Stewart L. Woodford. J. S. Case. For Three Years. Calvin E. Pratt. John Winslonv. Willard Bartlett. Chas. N. Manchester. Robert D. Benedict. For Four Years. Benjamin F. Tracy. Frederic A. Ward. Henry W. Si.ocim. William G. Creamer. Nelson G. Carman, Jr. COUNCIL A. A. Low. A. M. White. S. B. Chittenden, Jk. A. F. Cross. Henry Coffin. Charles Pratt. Thomas H. Rodman. AUGU-STUS StORRS. Arthur Mathewson. W. H. Nichols. Francis L, Hine. PL W. Ma.xwell. Seth Low. LsAAC H. Cary. H. H. Wheeler. W. A. White. Darwin R. James. John Claflin. M. W. Robinson. J. S. T. Stranahan. L. S. Buknham. Henry Earl. Jasper W. Gilbert. M. N. Packard. Edwin F. Knowlton. N. H. Clement. Joseph A. Burr, Jr. Flamen B. Candler. Jesse Johnson. STAN D I ?; G C O M M 1 1^ T E E S. Ben'jamin F. Tracv. Calvin E. Pratt. Finance : William H. Lyon. Rof.ert D. Benedict Albert E. Lamb. ClKtfity : J. F. Knapp. InviUUions . John Winslow Henry W. Slocum. Benj. D. Silliman. Annual Dimier : William H. Williams. Nelson G. Carman. Jr. Ethan Allen Doty. Publications : Nelson G. Carmen, Jr. William G. Creamer, Frederic A. Ward. Annual Receptions : President and Vice-Presidents, THE ELEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING. The eleventh annual meeting of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, was held at the Directors' Room of the Acadamy of Music, on Wednesday evening, December 3d, 1890. Mr, Willard Bartlett was called to the chair, and Mr. Thomas S. Moore, acted as secretary. The minutes of the tenth annual meeting, held December II, 1889, were read and approved. The Treasurer's report was received and referred to the Finance Committee for audit. It shows a balance on hand of $17,845.03, deposited as follows: Special Deposit in Franklin Trust Co., at 4pereent. per annnm.f 17,000.00 Cash, Franklin Trust Co 453-34 Cash, Brooklyn Trust Co 391.69 $17,845.03 The annual report of the President was then read : THE ANNUAL REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT. ,In accordance with the requirements of Article VI. of the the By-Laws of the Society, I submit the following annual report : The present membership is 349. Since the last annual meeting the society has lost twelve members by death. The financial condition of the Society continues to be pro.s- perous. The larger portion of its funds, amounting to $17,000, is on deposit, bearing interest, with the Franklin Trust Com- pany of this city. lO Owing to ill health, my immediate predecessor in office was compelled to resign just before the last annual dinner, over which I was unexpectedly called upon to preside in his place. It is not improper for me to express here my high appreciation of the compliment bestowed by the Board of Directors in selecting me to fill the office of President for the time being. My judicial duties for the past year have been so exacting as to render it difficult for me to give the affairs of the Society the attention which they demand on the part of its presiding officer ; and I could not have consented to serve as such, even until the next election, had it not been for the kind and valu- able aid afforded me by your former President, the Hon. John Winslow. In July last, Mr. Paul L. Ford resigned the office of His- toriographer of the Society in consequence of other literary engagements, and Mr. W. A. Bardwell, the Librarian of the BrooTdyn Library, has been chosen by the Board of Directors to succeed him. Mr. Bardwell reports the death of twelve members of the Society within the current year. This is a larger annual mortality than the Society has ever before expe- rienced. The deceased members are : Aaron Claflin, William H. Waring, James A. Cowing, Ira A. Kimball, Russell L. Wheeler, Charles H. Mallory, George C. White, Ripley Ropes, Reuben W. Ropes, Harvey Farrington, Isaac H. Frothingham, and John Norton. Sketches of their lives, prepared by the Historiographer, are appended to this report, and made a part thereof. Mr. Bardwell informs me that in every instance these sketches have been submitted to some member of the family of the deceased for revision and correction, and there- fore the facts stated therein may confidently be relied upon as trustworthy and accurate. Including, as the Society does in its membership, many of the leading citizens of Brooklyn of New England descent, its pamphlet reports containing these biographical sketches thus prepared must in the course of time come to have considerable value to the local historian as a source of authentic information concerning many prominent characters in the history of the city. In view of the heavy loss which the Society has sustained by death within the last year, I would impress upon the mem- bers the importance of doing all they can to maintain an active interest in the purposes for which we are organized, and to awaken a like interest in other residents of Brooklyn who are eligible to membership, in order to induce them to join our organization. Of the last annual dinner, notwithstanding that the com- mittee was disappointed by the non-attendance of several II -speakers whom they had every reason to beh'eve would be present, I think it may be truly said that it worthily and suc- cessfully commemorated the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers. As to the approaching dinner, the arrangements made give every promise of a banquet worthy of the best traditions of^the Society; and I think every member can confidently expect to be delightfully and eloquently entertained. Two of the objects of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, as stated in its By-Laws, are to encourage the study of New England history and to establish a library. As to the first of these objects, the encouragement of the study of New England history, something has been accomplished. Thus in 1882 the Rev. Noah Porter, President of Yale College, delivered an address on " The Old New England Meeting- House;" in 1883, the Hon. Calvin E. Pratt delivered an ad- dress on the " Old New England School-House ;" in 1884 the Rev. John W. Chadwick spoke to the Society on the "Witches of Salem," and in 1886, Senator William P. Sheffield of New- port, R. L, read a paper on the " Soldiers and Sailors of New England." These instructive and entertaining addresses were delivered at meetings at which members introduced their fam- ilies. I recommend to the Society that these meetings be re- sumed. The occasions need not be wholly or oppressively serious. There is much that is humorous and poetic, as well as hard and prosaic, in the New Englander's life, and there is no reason why we should not hear something at these meet- ings about the bright and amusing, as well as the dark and in- structive side, of New England character and history. As to the establishment of a library as contemplated by our articles of incorporation, I cannot find that anything has ever been done. Among so many New Englanders it would seem that there must be some possessors of books who would willingly make contributions to form the nucleus of a distinct- ively New England Library in Brooklyn ; and very probably the Long Island Historical Society, or some other similar insti- tution, here would be willing to give us temporary house room for a collection of this sort. Aaron Claflin, who was born February 20th, 1807, died at his residence, No. 143 Montague street, on January yth, 1890. The funeral services were held at the family residence on January gth at 3 P. M., and were conducted by the Rev. Lyman Abbott, who spoke feelingly of the many good qualities and christian attributes of the dead. The services were attended by friends, relatives and business associates of the deceased. The shoe houses of New York City were closed during the time of the service, and all the well known dealers of that city were in attendance to 12 show their respect for the memory of their dead friend. Committees from the New York Hide and Leather Association and from the Globe Fire Insurance Company were also present. The remains were taken to Milford, Mass., for interment. Mr. Clafiin was born at Milford and was a brother of Horace B. Claflin who was, until his death in 1885, the head of the great dry goods house in New York that he founded and that still bears his name. Aaron Claflin was employed in his father's store in Milford, and with his brother Horace succeeded him in the business. The two brothers afterward were in business together at Wor- cester, Mass., but on their removal to New York forty-eight years ago, they ■went into business separately, each achieving an almost equally noteworthy success. Aaron Claflin's first visit to Brooklyn was in 1824, when he came in a sailing vessel on his way from Providence to Savannah. On his removal to this city he entered upon the boot and shoe business, and at the time of his death the headquarters of his immense business were in Church street, New York, and his factories at Milford. Mr. Claflin was an attendant of Plymouth Church, and one of the original callers of Mr. Beecher to the pastorship. The home of his boyhood claimed much of the attention of his maturer years, and numerous substantial edifices in Milford, occupied under his aus- pices, or affording accommodations to other business men, are monuments to his business success and the interest he preserved in the place of his birth Mr. Claflin also owned and operated a model farm of some 700 acres on Silver Hill near Milford. This was his rural home which he visited quite often. It was during his last visit at Milford that Mr. Claflin took the severe cold that de- veloped into a fatal malady. It was Mr. Claflin's boast that during his life of more than 70 years he has never required the services of a physician, nor had been kept away from business a single day by sickness. In 1828 Mr. Claflin was married to Miss Mary Thayer, daughter of Cap- tain Rufus Thayer, of Milford. Mrs. Claflin died on July i8th, 1S75. Of eight children, two sons and two daughters survive them. \ViLLiAM Henry Waring, who died at his home, 215 Greene avenue, on February roth, 1890, was the grandson of Henry, and the son of Nathaniel F. and Clara A. Waring. His mother was a granddaughter of Lodowick Hackstaff, one of the Dutch burgesses of New York. Four generations of Warings have resided in Brook- lyn. In 1803 Henry Waring, then a wealthy and influential merchant on Frankfort street, New York, purchased a Summer residence on the Heights. The house stood near the corner of Clark street, and was reached from Ferry road (Fulton street) by a street running between Clark street and Red Hook lane, and on the early maps was known as Waring street. William H. was born on February 7th, 1831, on Hicks street, near Pineapple. He attended school in the little frame house on Clark street, near Henry. Mr. Waring re- ceived his preparatory education at Union Hall Academy, Jamaica, and at the academy in Kinderhook, N. Y., and was graduated from Harvard University 13 in 1852. After graduating he travelled for a year and a half in Europe, and upon his return to this country studied law with Wetmore & Bowne ; was ad- mitted to the bar in 1855 and entered on the practice of law in New York city. In 1877 Mr. Waring was elected Republican member of Assembly from the Fifth District, and in the Legislature of 1878 was a member of the Cities Com- mittee. He introduced and was instrumental in the passage ot the Two-Thirds Assessment law, whereby local improvements which nearly bankrupted the city treasury were checked. Mr. Waring was again elected member of Assem- bly from the Eleventh District in 1881, during which session he was conspicu- ously against the movement to consolidate the telegraph companies and was on the side of the people against the Railroad Commission Bill. He advocated free tolls on the canals and introduced a bill for the punishment of frauds at primary elections. Mr. Waring was an active member of the Seventh Ward Republican As- sociation, one of the Board of Managers of the Church Charity Foundation, and the Diet Dispensary, a director and counsel for the Sheltering Arms Nursery, a member of the Brooklyn Library, the Long Island Historical Society, the Society of Old Brooklynites, the New England Society, the Brooklyn Choral Union, the Oxford, Hamilton, Lincoln, and Union League Clubs, and Past Master of Montauk Lodge, F. and A. M. He was also a director and counsel for the Franklin Savings Bank of New York City. Mr. Waring was genial and kindly, and as a neighbor and a friend he was respected by all who knew him. Mr. Waring was twice married and leaves a widow and grown children. The funeral service was held on February 13th at the Church of the Mes- siah, corner of Greene and Clermont avenues, the Rev. Charles R. Baker officiating. James Aransom Cowing, who died on the 14th of February, 1890, at his residence, No. 119 State street, was born at Chesterfield, Mass., January 30th, 1812. When a mere boy the family removed to Dexterville, N. Y., and at the age of sixteen Mr. Cowing went to Buffalo, N. Y., where he resided until he came to New York City in 1840, in which year he married. In Buffalo Mr. Cowing at first was offered and accepted a clerkship with a friend of his father's, but afterwards engaged in the grain business on his own account, and at the age of 25 years had made for himself a name among the merchants along the lakes as a man of rare business tact and promising abilities. Mr. Cowing came to New York at the invitation of the late Dean Richmond, where he entered into partnership with that formerly well known politician, and became the senior partner in the firm of Cowing, Richmond & Co., wholesale dealers in fiour. Mr. Cowing was for many years treasurer of the New Yoi'k Elevated Railroad, in which company he was a large stockholder. He had charge of the negotiations that led up to the reorganization of that road until it became a part of the Manhattan Elevated system. His sight and hearing failing he retired from active business, though keeping an office at 15 State street, New York, and for over forty years Cowing has resided in the same named street, 14 this city. Mr. Cowing leaves four sons and one daughter, his wife having died in 1885. The funeral services were held at the late residence on February the 17th, the Rev. A. B. Kinsolving, pastor of Christ Episcopal Church, ofiflciating. The interment took place at Greenwood Cemetery. Ira Allen Kimb.^vll, who died February 2Sth, iSgo. at his residence. 346 Ninth street, South Brooklyn, at the ripe age of 74 years, was a well known and respected citizen of this city. Mr. Kimball was born in Hebron, Conn., on March 17th, 1816, and came to Brooklyn about fifty years ago, taking up his residence at Bay Ridge. He began his life in this city as teacher of a dis- trict school at about a point where the public school in 46th street is now situated. Mr. Kimball subsequently went into the grocery business, and finally about twenty years ago, went into partnership in the real estate business under the firm name of Kimball & Daniels. Mr. Kimball was an uncompromising Republican, holding the office of Assistant-Assessor of Internal Revenue during the war. Mr. Kimball was a member of the Hanson Place Baptist Church. The funeral services were held at Mr. Kimball's late home on the evening of March 3d, the Rev. Melville Boyd, of All Saints' Episcopal Church, officiating. Russell Lathrop Wheeler, who died at his home, 157 Willow street, on March 8th, 1890, in his 60th year, was born June 23, 1830, in North Stoning- ton, Conn. His early business training was in the office of Governor Buck- ingham, with whose family he resided. He came to New York to accept a position with Freeland, Stuart & Co., then a leading dry goods house, occupy- ing the present site of Adams Express Company, 59 Broadway. He left them to take a partnership with a wholesale grocery firm under the style of Jarvis, Worth & Wheeler. Later he became a member of the house of Strong, Mur- ray & Co., wholesale grocers, who, before the war, had extensive dealings with the South. He was next with the banking house of Clark, Dodge & Co., and afterwards a member of the Gold Board. In 1871 Mr. Wheeler formed a con- nection with the Hazard Powder Company, filling the position of secretary, vice- president and president, successively, having held the last named position for several years previous to his death. Mr. Wheeler was an old resident of Brook- lyn, and was for many years a Director of the Brooklyn Savings Bank. Mr. Wheeler was twice married, first in 1852, to Mary Conklin. of Pleasant Val- ley, N. Y., and again to Florence Dean Thomas, daughter of the late George Frederick Thomas, president of the Seaman's Bank for Savings, who survives him. Charles Henry Mallory died at his residence, 31 Grace Court, this city on March 2ist, 1890. Mr. Mallory was born at Mystic, Conn., Sept. 30, 1 81 8. His father, Charles Mallory, was a prominent shipbuilder of that place, and in time became owner of an exclusive fleet of whaling and mer- chant vessels that prosecuted his interests in al! parts of the world. He was a 15 man of practical ideas and believed in a practical education, wherefore his children were early trained in manual labor, in conjunction with their regular common school instruction. Up to his sixteenth year young Charles attended school in his native town. He then went to sea, making his first voyage before the mast in the brig Apalachicola. Here he first gave evidence of the trait that he displayed throughout life, and which was always a factor in his various suc- cesses — that of accomplishing thoroughly whatever his hands found to do. He rapidly passed through the various grades of promotion, and in 1839, before he was of age, he became master of the brig. From that time until 1846 his life was passed continuously on the water. Then he came to New York and set- tled down to look after the many and varied interests of his father, who at this time was in the full tide of his business career. This work engaged his attention until he founded the firm of C. H. Mal- lory «fe Co. , at 153 Maiden Lane, taking as his partner Captain Elihu Spicer, who survives him. The firm at first engaged in the coasting and California trade, and subsequently controlled for a long time the New Orleans and Brazil- ian lines, besides their own ships, which ran between New York and Galveston, Key West, Brunswick, Ga., and Fernandina, Fla. In 1870, his sons, Charles and Henry R., and about ten years later, Robert, were admitted as partners in the firm, which still exists under the same name at Pier 20, East River, New York. On the breaking out of the war Mr. Mallory constructed several ves- sels for the United States Government, among them being the steamship Varuna. He also built and owned a great number of yachts, which were fast sailers in their day, prominent among which were the Richmond and the Has- well. Latterly he took especial pride in his steam yacht Clifton, and was a member of the Atlantic, American and New York Yacht Clubs, in which organizations he always took a lively interest. In 1862 Mr. Mallory entered public life, having been elected State Senator from the New London District, on the Republican ticket, by an overwhelming majority. On the completion of his term of service he declined a renomination on account of his large business interests. Mr. Mallory came to Brooklyn in 1S65, and since 1870 has lived in his res- idence in Grace Court, in which he died. He belonged to the Methodist denom- ination at his home, but always attended Plymouth Church, with whose great pastor he was on terms of friendly intimacy. He had been in poor health since last June, when he visited his office for the last time. Mr. Mallory's death has removed one of the most prominent figures from the shipping interests of New York City. He was an intimate friend of the late John Roach, who built all the fleet of iron steamships for the Mallory Line, which at the time of his death numbered eleven. Mr. Mallory built twelve of the thirty gunboats for the Spanish Govern- ment about fifteen years ago, and fitted out the -(whole fleet. He was married to Eunice Denison Clift, July 25th, 1S41 , at Mystic Bridge, Conn. He was the founder, and up to the time of his death, the head of the ex- tensive shipping firm of C. H. Mallory & Co., Pier 20, East River, New York. Mr. Mallory leaves five children, three sons and two daughters. The funeral services were held privately at the house. Interment at Mystic, Conn. i6 George Caldwell White was born at Hartford, Conn., August nth, 1807, and died at Brooklyn, N. Y., May ist., 1890, aged 83 years. Mr. White was a lineal descendant of Elder John White, one of the original settlers of Hartford, Conn. He received his education at the " Old stone school house" at Hartford, and early in life entered as an apprentice, a jewelry store in Hartford, where, as was the custom in those times, he learned the trade of jeweler and silversmith. Soon after the expiration of his apprenticeship he came to New York, and entered the wholesale jewelry business on Maiden Lane, a trade with which, and a kindred branch, he continued all his life long. Mr. White had a very large acquaintance with the leading jewellers throughout the United States ; an acquaintance that in many cases ripened into a friendship which was terminated only by death. At the time of his decease he was the oldest person actively connected with the jewelry trade. His courteous and gentle manners and strict integrity, won him the love and confidence of all who knew him. Very few men of his age were as active and in possession of such unabated faculties, as the deceased. He was a man of the most correct and abstemious habits throughout his whole life, and possessed an iron constitution and a clear head. Very few, if indeed any, of his old friends were aware of his extreme age, and he was generally rated from ten to twenty years younger than he really was. He was married in the year 1835 to Sarah Dunn, who was born at Poland, Me., in the year 1807, the same year in which her husband was born, and who died October 19th, 1890,. in the same year, and within six months of his death. Four children survive them. Mr. and Mrs. White lived in Brooklyn for fifty-five years, and died beloved and honored by all who knew them. Ripley Ropes, who died on May iSth, 1S90, was born on the 30th of Sep- tember, 1820, in Salem, Mass., where he lived until 1863, greatly esteemed and honored for high character, his faithful labors in the city government, and his earnest interest in benevolent and christian work. He was the youngest of five brothers, and the family to which he belonged is of the good old New England stock and has had its many noble representa- tives in Salem and other places. Mr. Ropes was married in October, 1846, to Elizabeth Graves. At the age of 43 he removed with his wife and children to Brooklyn, establishing himself in partnership with his brother, Reuben W. Ropes, in New York city, in the South American trade. Mr. Ropes connected himself with the First Unitarian Church, of which Rev. Dr. A. P. Putnam was pastor, and afterward was superintendent of its Sunday School, as he had also been of that of the East Church in his native city. He was also for some time president of the Brooklyn Union for Christian Work. In 1872 Mr. Ropes was elected a member of the Board of Aldermen. In politics an independent Republican, his sentiments were, as expressed in his own words, that " politics should have no weight in municipal affairs." Always at his post of duty he was vigilant, honest, and untiring. 17 and at the end of his first term of two years was again nominated and elected, receiving the support of both parties, no opposing candidate being in the field. At the end of four years in this capacity, he was appointed in 1877 by the Board of Aldermen to fill a vacancy in the Board of Supervisors of Kings County ; also in the same year, but earlier, Mr. Ropes was appointed Charity Commissioner by Governor Robinson, and was re-appointed in 188 1 by Gov- ernor Cornell. The two offices armed him with double power and gave him the opportunity of waging war against many evils and abuses existing at that time in the county institutions at Flatbush. Of all his efforts for reform in the city of his adoption Mr. Ropes regarded with the greatest satisfaction the good he effected by the abolition of " Outdoor Relief," by which was effected an- nually a saving to the city of thousands of dollars, yet securing at the same time efficient help to the deserving poor who had previously been deprived of it by the fraudulent distribution which was practiced. Yet this was but one of Mr. Ropes' many and untiring efforts in the interests of the public welfare. As was well said by the Brooklyn Eagle, whose strong words of encouragement and support cheered Mr. Ropes for many long years in this as in other benefi- cent labors, " He has done more than any other hundred citizens of Brooklyn to enforce justice and humanity in the department of charities." Whole nights as well as days were often given to public interests, and while others slept he was frequently at work for the public good. In the interesting municipal cam- paign of 1 83 1 Mr. Ropes was urged to allow himself to be presented as candi- date for the office of Mayor. This, however, he steadily declined to do, but was, notwithstanding, nominated for this high position on October 17th of that year at a large and enthusiastic meeting of citizens of all parties, Henry Ward Beecher making an eloquent and eulogistic speech on the occasion. Mr, Ropes was induced to accept the call, but withdrew his own name, himself substituting that of Seth Low at a citizens' mass meeting, held at the Academy of Music, October 26th, Mr. Beecher making here also one of his notable speeches. On Mr. Low's election he asked Mr. Ropes to accept a position in his cabinet as Commissioner of Public Works. This Mr. Ropes declined, being already burdened with care and responsibility. Beside his regular busi- ness as a merchant, he was still Charity Commissioner and President of the Brooklyn Trust Company, to which position he had been elected in 1873. The latter position he was, however, prevailed upon to resign, and in the interest of good government he accepted the office of Commissioner of Cily Works, which he held for two years, establishing many needed reforms, and greatly reducing the expenses of the Department. At the end of Mr. Low's first term of two years Mr. Ropes resigned his Commissionership, being needed at the Trust Company. It seems incredible that one should have such a capacity for work and should be able to attend thus to so many and such varied interests at once. Vet Mr. Ropes found time to do thoroughly and well whatever he undertook. During all the time while he was discharging the labors referred to, he was constantly called to other cares and always with the same readiness to serve. In 1877 he was made foreman of the jury summoned to hold inquest on the Brooklyn Theatre fire ; the examination into the origin of which he conducted in such a manner as to elicit the admiration and gratitude of his associates. i8 Taken altogether Mr. Ropes' life was one of intense activity, and, indeed, he was happy only when busy. It was doubtless a source of great satisfaction to him that he was permitted to attend to the active duties of life until nearly the end. His familiar figure and kindly greeting will long be remembered by those who were intimate with him. Suitable resolutions were prepared and adopted by the Charities Commis- sioners, the Board of Aldermen, and the trustees of the Brooklyn Trust Com- pany. The funeral services were held at the Church of the Saviour, Pierrepont street and Monroe place, on May 2ist, at 2.30 P. M., Rev. Drs. A. P. Putnam and H. Price Collier officiating. The interment was at Salem, Mass., in the family plot. Reuben Wilkins Ropes, who died on the 30th of July, I890, was the eldest and last surviving of five sons of Captain Benjamin Ropes of Salem, Mass., two of whom, Charles Ropes of Salem, and Ripley Ropes of this city, have died within the present year, the former in March, the latter in May. The commencement of Mr. Ropes' fatal illness was a stroke of paralysis at Saratoga about three weeks before his death. From this place, whither he had gone with his family to pass the summer months, he was removed to his home in the city, Mr. Depew placing his own special car at the service of the family, and every care being taken to make the journey a quiet one. On his arrival at his residence, 28 Remsen street, Mr. Ropes was, however- unconscious, and remained in that condition until he died, several hours afterward. Reuben Wilkins Ropes was born in Salem on the i6th of July, i3i3. and came of a very old English family, his ancestor having settled in Salem in 1732. The family name was originally Roper. Two brothers of that name were with the Pilgrim Fathers who arrived in the Mayflower, one of whom was the ancestor of Captain Ropes, who fought at Lundy's Lane, in Canada, against the British, in the War of 1812. Mr. Ropes' father was a shipping merchant of note in Salem, and Reuben received his education in the schools of his native town, afterward entering upon the business pursuits in which his father was engaged. In 1830 he formed the shipping firm of R. W. Ropes & Co., in which his brothers were associated with him, the firm operating a line of packet ships between Salem, Philadelphia and Baltimore, and having extensive business rela- tions with South American firms, one of the brothers, Henry Ropes, being stationed at Buenos Ayres to look after the interests of the firm in these parts. In 1835 the firm removed to New York where it has since done a con- stantly increasing business in the building formerly known as the old Colonial stage house at 73 Pearl street. Though an ardent Republican. Mr. Ropes never took any activ^e part in politics. His life, and especially since his retirement from active business ten years ago, has been largely devoted to charitable work. Henry Ward Beecher said of Mr. Ropes that he had not in his congregation a man with a more 19 beautiful character. He was a devoted parent, loving his home as few men do, and was united by the strongest ties of affection to his brother, Ripley Ropes, a day rarely passing when one of the brothers did not visit the other in friendly consultation. They shared each others anxieties and pleasures. Mr. Ropes was of a modest and retiring disposition, and his many acts of charity were done without ostentation. He supported many poor families through periods of distress or particular crises in their affairs, often going among the poor and searching out the cases where his sympathy and money would bring relief. His favorite idea was to aid the poor without degrading them. He opposed, therefore, the granting of money for out door public charities, while he thoroughly believed in the good work possible of accomplishment through the various institutions especially organized to aid those suffering from poverty. Mr. Ropes was one of the founders of the Brooklyn Eye and Ear Hospital; was Vice President of the Long Island College Hospital ; President of the Sea- man's Friend Society, and for more than twenty-five years President of the Society for Improving the Condition of the Poor. In all of these capacities he proved himself a careful man of business, a wise counsellor and a valuable executive force. Mr. Ropes left two sons and one married daughter, his wife Maria Thom- son Ropes having died five years ago. The funeral was held at 3 o'clock on August 1st at Mr. Ropes' late residence, 28 Remsen street. Rev. Charles Cuth- bert Hall conducting the services. The remains were interred in Salem in the family burial plot. Harvey Farrington, for forty years a merchant in New York, died at his residence, 118 Lefferts place, Brooklyn, on the first of August, 1890. Mr. Far- rington had been in ill health for a year, but was not confined to his bed until a few days before his death, being endowed with wonderful vitality which ena^ bled him to withstand the encroachments of his illness. Mr. Farrington was born in New Bedford, Mass., on October 30, 1S22, being therefore in his 6Sth year at the time of his death. From New Bedford he removed to Watertown, N. Y., when only a child, at which place his early boyhood was passed. His business life was begun as a partner with his father in milling and mercantile pursuits. In 1850 he came to New York, taking a position as salesman for the wholesale grocery firm of South worth, Slauson & Co., where, by energy and strict attention to business, his services were so valuable that he was shortly after taken as partner into the firm. In 1861 the firm of Van Valkenburg, Slauson & Co. was formed, of which he was a partner, and later this house was succeeded by Slauson, Labagh & Farrington. This firm was again succeeded by Farrington, Leonard & Co., the junior partner being Mr. W. B. Leonard of this city. This firm was succeeded after some two years by H. and G. B. Farrington in 1864. and exists at present at the corner of Maiden lane and Front street. New York. As a resident of Brooklyn for near forty years, Mr. Farrington was familiar with its public affairs, conversant with the various stages of muni- 20 ipal progress, and devoted to the welfare of the community. Taking a prominent part in city improvements, he was an active factor in the formation of the Kings County Elevated Railroad Company, and in de- fending nnd maintaining its rights to the present route. In the long struggle for the possession of the Fulton street franchise, his exam- ple and resolution were of the largest value to his colleagues. His beha- vior during the controversy indicated a cool head and remarkable foresight. Mr. Farrington was a prominent member of the Lincoln Club, and also of the Citizens' Committee which was formed in 1871 to investigate election frauds. He was a prominent mason, being Past Master of Montauk Lodge, No. 286 ; Past Trustee of the Grand Lodge ; Treasurer of the Hall and Asylum Fund, etc., etc. Mr. Farrington was noted for his kindly personal traits. He was amiable and unostentatious. In the commercial world his name was always synono- mous with honorable behavior. His connection with many local organizations of importance was wholesome and helpful. He will long be remembered as a citizen who, according to his best judgment, sought carefully to perform his whole duty. Mr. Farrington was married on January 8th, 1840, to Juliet D. Chase, of Carthage, N. Y., who, with five children, survives him. The funeral was held at his late residence on Sunday, August 3d. The remains were in- terred in Greenwood. Isaac Harding Frothingham was born in Salem, Mass., on September 19, 1807, and died in Brooklyn, N. Y. , on October 20, 1890. He was a lineal descendant, in the seventh generation, of William Frothing- ham, who came with Governor Winthrop from England in 1630 and settled in Charlestown. His father, Nathaniel Frothingham, came from that city to Salem in early manhood and died there in 1857, at the age of eighty-eight. Nathaniel Frothingham was a coachmalcer by trade, as was his father before him. He took a prominent part in the affairs of his adopted town, representing it for many years in the State Legislature; and was in late life widely known and revered as Deacon of the Universalist Church. He was twice mar- ried, the second time in 1806 to Polly, widow of Captain Isaac Harding, and daughter of Captain John Whipple, of Hamilton. Of their four children Isaac Harding Frothingham was the oldest. Mr. Frothingham spent the first twenty-nine years of his life in his native town. After going through the usual course in the District and Latin Schools, he was apprenticed at the age ol fifteen to Isaac Neudhall, in the dry-goods trade. Seven years later he was able to purchase a stock of goods and begin business on his own account. In 1832 he was married to Elizabeth, daughter of James Potts, of Salem, a most estimable lady, whose companionship and sympathy was for forty years his greatest happiness. Their three children, James H. and Channing Frothing- ham and Mrs. Elizabeth A. Mason, all survive them. In 1836 Mr. Frothingham sold out his retail business in Salem and re- moved to Boston, joining his brother-in-law, John Fosdick, in the wholesale dry-goods business, under the firm name of Fosdick & Frothingham. 21 In 1842, seeking a larger field, he came to New York, where, with Abraham R. Frothingham, a younger brother, he formed the firm of Carleton, Frothing- ham & Co., dealing in silk goods. The business was established at the corner of Pearl and Pine streets, then in the heart of the dry -goods trade of the city. From that firm he retired in 1848, and during the next ten or twelve years was associated, as senior or special partner, with the firm of Frothingham, Newell & Co. and its successors, in the boot and shoe jobbing business. With this Mr. Frothingham's mercantile career proper came to an end. In 1859 he was called upon to join in the formation of a new bank in Brooklyn, and when shortly thereafter the Nassau National Bank was incor- porated, he was elected its president. This office he held for six years, and re- linquished it only to accept the presidency of the Union Trust Company of New York, then being organized. In 1873 he resigned from the presidency of the Trust Company, remaining a director of the Company, as of the Nassau Bank also, until his death. In 1879 he became President of the United States Ware- house Company, which office he retained during the remainder of his life- While the successive occupations thus sketched indicate the main lines of Mr. Frothingham's business career, they by no means included the whole of his business activities. His tastes were always in the direction of financial enter- prise, and as his wide experience, his discreet judgment and his absolute integ- rity commanded the respect and confidence of the community, his services were more and more demanded for the organization and conduct of important finan- cial institutions. Among those of which at various times during the latter por- tion of his life he was a director were the Home Life, the Home Fire and the Phenix Insurance Companies, and the Dimes Savings Bank, the Shoe and Leather Bank and the St. Nicholas Bank. Of most of these he was an organ- izer as well ; in many of them he at one time or another held ofiice, and to all his counsel and support have been most valuable. For forty-eight years Mr. Frothingham was a resident of Brooklyn, and for nearly all of that time in the First Ward. In 1855 he built for himself the house No. i34Remsenstreet, in which he spent the remaining thirty-five years of his life. He never took an active part in politics and never held political office. Yet Brooklyn has had few citizens more truly public spirited ; few who have given more generously of their time and energy in its service. His business was only one side, perhaps even the least characteristic, of Mr. Frothingham's ac- tivities. On the other side were the Church, the School, the Hospital, and all those other public and philanthropic works that count for so much in the life of a great city, and that absorbed so large a share of his interest. Almost his earliest act after settling in Brooklyn was to associate himself with the First Unitarian Society, which was established in 1842, under the pas- torate of the Rev. Frederick A. Farley. At the time of his death only four others of the original members of the Society survived. He served repeatedly on the Board of Trustees of the Church, and was for many years its President. With the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute he was even more closely identified. He was among the most foremost of its organizers in 1854, and he was its President from that year until 1889, when the Institute, begun as a moderate school for boys thirty-five years before, was reorganized as a college, with a thousand students. 22 The Brooklyn City Hospital also owes much to Mr. Frothingham's unremit- ting interest. He was a member of the institution in 1845, and was soon thereafter made one of its Trustees. In 1S51 he was a member of the Building Committee under whose supervision the present Hospital building was erected. After serving for many years as member of the Finance and other committees he was in 1883 elected Vice-President and in 1SS6 President, which last office he held until his death. The Academy of Music, of which for nearly thirty years he was Treasurer, and the Brooklyn Institute, of whose Board of Trustees he was chairman for about the same length of time, are only two more of the many useful institu- tions with which his name was connected. Mr. Frothingham was a type of nearly all that is best in the New England character. The simplicity and rectitude of his life, his unwearying industry, his broad and active interest in all that concerned the real welfare of the city he made his home, were the same qualities that in earlier generations made New England, its people and its institutions, the finest and strongest product of our American civilization ; and, unlike many of his Puritan ancestors, he added to those qualities the milder virtues that devclope only when easier material con- ditions have permitted life to be something more than a bare struggle for hon- orable existence. Even more than for his great public usefulness, Mr. Froth- ingham is likely to be remembered for his kindliness and gentleness, his ready sympathy and helpfulness, his perfect unselfishness. His serene and lovable presence was a continual happiness to those who were fortunate enough to know him, and the inspiration of his pure and noble life will long remain with them. John Norton, founder and head of the house of John Norton & Son, 90 Wall street. New York, died at his house 297 Henry street, Brooklyn, on Thursday, October 30th, 1890. Mr. Norton was born in Eastport, Me., in May, 1S16. At the age of 18 he came to New York and became a clerk with Oakford & Whitcomb, wholesale grocers. After remaining with this firm for four or five years he helped establish and became a member of the freight brokerage firm of Russell & Norton, at the corner of Old Slip and South street. This firm was dissolved in 1854, and since that date Mr. Norton has continued the business, at 90 Wall street, part of the time alone and part of the time with one or more of his sons. During the last thirty-five years the building at go Wall street has become well known to all down-town merchants as being occu- pied continuously by this firm, From 1854 to 1871 the business was conducted by Mr. Norton alone. He put on the first vessels to run between New York and Australian ports, and at the time of the gold excitement in California he was prompt to fit out passenger vessels running to the Pacific coast. Mean- while he was prosecuting an active business and increasing trade to the Argen- tine Republic ; he also did a large ship-brokerage business in chartering vessels with full cargoes of lumber from this port and Boston. In 1871 Mr. Edward N. Norton, son of John, entered the firm, which then became known as John Norton, Jr. & Son. In 1878, another son, Augustus, was added to the firm, the style being changed to John Norton & Sons. Upon 23 the death of Augustus, on October 17, 18S9, the firm resumed the title of John Norton & Son, which it has since retained. Notwithstanding his advanced age Mr. Norton had enjoyed excellent health until a few days before his death, and began to fail only four days before that event. Mr. Norton was a director of the Homoeopathic Dispensary, Brooklyn, and had long been an active member of Holy Trinity Church. He was a man whom those who knew him best delighted to call a gentleman of the old school. He was courteous in all social relations, of unimpeachable business integrity, punctual in fulfilling every business engagement, an invaluable member of the business community, and a life-long Christian man. His business, from a trade which required the despatching of a vessel of 300 tons burden six or seven times a year, grew until it demanded the dispatch of seventy vessels per year of 600 tons each, supplemented by a steamer every thirty or forty days. Mr. Norton leaves a wife and five children, of whom three are girls, and one, Edward N., is the sole surviving member of the firm. The funeral services were held Saturday P. M., November ist, at the late home of the deceased. All which is respectfully submitted. WILLARD BARTLETT, President. Brooklyn, December 3, 1890. The Report was on motion accepted and the Secretary was requested to publish it in the Annual Report. The resignation of W. J. Root and Ezra D. Barker were received and accepted. 1 On motion the following Directors were elected to serve for the ensuing four years : Benjamin F. Tracy, Henry W. Slocum, Frederic A. Ward, Nelson G. Carman, Jr., and Wil- liam C. Creamer. On motion adjourned. THOMAS S. MOORE, Reco7'ding Secretary. PROCEEDINGS AND SPEECHES AT THE ELEVENTH ANNUAL DINNER, Saturday, December 20, 1890. In commemoration of the Tzvo Hundred ayid Seventieth Anniversary of the Landing of the Pilgrims. The Eleventh Annual Dinner of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, was held in the Assembly Rooms of the Academy of Music, and in the Art Room adjoining, on Saturday eveniug, December 20, 1890. The reception was held in the Art Room, and at six o'clock the dinner was served. Two hundred and twelve gentlemen were seated at the tables- The President, Hon. Williard Bartlett, presided. Upon his right sat HoN. Benj. D. Silliman, Rev. H. Price Collier, Hon. John Winslow, Hon. Alfred C. Chapin, Hon. Wm. P. C. Breckinridge, Hon. Wm. T. Davis, The President St. Nicliolas Society, The Pres- ident St. Patrick's Society. On the left of the President sat Gen. William T. Sher- man, Gen. H. W. Slocum, Gen. O. O. Howard, Hon. Benj. F. Tracy, Hon. Calvin E. Pratt, Hon. John S. Wise, Rear Admiral Braine, The Vice-President New England Society of the City of New York. 26 The members of the Society were seated as follows Table A.— Robert D. Benedict, Harrington Putnam, Edward G. Benedict, Thomas Nelson. Jr. Isaac H. Gary, C. N. Hoagland, Alfred G. Barnes, T. M. Spelman, Algernon S. Higgins, Wm. H. Hill. John Shaw, Thomas White, George Wolcott. E. Winslow, E. J. Knowlton, James H. Williams, Thos. A. Buffum, E. F. Knowlton. A. B. Atkins, Joseph W. Carroll, Thomas H. Troy, James W. Smith, Gornelius Olcott, M. D., Hayden H, Butts, Oliver G. Fessenden, H. W. Wheeler. Table B.— Chas. N. Manchester, A. de Riesthal, H. B. Moore, Arthur R. Jarrett, F. H. Lovell, M. H. Angell, Miles Standish, John Alden, John Tweedy, Henry I. Hayden, Daniel Somers, Chas. D. Burwell, Wm. Hester, N. G. Carman. Jr., Oliver W. Buckingham, Henry W. Slocum, Jr., Elihu Spicer. David Barnett, James W. Ridgway, Earnest Staples, W. S, Badger, C. B. Davenport, Geo. H Southard, Gates D. Fahnestock, J. W. Hyde, Auguste J. Cordier. Table C— Geo. B. Abbott, Franklin Bartlett, Hassan H. Wheeler, Aug. C. Van Wyck, Wm. Berri, Frank Bailey, Chas. J. Patterson, Josiah T. Marean, Jos. A. Burr, Jr., D. S. Babcock, W. L. Vandervoort, Geo, P. Merrill, A. E. Mudge, A. E. Lamb, Chauncey Marshall, Schuyler Walden, Wm. B. Davenport, Wm. N. Dykman, Wm. B. Hurd. Jr., Geo. H. Fisher, Wm. J. Gaynor, Millard F. Smith, Jesse Johnson, Murat Halstead, Henry W. Maxwell, Nat. H. Clement, Edgar M. Cullen. Table D. — Thos. S. Moore, W. H. Male, Fred Cromwell, John F. Praeger, Louis Praeger, J. Spencer Turner, H. W. Hunt, Charles Ware, M. D., Thomas R. French, M. D., George H. Prentiss, Frederic S. Parker, James L. Morgan, Jr., Frederic A. Ward, George G. Reynolds, James D. Bell, William Coit, Charles S. Sanxay, George W. Wingate. Isaac S. Catlin, Theo. E. Smith, Alex. Barrie, Geo. H. Ripley, F. B. Candler, A. T. White, Danl. F. Lewis. Table E.— John B. Woodward, Charles Pratt, Edwin Packard, C. M. Pratt, Charles R. Richards, F. B. Pratt, J. T. Pratt, F. L. Babbott, William D. Wade, Cyrus E. Staples, Samuel E. Howard, J. M. Leavitt, Wm. H. Taylor, E. H. Treacarton, James S. Bailey, Charles H. Parsons, John F. Henry, D. L. Northrop, William Potts, Loomis L. Langdon, Wm. G. Creamer. G. S. Hutchinson, E. H. Kellogg, Wm. T. Cross, James E. Spencer, Alfred T. Cross, Carl De Silver, John S. James. 27 Table F.— Ethan Allen Doty, J. S. T. Stranahan, Nelson J. Gates, William Adams, John P, Adams, Rufus L. Scott, George M. Nichols, P. H. Kretschmar, M.D., William D. Barnes, Frederick C. Train, Franklin Quimby Frank Underhill, Stanley F. Quinby, H. A. Tucker, M.D., H. A. Tucker. Jr, John R. Wilmarth, Howard S. Randall, Daniel P. Morse, Henry L. Coe, George H. Cook, William J. Richardson, Rev. A. C. Dixon, William Richardson, Joseph B. Elliott, M. D., William H. Lyon. Table G.— Wm, H. Willams, Charles A. Moore, Wm. W. Rossiter, T. L. Woodruff, R. A. Ward, Samuel S. Utter, Charles D. Marvin, Stewart L. Woodford, Thomas F. Goodrich, C. S. Van Wagner, Charles Robinson Smith, George W. Kenyon, George J. Laighton, George R. Turnbull, Augustus Storrs, H. H. Beadle, A. J. Perry, Walter S. Logan, J. C. Taplin, Robert Proddow, David A. Boody, Winston H. Hagen, John T. Sherman, Frank Squier, Henry D. Hotchkiss, Henry S. Manning, Eugene L. Maxwell. Table H. — Brooklyn Standard Union, Brooklyn Eagle, Brooklyn Citizen, Brooklyn Times, New York Tribune, New York Sun, New York Times, New York Press, New York Herald, New York World. 28 BILL OF FARE. Oysters. On the Half Shell. Soups. Cream of Crawfish, Consomme Royal. Relish Cromesqui of Game. Fish. Kennebec Salmon, Genevoise Sauce Cucumber Salad. Releves. Saddle of Venison, Currant Jelly. Filet of Beef, with fresh Mushrooms. Potatoes Duchess. Boston Beans. Entrees, Timbales a la Chambord, Terrapin, Maryland style. Vegretables. Artichokes, n la Barigoul. Punch. Mayflower. Game, Canvas-back Duck. Partridges, Water Cress Cold. Turbans of P:xt6 de foie gras EscaroUe Salad. Entremets Sucres. Savarins impSratice. Dessert. Ice Cream : Plymouth Rock. Fancy Cakes, Bonbons. Candied Fruits. Gateaux Pistachio. Gateaux Princesse. Fancy Mottoes. Nougat Pyramides. Fruits in Season. Cheese. Cafe. Saturday, 20th December, 1890. P. Maresi. 29 When tlie company had assembled at the tables, Rev. H. Price Collier said grace: ADDRESS OF HON. WILLARD BARTLETT, PRESI- DENT OF THE SOCIETY. Gentlemen of the Neiu England Society in the City of Brooklyn : As we pass from the meat to the mental portion of this entertainment, I shall claim your attention only long enough to recall a few of the reasons which make it particularly appro- priate that the landing of the Pilgrims should be comme- morated by residents of Long Island. In the making of New England Long Island played no inconsiderable part. This spit of sand, projecting out into the Atlantic from Brooklyn Heights to Montauk Point, constitutes the southern boundary of an inland sea, through which the frail barks of the early New Englanders found safe conduct for their cargoes west- ward to the richer markets of the middle colonies on the south. According to the latest of New England historians, Mr. Weeden, the material progress of New England would have been greatly retarded without the facility and safety of com- mercial intercourse afforded by the placid waterway of the Sound. Long Island has done for the southern shore of New England what the great South Beach has done for the south- ern shore of Long Island itself. It has stood as a barrier against the ocean, a barrier almost insignificant in its physical proportions, but mighty in its beneficent effect, If geogra- phical good fortune be a proper cause for gratitude, then in- deed New England ought to be truly thankful that Providence did not place Long Island somewhere else. In a political sense, also, the associations between Long Island and New England have been most interesting. Four towns or parts of townships in what is now Suffolk County, on Long Island, were at one time under the government of the Connecticut colony. Southold formed a union with Connecti- cut as early as 1643 ; Southampton in l645 ; Easthampton in 1657, and Setauket in 1658. All these Long Island communi- 30 ties sent delegates to represent them in the general court of Connectieut held at Hartford. In 1664, however, Charles II granted Long Island to the Duke of York, and the four towns which I have mentioned, greatly to the dissatisfaction of their inhabitants, thus became a part of the New York province. It is an interesting reflection that if the merry monarch had dis- pensed his favors somewhat differently, Long Island might have been in New England to-day, and every baby born in Brooklyn a native of the Nutmeg State. Finally, the social relations between the early New England- ers and the inhabitants of the eastern part of Long Island were very intimate. Southampton, for example, was settled by men from Lynn. These were probably the first Americans who ever engaged in the whale fishery from the shore, and later, when Nantucket wanted to learn how to carry on the same lucrative sport, she had to send to Long Island for a teacher. At Easthampton, the whales helped to pay a part of the salary of the minister, who was entitled to one fourth of all the whales which should be stranded upon the beach. How natural it continued to be for New Englanders to come to the eastern end of Long Island is shown by the presence of Lyman Beecher at Easthampton as pastor of the Congrega- tional church there in the early years of this century. Here, as he himself tells us in his autobiography, he diversified his ministerial work by chasing whales, planting the first orchard, hauling seaweed, shooting plover, and even swapping horses. Here he preached to his simple rural congregation, the cele- brated sermon on the duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, which laid the foundation of his fame ; and hence he journeyed by schooner through the Sound, accompanied by his favorite black horse as his companion, to visit a relative who occupied the only house which then stood on Brooklyn Heights, near the place where the son rose to even greater dis- tinction than the father, fifty years later. In my own youth on Long Island, whither I also came from New England, a story was current to the effect that on one occasion while Lyman Beecher was the pastor, a number of barrels of liquor were stored under the church at Easthamp- 31 ton, of course without the knowledge of the minister, who continued to preach on the floor above. This incident was celebrated in a bit of verse, of which I am able to recall only these lines : " There's a spirit above, And a spirit below ; A spirit of weal, And a spirit of woe ; The spirit above Is a spirit divine, But the spirit below Is the spirit of wine." \Laughter and Applause.'] What I have said, gentlemen, will have served its purpose if it has made more manifest some of the ties which bind the island that we live on to the New England that we love, and has thus performed the ofifice of a humble preface to the delightful volume of table talk which will be made up of the speeches that are now to follow. The Chair : — And now, gentlemen, in accordance with the old custom of the Society, we will drink the health of "THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES." (This was done, all standing as usual.) The Chairma?i : — A clever writer has recently declared that the soldier's is the only trade in which the hand that works is never jealous of the brain that directs. So rare are the higher qualities of leadership in the military profession that the world has always assigned the highest place to its great com- manders. One of the leaders whom nations thus delight to honoris our guest to-night, and no words — (The audience here recognizing the allusion to General Sherman, rose and cheered so heartily that the chairman's voice was lost completely, rising to his feet in acknowledgment of the ovation, the Gen- eral spoke as follows, in response to the 32 Second toast — "A CORDIAL GREETING TO GENERAL SHERMAN." ADDEESS OF GEN. SHERMAN. Gentlemen of the Netv England Society : I need not say to you how very much at home I feel here. Brooklyn was to me a home fifty years ago. There are a good many young men now present who cannot count that number of years, and therefore it gives me unqualified pleasure to meet the sons of my old friends, and many emigrants from New England and elsewhere beneath this ingenious roof {laughter.') The different societies which mark the social life of New York city and its suburbs, treat me, of course, as one of themselves ; I am one day a Scotchman, the next day an Irishman, then 1 am a native of Ohio, and now you think I am a regular Simon pure Yankee ! All right. We are all Americans, [Hear! Hear/) and you have done me a kindness gentlemen, which I recognize, in not tieing me down to any one toast, but allow me to speak my little thoughts on any- thing which arises. And you ought to have given me a little more time, put somebody in advance to make some suggestion which I could use as a text. But here I am upon my feet, with nothing but the President's clear statement of the fact, leaving me hardly room to choose a subject. There is one sub- ject, however, which never fails to interest an American audi- ence ; the Indian question. I received to-day from my friend Gen. John W. Noble, Secretary of the Interior, his Annual Report. I read the newspapers a good deal nowadays, hav- ing leisure time, and I am some times astonished at the cruelty of you gentlemen towards our poor Indians. Gen. Noble proves that at this very instant of time there are only 250,000 Indians left within the borders of the U. S. excluding Alaska, akvays^ and that for them the government has set apart and protects them in the enjoyment of more than a section for every man, woman and child. There are no richer people on the face of the globe than the Indians, in land ; but they don't 33 seem to learn or to be disposed to learn, how to use that land. But I insist that the government of the United States has from the beginning been generous and forbearing to these people. In 1867, the Civil War was just over, and we had sent troops out upon the plains, where the Indians were, from the British line down to Texas, in one constant ferment ; killing our people, interrupting the railroads, which were not yet built, and interrupting the parties engaged in their construc- tion ; stealing horses and cattle without number, and making the whole region between here and California impassible to passengers excepting with a strong escort. I have passed through that country many and many a time, and I do think that I incurred more risk to my life then than I ever did in the Civil War. Now in the year 1867 Congress enacted that a Commission composed of seven men, three of whom should be officers of the army, not below the rank of Brigadier, and four citizens, one of whom should be the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and another, a Senator, at the head of the Committee on Indian Affairs. I will mention their names : first was the Commissioner of Indian AfTairs, of the name of Taylor, (Mr. Johnson was then President, and he selected as Indian Com- missioner, one from his own country, where once the Chero- kees had lived, in the State of Tennessee.) Senator John B. Henderson, you all know, a pure, upright, able man ; then there was General Sanborn, who had seen good service in the Civil War, and is living yet in St. Paul, an able lawyer and an honest man ; then there was Mr. Tappen, who was simply an Indian lover ; I think he loved an Indian better than he did himself. The three army officers were Gen. Harney, Gen. Terry, (just dead) and the undersigned. I was on that Com- mission. We were employed all that fall negotiating with the Sioux Indians ; these very same fellows you hear so much about in your newspapers to-day who ranged from Omaha clear up the Missouri River as far as Fort Rice then, which corresponds with Fort Abe Lincoln of to-day, fully 500 miles. Afterwards we went out to the forks of the Platte, and there held council with the Ogalallas. Remember, there are about eleven bands of Sioux, each differing from the other, as much 34 as the people of Germany differ from those of England, France, or Portugal. They are, in fact, different tribes, with different habits, names and customs. I could name them all to you, but you wouldn't remember them three minutes. We held a council at North Platte where we discussed all these matters, and it was settled among ourselves that we would set apart a territory for the Indians north of Nebraska of about 60,000 square miles, and that our treaties should look to the conclusion to bring all the Sioux, and all the Crows and all the Northern Indians into that territory ; give them a Governor, and give them Courts, and give them the same territorial forms which our territories have, and which Congress had a perfect Constitutional right to do. On the southern territory south of Kansas already existing, we proposed to move the Cheyennes, the Arrapahoes, the Kiowas and Comanches. We held many similiar councils, and finally made written treaties and bargains. They are not treaties, yet the law does require them to be approved by the Senate as though they were treaties. That custom we had inherited from England. Those were the seven men — (I challenge the world to present seven more intelligent and honorable men) who composed that peace commission. They were actuated by the kindest feeling toward the Indian, they desired to serve him and to save him from the inevitable if possible. Congress gave us a half million dollars with which to make all these arrangements and treaties. The next year, 1868, they gave us another half million, and we concluded nearly all those trea- ties, and they were ratified by the Senate. If my memory serves me, in each and every one the Indians stipulated and agreed that if we would be liberal to them for the first ten years they would be self sustaining at the end of that time. My recollection is that that was a part of every treaty. Ten years have passed, and another ten years have passed, and three more, and yet the Indians are just about as we left them. A few of them have planted patches. I was down at Fort Sill four or five years ago, when an officer was describing them at work in a cornfield. Every Indian was stripped except as to a breech-clout, but he had an umbrella to protect his complex- 35 ion, {laitgliter^ and he handled the hoe for his corn with one hand. Of course there was not much of a corn-crop when the fall came. Now at that particular treaty at the Forks of the Platte we had four newspaper reporters ; there were about forty of them who wanted to hang on and report for their papers. We chose one from New York, others from Cincin- nati, St. Louis and Chicago. They were very intelligent, bright young men, and they reported fairly and well, and I have no doubt that the files of their papers will to-day contain an assur- ance of what I have said, that our dealings with .the Sioux were palpably open, above board, honorable, and with a desire to serve the Indian people. When I was in Paris, in 1872, I received a note from Mr. Washburn to come around and take breakfast, as Stanley Africanus had just come in from Lake Tanganyika with news of Dr. Livingstone. I was, we were all, curious to see this man. He had attained great fame even then. When I met him, I thought there was something familiar about him ; compact, pony-built, young, strong and bright. He sat down and commenced to describe his journey into Africa, Finally, he took a sheet of paper and laid down the coast of Zanzibar, and sketched his route inland till he came to a place -where there was hostile opposition by natives through which he had to pass. He said, " General Sherman, I made to those Africans the same speech that you delivered to the Sioux at the North Forks of the Platte." My speech at the North Forks of the Platte was simply this : We have got a country West of us and we have got a country East of us ; they must be connected by bands of iron. We will insist upon having absolute, unques- tioned possession of all the country West to the Pacific, as wide as the States of Nebraska and Kansas, being the pro- longation of the States of Kansas and Nebraska westward. " North of it we will give you plenty of land to rear cattle, to hunt the buffalo as long as they last, and the elk, and the deer." Those treaties with the hostile tribes, I assure you, were based upon equity and justice, and they have been held ever since. These Indians have got more land than any other people on the face of the globe — more acreage ; but I doubt 36 if they cultivate one in a thousand, or ten thousand acres, and they starve now. Congress has done liberally ; but if there is any diflficulty at all in the Indian question it is not with the President, it is not with the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, nor with the Secretary of the Interior, nor with the Army ; the Army has always been their protector ; it has been with Congress. And I do not blame Congress, under- stand me, for they appropriate as much money as they think their constituents will justify. Constituents won't consent to feed 250,000 beggars. Those Indians must become self-sup- porting, with a little help now and then, or else their doom is sealed. We don't want to kill or starve them. In Massa- chussetts and Connecticut you had your Indians ; where are they ? We had them in Ohio ; I saw them myself when a boy. You can not find one of them now. The same is true of Iowa; 17,000 of them were starving and sent to St. Louis for flour, for bread, for sugar and coffee. There was no Gov- ernment appropriation for them, so the merchants clubbed together and sent them enough to get through the winter. Now Iowa has a million of white people, with plenty of food for each family, and over a hundred million dollars worth to ship abroad. Does the Almighty intend to leave his land in that way? He says, "Go forth and till the land; increase and multiply ;" not leave the land to waste. The white people have obeyed that command. The Indians have not ; and I have always said, and I say it again here in your presence, that the Indians must either work, or they must disappear. Now, my friends, I believe that General Miles will attend to all this. You need not be afraid of your scalps here in New York. Go to your homes and rest peacefully and quietly ! {Laughter.) It sometimes makes me smile to see the ignorance of our newspapers. An Indian will jump and dance, or whoop and yell like a howling Dervish in the southwest corner of what they call " Dakota," and all the papers clear up to St. Paul and Chicago, yea, to New York, describe it as something fearful. This thing has been going on for twenty-five or thirty years, to my personal knowledge, and is the result of causes which no human mind can fathom. I don't 37 want anything to do with the Indian question, nor does the Army want anything to do with the Indian question ; it didn't in my day, and I don't believe it has changed much since. Let the preachers and the civilHans have it. The Indian Bureau employs about 3,000 civil officers, and Members of Congress find them convenient for distribution, and for rewarding their followers. Let them have them ; we don't want them. But we do complain that when the trouble is imminent, and when it cannot be avoided, then they call for the soldiers, and some of them have to be brought 2,000 miles. Now that is not the way for an intelligent government to deal with any question. They ought to give the Indians into the control of the Army, or the Army ought not to be called upon at all. If the Army had control of these Indians, small as it is, I believe you would have no more Indian wars, provided the simplest food was given to them, until little by little they could be made to earn more. I do not wish to occupy your time any longer. I thank you for the close attention which you have given me. But I thought that some of you might be scared about the Indians. I am not a bit scared. I thank you for the privilege of being with you to-night ; and now that I have said the few words I intended to say, I am going to take my seat and enjoy the discomfort of others. {^Hearty applause^ Third Toast — "THE PURITAN OF THE OLD TIME AND OF THE NEW." The Chair: — When Mr. Curtis accepted the invitation to come here and address us this evening, the Committee were assured that you would hear one of the most eloquent men that New England ever sent to New York. It is not Mr. Curtis' fault that he is not here. Yesterday 38 morning he wrote me that the peremptory order of his physi- cian forbade him from being with us to-night; but this morn- ing I was gratified to receive, in addition to the short communication which reached me yesterday, this letter, which I will endeavor to read ; but, suffering as I am from hoarse- ness, I am afraid I shall fulfill General Sherman's prediction, and make myself very miserable in the effort to read it audibly (The Chairman then read the following letter, in the course of which he was frequently interrupted by applause.) West New Brighton, S. I., N. Y., ) December 19th, 1890. \ My Dear Sir : — I am very much obliged by your kind note, and you may be very sure that I am too good a Yankee to be playing hookey from a Forefathers' dinner. You cannot want me to come as much as I wish to come, and it is a peculiarly ill turn which compels me to lose the great pleasure I had anticipated in sitting at your table and listening to the eloquent voices that you will evoke. At Arthur's Round Table when the King called, every loyal Knight responded gladly, and at the Forefathers' feast, when the presiding Elder commands, every true New Englander springs to his feet with the praises of the Pilgrims on his lips. For it is not a conti- nent practically uninhabited when he came, nor a temperate climate, nor the happy blending of land and water, nor the endless riches of the soil which chiefly interpret the magnifi- cent story of America, but it is Puritan conscience, Puritan courage, and Puritan constancy; and while these last, the splendor of that story will not be dimmed. No more significant evidence of their persistence in even a nobler form has been recently shown, than the fact than when a year ago last summer the great monument was dedicated at Plymouth, the chosen orator of the occasion was the Cavalier from Kentucky, your distinguished guest of to-day, and the poet was an Irish Roman Catholic. The orator repeated the names of great New Englanders and said, " They are 39 a splendid heritage for us and for mankind;" adding that, " Figs are not gathered from brambles, nor grapes from thorns." So I think, had he survived the day at Newbury, the brave Falkland might have said of Hamden, or of Vane. As the poet said : " In every land wherever might holds sway, The Pilgrims' leaven is at work to-day. The Mayflower's cabin was the chosen womb Of light, predestined for the Nation's gloom, As Nature works, with changeless grain on grain. The truths the Father's taught we need again. ******* Still must we keep, in every stroke and vote. The law of Conscience that the Pilgrims wrote." If that is good Irish Catholic doctrine, then the Sons of Puritans are all Irish and Catholics. Such incidents as that at the Plymouth celebration, and such words from such lips, illustrate the truth of the good John Robinson's farewell to the Pilgrim's : " There is more truth yet to break forth from God's Word." Could I have been with you, I should have insisted that the Puritan survived in a larger, sweeter, nobler sense. He was called a Puritan in the old time, because he demanded a pure word ; and whoever to-day demands what is better, cleaner, purer, is a Puritan in the new time. The new Puritan, Hke the old, is a broom, and he means to sweep things clean. If our friend Winslow's ancestor, and Bradford, and Brewster, and Carver, were citizens of Brooklyn and New York to-day, they would bear a banner of no strange device to us, the banner of ballot reform, and civil service reform, and of a sound and honest currency, as good as gold, and nail above the legend, " The Mayflower expects every son of the Pilgrims to do his duty !" That is an expectation which has not often been disappointed. But if, as I believe, the Puritan happily survives, not less do Morton and his roysterers, who sneered at the Putitans as sniveling hypocrites. They had their laugh. But, as I remember, it was the Puritan, not Morton and his sneering 40 crew, who made New England ; who stood fast at Bunker Hill and Yorktown, as at the crowning mercy at Worcester ; whose nickname of Yankee was gladly adopted by his brethren in the later mortal hour of national peril, and it was the old and true Puritan spirit which held up strong and high, the humane and beneficent hands of Abraham Lincoln. Surely sir, the feast of the Pilgrims on Forefathers' Day, is the time and place to plant ourselves anew on the Plymouth rock of Puritan principle. The contrast between the garlanded and luxurious banquet in the superb and dazzling hall, with the pinched cabin of the Mayflower and the chill hut on the desolate shore, marks the splendor of our opportunity, the greatness of our responsibility. If that little vessel, tossing on the wintry sea, bearing a hundred resolute souls, bore also the hope of a nobler future for mankind than the old world had dreamed, so the great nation which their children have largely impelled and led, tossing upon the restless waves of time and destiny, so long as the Pilgrim conscience and Pilgrim courage, and Pilgrim constancy hold the helm, is sure to draw nearer, nearer, to the happy haven of our Puritan hope and our Puritan faith, Very truly yours, GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. Fourth Toast — "THE DAY WE CELEBRATE." The Chairman : — Both the Pilgrims and the Puritans took their pleasures rather sadly. Whenever they had a day to celebrate, the observance was seldom an occasion for any out- burst of joy. Lately, in preparation for my arduous duties this evening, I have been led to look more or less into the history of our forefathers ; and I was very much interested in what I read a few days ago concerning one of the judiciary of early New 41 England. Chief Justice Sewell was one of most distinguished of the first men of Massachusetts, and the manner in which he celebrated Christmas Day impressed me very much. He tells us in his journal that on Christmas morning he went into the family tomb, and spent the entire day in arranging the cof^ns of his relatives. And at the end of a long and detailed account of his task he says: "It was an awful but a pleasant treat." {Laiighter and applause.) Now, gentleman, your are about to hear my eloquent friend, the Rev. H. Price Collier, respond to the toast without which our celebration would never be complete: "The Day We Celebrate;" but he, I am sure, will give you a treat which will be in all respects " pleasant," and in no sense "awful." ADDRESS OF REV. H. PRICE COLLIER. Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Neiv England Society of Brooklyn : Jt is a very great honor to be invited to this table ; it is a still greater one to be asked to respond to the toast of " The Day we Celebrate." The day we celebrate is the day 270 years ago, when the house of this nation was founded upon a rock, and the sea swirled and beat about it, and the Indian spent his cunning and his arrows upon it, and sickness depleted the inhabitants thereof ; but nor sea, nor savage, nor sickness availed against it. And we living in that house to-day when it is strong and well furnished, and when it is in spite of what the French call "ce diable de bill McKinley," prosperous, we look back with lingering fondness to those days of small things. And it is very well that the nation should seek her choicest military trinity to greet you. It is well that New York's master craftsman in letters should send you a mono- graph on the Pilgrims. It is well that Kentucky should send her Clay and Virginia her Miles Standish, little, but oh, my, as a certain Indian remarked some 269 years ago, speaking of another Miles Standish — (this is from Longfellow's version) — all coming to help us to celebrate the day. Mythology tells a tale 42 of how the founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus were nour- ished by a wolf, and that thus the kings of Rome were fierce and strong, and conquering. B)it history might almost hand it down as a fact that the Pilgrims were suckled by a wolf. Hard, harsh, gaunt New England, swept in those December days by ocean-iced winds, with her ribs of granite, her Indians for fangs, her wild beasts for claws, ferocious in her barrenness, surely she was little better than a wolf mother to those first children. But they were of the stuff that God makes courage of. They would smile while the wolf gnawed at their entrails, for they were the Spartans of the western world, and they came in search of that one thing, except love, which makes a man brave even as he seeks it — liberty. And you will allow me to say, sir, that I rejoice that you see fit to keep this day. In these Laodicean days when the Pyrrhonic philosophy is far more popular than that of the Puritan, it be- hooves us to hark back to those harder days and suckle again at the wolf's breasts. The unwavering conscienciousness, the severe though rather internecine piety of those men is needed still. Whatever of lightness and deftness the Huguenot Gaul has brought us, what- ever of sunniness and adaptability the Celt, whatever of phleg- matic optimism the Dutch, still they are only as the glisten- ing bubbles on the surface of the river as compared with its sweeping current when put beside the legacies of the Pilgrims and the Puritans. We are fain to forget very often that though these men brought not many of the pleasant things of life, they brought us pretty much all of the safe things. Their gloom, their steadfastness, their harsh manners, their pugilistic piety, sound hard to us. But no Puritan ever stabbed his enemy in the back with pen, or knife, or tongue. When Miles Standish was sneered at by the Indian he did not lie in wait for him, he did not — shame on the man — pro- tected by a crowd, throw lime in his face, but he sprang upon him, took his own knife from him and stabbed him through the breastbone — not the backbone — to the heart. And if you are going to commit murder, gentlemen, I like the Puritan method. No Puritan ever dawdled about his lady love 43 and weighed her gold in gossip's scales, flitted about the flame of love or flirted with its sanctities, and was untrue to all women just because he had captivated one ; but Priscilla was courted with a gentleness and purity that have kept New Eng- land mothers ever since the pride of all New England sons. But lam bound to say just here that the first wedding in Plymouth was that of a certain Mr. Winslow to Mrs. White, a widow, and thus in those early days that Nemesis of Mr. Weller, that black petticoated terror of the susceptible, a widow, got in her traditional work. No Puritan ever sold out his country or his friends for lust or pleasure. They believed, as I believe, and may Irishmen forgive me, that it is treason to a great cause not to serve it in one's private character as well as by one's public acts. So, although in their loves and hates and patriot- ism they were harsh and unbending, still they were true. Like the Scotch divine who prayed "Oh, Lord, guide us aright, for whether we be right or wrong thou knowest we be very deter- mined ;" so these men felt and so they prayed ; and what the Austrian minister said of bayonets we might also say of the Puritans— one can do almost anything with them, except sit on them. It were well for us if there were more such Spartan days to celebrate, certainly shameful of us ever to forget this day, or to let it pass unchallenged for its watchword, of pride and stubborness and uprightness, and unswerving devotion to God and His laws. Those were days when things were done and said that seem almost humorous to us so far distant are they from our present methods and standards. For example : One thing I must tell you of— and how oddly this will sound to his Honor the Mayor — how a man was fined for what here he prays for. If a man had not served the previous year as governor and when asked refused, he was fined twenty pounds, which was a much larger sum then than now. How oddly such a story sounds in that auction room in Brooklyn now ? {Applause^ I pray you tell not such a story at the City Hall. And Cotton Mather writes of Governor Winthrop that he was wont to make "his private purse the publick," not as my clerical friends accuse that striped beast across the bridge of doing, but Mather 44 says not " by sucking into it but by squeezing out." Hard, harsh days they were, if you please, but they "were breezy with sound sense, and there was a taste as of the salt of health about them." Men were not ashamed of life, nor afraid of death then ; there was no Irish question then, either domestic or foreign ; there was no Town Topics then, and no material for it, and there were — as there should be now — steel and powder for him who trod upon such libidinous ground ; there was no Father Ignatius telling a company of the long-haired, of the convexed-backed and concave-chested of how the women from the west end of London came in their carriages to hear him preach, " The bleat of the sentamentalist was not heard in the land" then {applause), and men were martyrs, and men were heroes, and men were lovers then, without twittering about it from the pulpit, the press, or the platform. Our churches are crying to-day for the martyrs of the day we cele- brate ; for men who will surrender themselves to Christ for the welfare of men, without thought of the pride of preaching, or the popularity that accrues therefrom. And I dare say the street, the bench, the bar, are still calling for the heroes of honesty of the day we celebrate. 1 dare say, too, there are women in these days — for there are lovely women now, as then — who sigh for the Puritan lover back again. Where indeed is the woman, if she be fair, if she be gentle, if she be heart whole, Avho longs not for such a lover? Men are weary and jaded, much fretting and business have made them languid even in their loving ; but have you, sir, no daughter Priscilla ? Have you no sister Prue, for whom you ask God that when the lover come, he be of Puritan mould ? Frank, shy of the very charms he would possess, more afraid of his mistress than of hell, more ready to go to her than to heaven, his heart not on his sleeve, but he will cut it from beneath his jerkin if she but ask to see it beat, his hands all a tremble if they but touch her gown, but firm as a rock when gripping knife or gun ; little enough is he like the betrousered lilies of the club window of our day, of whom the Macauley of etiquette sings. And as I hear the church and the professions and the trades asking for the Pilgrim martyr and hero again, so I can hear your sisters 45 and your daughters shyly asking for the lover, of the day we cel- ebrate. Even at this hour of feasting you are proud and happy to see on yonder wall those phantom figures pass you by. Lean they are, for they knew no feasting such as this, but every mus- cle is as leather thong, every sinew steel, every heart pure, every hand clean, afraid of neither sea nor savage, the very incarna tion of pluck; aye, verily what church would not be proud of priests like that, what market place or counting room, or bench, or bar, would not welcome such heroes ? What woman would not think it heaven to have such a heart for a pillow, such arms for a refuge, such courage for a protection? I see them there ; do you ? Winthrop, Brewster, Winslow, Brad- ford, Standish : " Pride in their port, defiance in their eye, I see the founders of the new world go by,'' I see them there, I see them here. Hidden beneath every true soldier's uniform is something of the Pilgrim whether it be from beneath casque or cap, he looks ; whether he wear the leather jerkin or the northern blue ; whether he cross the sea, or cut his way to it {applause) whether his name be Standish or Sherman, I see in him the Pilgrim spirit still. In lines of prose clear cut and clean, " He who leaves to the tyro's hand The limb and shapeless style, Whose forms demand The labor of the file," in him, the man of letters, even now I see the Pilgrim live again. In that cold neutrality of impartial justice of which Burke speaks of that judge of whom it may be said that when the spotless ermine of the judicial robe fell upon him, it touched nothing less spotless than itself, in such a one I see the Puritan again. In the tired eyes of the toiling priest and peeping from beneath his worn cassock and bespeaking in him the strength that subdues his own strength to Christ, I see the Puritan again. Wherever a steeple or a tower rises through difificulties to gracefulness ; wherever bronze has surrendered its unwilling materials to the master hand ; wherever a Madon- na's face has been wrested from the pigments and been made to 46 shine in purity from the artist's canvass ; wherever in song the strain and stress of making them is forgotten in the witchery of their melody, wherever lover, possessed by his mistress favor, has rivalled the gods in his daring and his deeds ; where- ever beneath ease is concealed labor ; wherever patience, per- severance, power and pluck have won victories ; wherever man subdues his lust — is loyal to his trust, is brave and true for his country's, his home's or his God's sake — there you may find again the spirit of the Puritan Pilgrim. And may God Almighty keep it alive in our hearts. {Applause.') The Chairman: — The company will rise and sing "America." "My country 'tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of thee I sing ; Land where my fathers died, Land of the pilgrims' pride. From every mountain side Let freedom ring ! "Our fathers' God, to Thee, Author of liberty, To Thee we sing ; Long may our land be bright. With freedom's holy light, Protect us by Thy might, Great God, our King ! " Fifth toast— "THE TRUE SONS OF THE PILGRIMS." The Chairman : —I think there is no one in this company so old as to be able to remember the time when there was not a Breckinridge distinguished either in the Church or State {applause) ; and one of the most distinguished who has ever borne that name, whom Mr. Curtis has appropriately described as " the cavalier from Kentucky," will now address you on " The True Sons of the Pilgrims." {Applause.) 47 ADDRESS OF HON. WILLIAM C. P. BRECKINRIDGE, Mr. President and Gentlemen of the New England Society : Mr. Curtis, in his kindness does me somewhat of an injust- ice. I have never claimed to belong to the cavaliers of the South. I am not a Puritan. No drop of Puritan blood, in the sense of being descended from those who ever settled in America, ever flowed in my veins. I never had an ancestor who settled North of the Ohio River, except in temporary- exile in public duties. But I am descended from the same type of Puritans that New England was descended from. I come from the good old Scotch Covenanters, and was raised in the good old Scotch way on the Shorter Catechism and the longer switch ! {Laughter.) Between whatever I have in my veins of blood that is sometimes called Cavalier — and I am proud of it — and the same blood that came from my coven- anting forefathers, I have never believed that there was any difTerence. The truth is we are all of the same original stock. We come from the same root : that little handful of obscure men, who, feeling themselves called of God, organized them- selves into a little Separatist Church in the City of London, and stood punishment and imprisonment there, and exile to Holland, and new exile to America, was precisely of the same timber as those Scotchmen who fell at Bothwell Bridge, or who died at the stake, or whose heads w^ere lifted up to mark the milestones along the pathway that liberty has marched. The peculiar tribute due to those men was that they first saw with more clearness than any other men of their day that liberty needed the separation of Church and State ; and for that great truth they were willing to make whatever sacrifices were neces- sary. But in all human transactions there is that which is per- manent, and that which is transitory. It is not of importance so much to us to-day that those particular persons believed a certain tenet, or held to a certain creed, or were aflame with the vigor and fire of a certain conviction, but that for that creed, in obedience to that conscience, in defense of that tenet they were willing to make whatever sacrifice the time rendered necessary, and were willing to follow the truth as they saw the 48 truth at whatever hazard it might require. {Bravo). I come to-night not to praise those men for what they believed, though I perhaps am one of the few here to-night that do beheve ahnost every tenet which those men held. I am the same old Cal- vinistic predestinarian that they were. I believe in a God that knew what is to be as well as he knew what had been, and my God is a Sovereign unconditioned by the eternity to come as by the eternity that is behind. {Applause.) I believe with all my heart in the separation of Church and State. I believe in the equality of manhood. I believe in the " civil compact political." I believe there is no power in any body of men to enact any law save with the precedent consent of the governed, and only then with the limitation that the law shall be just and equal. I believe in fealty to the family relation. I believe in filial obedience. I believe in religious equality. There is hardly any truth for which they suffered that does not meet with my profound and humble reverence. But that to me is not their crown of glory. It is that for the truth as they saw it, as God revealed it to their consciences, as they held it in their hearts, they were willing to make every sacrifice that was necessary. Let us try to-night to gather up what was the sacrifice ; what they gave up for truth. We in this day have been taught that patriotism is indeed a splendid virtue ; we have been taught that for it life is to be held cheap. These men turned their backs upon their country ! We have been taught, and it is in these days a lesson that may be learned anew with profit, that obedience to the constituted authorities is a virtue to be regarded. They disregard the authorities that were the constituted authorities of the realm, and went to prison because the law of the land was inconsistent with their consciences. They separated from the church of their fathers; they broke up the family ties which connected them with those who would not go out from that Church. So that they sacri- ficed duty to the magistracy, ties to the Church, the relations of life, the very home of their ancestors and their country. These include every tie and duty, every delight of life of which we can conceive ; service at a common altar with those that we loved ; obedience to magistrates under whom we have 49 lived ; kindly relations with the families in which we have been raised ; daily association with the scenes which first fell upon our youthful eyes and were always of ravishing and enchanting beauty. These include the entire circle of man's relations, apparently, in life; and yet all these were given up for the one supreme capacity of human nature, the power to love the truth, and love it supremely. And wherever to-night in any part of America — nay, to-night in every part of the world wherever there is a human being who is able if needs be to sacrifice those ties which bind him to those around him, he is that true son of the Pilgrim in whose honor I am delighted to speak, wherever he may be. I am an optimist. I believe that the world is better to-day than it was yesterday. I believe it is better to-day than when that band of Pilgrims landed from that little shallop in that Christmas week, amid the snows of that bleak mid-winter. I believe that the spirit of Christ resides with his Church, and it is growing better every day. Who can doubt it in this hall? Were heroes ever more heroic than those with whom we have associated ? {Applause.) In the humblest walks of life, in the streets of Broooklyn — probably picking stones upon your streets — are men who for conscience and honor's sake, faced the belching cannon and conquered the enemies bayonet, and that enemy was an enemy whom any one might be proud to conquer. {Cheers.) There is no pestilence so fatal that some sweet-faced woman does not sit beside the bed on which the dying victim lies, and soothe with her sweet prayers the dying brother. There can come no shock so hard that some brave heart does not meet it. Why, there is not a day but that in this land of ours, some brave man holds the throttle of the engine in his hand, while loves and lives depend upon the unblanched nerve of his heroic and simple courage. {Applause.) We cannot read the morning paper, that it does not tell us of some act fully as heroic as that any ancestors of ours, though he charged with Cromwell, or fought with Hampden, or met in either army of the late war defeat or victory. Oh, no, my friends, it is not true ; it is not true that this old Anglo-Saxon 50 race of ours is dying out ! The Pilgrims have left true sons. They may not trace their pedigrees back in unbroken connec- tion to those who came over in the Mayflower; they may not be able to tell how exactly the current of that blood has flowed through intervening centuries and families ; but when- ever duty calls, whenever the crisis comes, then the blood tells that the son is equal to his father, and the stock from which he has sprung. Sometimes, as we grow older, and I need not say to those who see my hair that I have been growing older for a good while — sometimes when you are not even growing older, but seem to be defeated ; cherished plans are broken up ; beloved opinions are rejected ; those you think the enemies of truth seem to conquer ; you begin to feel depressed ; you think the days are not as good as they were, and you hope that somebody may come from the Lord like the Prophets of old, or the leaders of old ; some Gideon, who with three hundred can conquer a host ! But suddenly a day comes — may I say, without impropriety, a November elec- tion day comes — and you think the country is better than it was. I do not mean to pick out any particular November day. Liberty of action as to the past is our option to-night, and each individual gentleman can pick his own November day to suit his own wishes. But we find next morning, to our surprise, that the common people in America are as wise as we thought we were, that the country is not going to the " demnition bow wows;" and that we are going to do pretty well in spite of money stringency, and somebody you like being defeated for Congress or the Presidency. So that while days are sometimes dark to us, as we look back upon the evolution of each particular day and count up what has been done the day before ; as we make up — if in the presence of these Generals I may use a military phrase — the report for the morning, so as to see not who are dead, wounded and absent, but who are present, fit for duty, we find that the army is in first rate condition ; that the soldiers' hearts are as brave, and their hopes as high as they were when the morning sun came over the Eastern hills, and we can lie down to sleep feeling indeed that God reigneth, and the future is in His 51 hands. {Applause.) Let us never forget that this is the real lesson of the past ; not this form of government, or that ; not this creed, or that ; not this day's fashion or that ; but that the one eternal and unchangeable tie that binds man to all that has gone before, and makes him valuable for all that is to come hereafter, is that in his day and in his lot, according to his light, with a conscience void of offence and without fear, he does his duty as he sees it ; and he who does it is not only a true son of the Pilgrim, but he is a true son of the Pilgrms's father; of God who created man in His own eternal likeness. {Applause.) And as I stand here to-night in Brooklyn, personally a stranger to most of the faces that I see before me, and yet as truly your countryman as if you gathered around the monument in the Blue-Grass to my great predecessor, feeling in my heart a love for every part of a common country, looking into that future that is before us all, I go into it with a profound confidence that He who led the Puritans across the waters, He who gave them ■courage is with us to-night, and will be with us in the trials of the future. And when the New England Societies meet, as they do in Charleston to-night, as they will in New York Monday night, as they do all over the country, there can be no sweeter lesson in this Christmas tide than that as we are willing to risk everything for the truth as we see it, we ought to be lovingly tolerant to those who see the truth in a mode different from that in which we see it. {Applause.) So that, with a heroic love of truth and a sweet affection for all men, we go into the future, making more practical that simple dictation of true statesmanship ; " Do unto others as ye would have others do unto you ;'' which simply means give to that brother who does not agree with you, that sweet toleration which you ask of him. And when the Christmas tide comes and goes ; when we lay down our lives and our sons take our places ; when those who are dear to us accept the sceptre of command which we have to-night ; some more eloquent orator, in some larger hall, before an audience equal to this, will depict in glowing terms the triumphs of these coming years, which will be as much greater than the triumphs of the past as our love for truth and our love for mankind can reap 5,2 with ampler resources, with greater opportunities, with wider duties. {Prolonged applause^ Sixth toast — "PILGRIM HOME RULE AS EXEMPLIFIED BY THE COMPACT ON THE MAYFLOWER." TJie Chairman : — The one conspicuous excellence that Wellington recognized in Napoleon was the ability with which he chose his lieutenants. We have here, gentlemen, as your guests at this table to- night, not only the great Commander who led the army from Atlanta to the Sea, but his two great lieutenants, General How- ard and General Slocum. {Cheers.) I am sure that we are proud to see them, and I know that you will all be delighted tcv hear one of them, General Howard, address you, on "Pilgrim Home Rule as Exemplified by the Compact on the May- flower." REMARKS OF GEN. O. O. HOWARD. Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Neiv England Society : Really one might well in these days be puzzled not a little over the meaning of home rule. The grand old man of Eng- land, who finds a home shattered because of the positive in- ability of a proper lord to rule his house, has, we fear, made a muddle of the whole business. Truly O'Shea is now at last emancipated from the privi- leges and duties of home rule ; and the unwise Parnell has not yet, in proper and legal form assumed them. So, sir, there is at present, neither a peaceful Parnell home nor an original O'Shea home to speak of. Meanwhile, what a display of sides among the Kilkenny cats. One great one in Kilkenny has had his ears boxed and his face scratched by his own kittens, and 53 his antagonist, guarded by another screeching set of felines, has been nearly blinded by the clouds of lime dust that came from the cats covered with the alkali getting out of the bag. Some claim it was not only lime dust, but mud as well that was thrown. Even Mr. Seward's crooked telescope, which in 1861, placed at the capital, uncovered the rebellion, taken from the archives and aimed across the ocean could not now discover the slightest show of home rule, if indeed there is any rule at all, in old Ireland. Home rule, even in New York in the winter time, is at rather a low ebb. So I judge, when I find husbands almost universally wandering off to what has been called " stag feasts " against the most solemn protest of their wives. Think of these imported dinners from Germany, Holland, Wales, Scotland, England, New England and Ohio ; where husbands in white neckties abound, but where there is never a solitary house wife ; unless by some extraordinary political influence she, half starved, succeeds in peeping from some lower corner or upper gallery in absorbing fragments only of the intellectual dessert, where she often gazes upon confusion so confounded that she can scarcely distinguish her own spouse. The tendency, sir, of these feasts, is against home rule, but, to be more serious, have we, outside of our own homes, home rule in New York or Brooklyn ? I think we have, sir. In the last election the clergy, home and foreign, were eloquent. Mer- chants came back from their suburban and seaside homes ; the navy yard, ships in the harbor, and neighboring army garrisons minded their own business, while politicians, with hearts and mouths full of reform, filled the newspapers with their letters and speeches, and the press with its great power exerted itself early in the morning and late in the evening. What resulted from all the eloquence, the coming back, the careful registra- tion, the published speeches, the business minding of sailors and soldiers, and from the early and later rain of the public press ? What resulted ? Why, Tammany won, and home rule prevailed ! But, my friend whispers, do not be so narrow. Take the whole country in. Strange to say, at our last voting, 54 in spite of all the reasoning of reasonable men, just as it often happens in a concrete New England house where obstinacy- sets in, dishes break, and doors slam, and broomsticks get the mastery, and a perfect cyclone of the most willful and uncon- trollable home rule swept over the country. Elderly, gray- haired, wrinkled-faced citizens have their mouths wide open still, trying to comprehend and account for the situation. Is it reciprocity ? Is it honest national support ? Can it be international or internal improvements? Surely it can not be the happy home protection offered by the Ohio statesman. No, no, friends ; possess your souls in peace ; it is only a windy freak of an obstinate, willful national spirit, properly named, home rule. The young ox fractures the stanchel and eats the corn from the crib. The three-year-old colt smashes the dash- board, breaks the reins, frees the carriage, and runs wildly through the village. The farmer's well-bred dog suddenly wakes in the night and springs through the kitchen window, runs yelping around the house, and then stops and howls at the moon. And we learn from good authority, that at times inanimate things like shirt-studs, sleeve-buttons and business banks, have an inconceivable perversity that nobody can account for, nobody restrain or control. So with the voting population of this blessed country. Here, Mr. President, is the preservative, patient philosophy. "What we cannot cure, that we must endure," Home rule that sometimes strays and gets wild, will in time bring us good oxen, safe horses, fine watch dogs, capital studs and buttons and substantial banks. How many thousand things have even at last done themselves to the general satisfaction of mankind. I have long clung to the idea that the home was itself an institution. Christian homes sprang from the May- flower, and so where Christian homes most abound, there is the best home rule. From experience, we all know that the rule inside of the model home varies from time time to time. Now the mother is on the lead, and sometimes the mother-in- law. Occasionally a grandfather, strong and determined, bears sway, and I have known a beautiful bride, for an indefinite space, to have her own sweet will 55 But everywhere, and always, the baby in the house has completely and persistenly, for months controlled and directed the entire home life. Listen to Jacob Abbott as he speaks about this on the 6th of December, 1620. "On board the Mayflower about this time a baby was born. The baby was a boy, the son of Mr. White. They named him Peregrine. He, notwithstanding the scenes of suffering and hardship among which he made his entrance into the world, seems to have been a healthy child, for he lived more than eighty years." Strange that Mr. Abbott did not perceive that the health and strength of that first-born son was due to his having one hundred servants on board the Mayflower to carry out his behests, and supply all his needs. How singularly gentle and yet potent, is the presence and influence of a dear little child. We are not afraid of this sort of home ruling, are we ? Before closing, let me reiterate my profound admiration for what Mr. Abbott says is, " The first example in the history of mankind of the foundation of a civil state, by a written constitution, on the basis of universal suffrage." Listen to some of its provisions: It begins, "In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, * * * having undertaken, for the glory of God, an advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and of one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic for our better ordering and and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid ; and by virtue hereof, to enact, constitute and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the public good of the colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience." This is the foundation of state and national rule that came from the Colonists on the Mayflower. There was no dissenting, for every man subscribed his name. The sovereignty, after one hundred and fifty-six 56 years, was changed from king and kingdom to people, but the cove/iant itself is our inheritance. The advancement of Christianity and the honor of our country, are indeed objects worthy of universal subscription. If our people forget this early promise of our fathers, may not our common Lord withhold from us His favor and blessing? {^Applause >j Seventh toast — "CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH, THE RULER OF VIR- GINIA, AND ADMIRAL OF NEW ENGLAND. The Chairman : — It was not without a purpose that your Committee arranged the order of speaking this evening. I am sure that the gentlemen who have already addressed you will take it in good part, if I say we knew that, by putting one name at the end of the programme, we should be sure to hold the audience here till the doxology. Now a speaker who bears the name of the first ruler of Virginia I ever knew anything about, will address you upon Virginia's still earlier ruler. Captain John Smith. ADDRESS OF HON. JOHN S. WISE. Mr. CJiairnian : It is one of the peculiarities of Americans, that they attempt to solve the unsolvable problem of successfully mixing gastronomy and oratory. In chemistry there are things known as incompatibles, which it is impossible to blend and at the same time preserve their original character- istics. It is impossible to have as good a dinner as we have had served to-night, and preserve the intellectual faculties of your guests so that they may be seen at their best. I am not unmindful that in the menu the courses grew shorter until 57 they culminated in the pungent and brief episode of cheese, and so I take it that as to the oratory here on tap, you desire it to become gradually more brief and more pungent. Now, the task of condensing into a five-minute speech two hundred and seventy years of the history of America, is something that has been assigned to me, and I propose to address myself to it without further delay. {Lajighter.) John Smith was at one time President of Virginia, and afterwards Admiral of New England, and ever since then, until lately. New England and Virginia have been trying to pull loose from each other, so as not to be under the same ruler. {Laughter and applause.) John Smith was a god-send to the American settlers, because he was a plain man in a company of titled nonentities, and after they had tried and failed in every effort to make or perpetuate an American colony, plain John Smith, a Democrat, without a title, took the helm and made it a success. {Laughter.) Then and there, and ever since, we laid aside the Reginald- Trebizond-Percys of nobility, and stuck to the plain John Smiths, honest citizens, of capacity and character. By his example we learned that " True hearts are more than coronets," and simple men of worth are infinitely better than titled vagabonds of Norman blood. {Applause.) It is almost three centuries since a tiny vessel, not larger than a modern fishing smack, turned her head to the sunset across an unknown sea, for the land of conjecture. The ship's com- pany, composed of passengers from England, that wonderful nest of human wanderers, that splendid source of the best civilization of the world, cast anchor by chance in a noble bay for which they had not sailed, and settled a colony ; not with any particularly high or noble object, but really in pursuit of gold, and searching for a south sea which they never found. The voyage had been projected without any other object than the accumulation of wealth, which wealth was to be carried back to the old country and enjoyed in that England which they loved, and to which their eyes ever turned backward with affection, reverence, and the hope of return. This band of younger sons nnd penniless nobility, attempted to make a 58 settlement under the charter known as the London charter of Virginia; and while we find to-day men sneering at John Smith, the fact remains that he alone was enabled by his strong personality, by his sterling, individual worth, to resist the savages, to make the lazy work, to furnish food for the weak and sickly, to re-inspire those who had lost hope, and to firmly establish a settlement in Virginia. His reward was what? Sedition in his own camp, ingratitude among his own followers, misrepresentation to his patrons, disappointment, disease and poverty to himself; a return to England and posthumous fame. But his bulldog fangs, the fangs of that English blood which once sunk in the throat of a savage land remains forever, were placed upon America, to mark it as ano- ther conquest and another triumph of Anglo-Saxon coloniza- tion. Three years of peace and quiet in England were not to his taste. His mother's spirit craved new adventures, and he sought them in sea voyages to the North. Although his task was a much less difficult one, and not quite so prominent as the task he had accomplished in Virginia, he prepared the way for the settlement at Plymouth Rock. To his title of President of Virginia was added the title of Admiral of New England, because this John Smith, without a pedigree, except such as was blazoned on his shield by his slaughter of three Turks, turned his attention from the land to the sea, sailed the colder waters of the North, located the colonies of New England, named your own Boston, and the result of his vogages and reports were the Plymouth charter and settle- ment. So it is that we have a common founder of the settle- ments of this country. Of all the gallants who embarked in the first adventure, all disappeared save John Smith, who bore the plainest and commonest name that human imagination can devise. He became the patron saint of American civiliza- tion, as much yours as ours, and as much ours as yours. {Laughter and applause^ Mr. Chairman and gentlemen: — We had one founder; we came from one master-mind ; one great spirit was the source of both our settlements ; and this initial fact in our histories, has seemed to inspire the American people through all the 59 centuries with the sentiment that our union should be eternal in spite of all disturbing circumstances. {Applause.) When I said in a light way, that old Virginia and Massachusetts had sought to rend themselves asunder, it was scarcely true. They have too much that is glorious in common to be aught but loving sisters. The men who are before me will not forget that the settlers of the London colony of Virginia, and settlers of the Plymouth colony of Massachusetts, have been at the front of every great movement which has agitated this nation from its birth. When it came to the question of whether we should dissolve the political ties that- bound us to the British King, Massachusetts Bay and the colony of Virginia were the first to form their Committees of Safety, exchange their messages of mutual support, and strengthen the weak among their sister colonies. [Applaiise.) When it came to the time that tried men's souls in the Revo- lution, it was the men of Virginia and the men of Massa- chusetts Bay that furnished the largest quotas of revolutionary soldiers who achieved the independence of the American colonies. When it came to the formation of a federal union, Virginia, with her Washington, gave the first President, and Massa- chusetts, with her Adams, stepped proudly to the front with her first Vice-President and second President. {Applause.) In later years, when differences came — which differences need not be discussed — every man here knows what part Virginia and Massachusetts bore. It was a part which, however much me may differ with each other, bespoke the origin of the two colonies, and told that true manhood was there to do and die for what it believed was right. When that struggle was ended, the first to clasp hands in mutual friendship and affec- tion were Virginia and Massachusetts. If we were to blot from the history or geography of the Nation the deeds or territory of the ancient dominions of John Smith, President of Virginia and Admiral of New England, a beggarly record of area would be left, in spite of the glorious records of other sections in recent years. The history of America is to me not only of deep and 6o absorbing interest in its every detail, but it is a romance; it is a fascinating detail of wonderful development, the like of which cannot be found in the annals of civilization from the remotest time. We may go back to the time when the curtain rises on the most ancient civilization of the East, and there is nothing to compare with it. We may take up not only the real but the romantic history of modern European progress, and there is nothing like American history for myself.. Taking up the story of the Quaker invasion of Massachusetts as early as 1659, I find Lydia Wardell, daughter of Isaac Perkins, a freeman of the colony, whipped in Boston, because she had ceased to be a Puritan and had become a Quakeress. Turning then to the history of Virginia in 1663, 1 find Colonel Edmund Scarburgh riding at the head of the King's troops into the boundaries of Maryland, placing the broad arrows of the King on the houses of the Quakers, and punishing them soundly for non-conformity. Upon the question of who was right and who was wrong in these old feuds, there are doubless men who, even to this day, have deep prejudices. Fancy how conflict- ing are the sentiments of a man in 1890, as to their merits when he reflects, as I do, that Lydia Wardell was his grand- mother, and Colonel Scarburgh his grandfather, {Applause and laughter^ How absurd seems any comparison between the Puritan and Cavalier settlers of America. There they are, with all their faults, and all their virtues. Others may desire to contrast them. I do not. I stand ready to do battle against anybody who abuses either. Their conjoint blood has pro- duced a Nation, the like of which no man living before our day had ever fancied. Nearly three centuries of intermingling and intermarrying, has made the traditions and the hopes of either the heritage and aspiration of us all. Common sufl"er- ings, common triumphs, common pride, make the whole glorious history the property of every American citizen, and it is provincial folly to glorify either faction at the expense of the other. We stand to-night on the pinnacle of the third Century of American development. Look back to the very beginning. 6i There stands the grizzled figure of John Smith, the Pioneer, President of Virginia, and Admiral of New England. Still united, we look about us and behold a nation blessed with peace and plenty, crowned with honor, and with boundless opportunity of future aggrandizement. The seed planted by John Smith still grows. The voice of John Smith still lives. That voice has been swelled into the mighty chorus of 60,000,000 Americans singing the song of United States. We look forward to a future whose possibilities stagger all conjecture, to a common ruler of John Smith's ancient domin- ions ; to a common destiny, such as he mapped out for us. And with devout and heartfelt gratitude to him, a reunited land proclaims, "Whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder." {Great applause^ The exercises were brought to a close by the singing of the long metre Doxology. " Praise God from whom all blessings flow, Praise Him all creatures here below. Praise Him above, ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." The following letters were received from the gentlemen who were elected honorary members of the Society in Febru- ary last : Concord, Mass., February lo, 189I. Thomas S. Moore, Esq.. Recording Secretary of the Nezv Englajid Society in the City of Brooklyn : Dear Sir : — I have received your favor of the 7th inst., informing me of my election as an honorary member of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn ; and I beg to convey through you to the Board of Directors my most grateful acknowledgment of the very high honor which they have thus conferred upon me, and the senti- ments of sincere pleasure and pride with which I accept it. Coming as it does from an organization which from first to last has included in its ranks such a large and steadily in- creasing body of the intelligent, influential and excellent men of your city, so many of whom have risen to marked and well earned eminence in their respective spheres of life — I can but regard it as an enviable distinction and privilege indeed, while the satisfaction is only enhanced for me as I recall my good fortune in having been connected with the Society, as member and officer, during the earlier years of its his- tory, and my own later, but contemporaneous years in Brook- lyn. To have thus shared the company and counsels of such true sons, or descendants of the sons of New England, was an experience which I have looked back upon as one of the most delightful of my long continued residence there, and surely the memory of it should not be less sweet to me now than it has been hitherto. Having been requested by one "in authority" to pen a few reminiscences of that first half of your decade, may I indulge in them here? It is hardly strange that the mind reverts instantly to the venerable and beloved friend who was for that time our first President, as well to his immediate successor, Mr. Wins- low, the energetic prime mover in establishing the institution. Mr. Silliman's acceptance of the position of the first presidency to which he was called with such enthusiastic unanimity, en- 63 sured the success of the enterprise at the very outset. Crowned as he was with years and honors, no man in Brooklyn was more esteemed and revered than he for exalted character; for rare intellectual ability, profound legal learning, varied and extensive literary attainments, and protracted and truly grand professional service ; and for all those exquisite graces and accomplishments which are ever the charm in public life as well as in the social circle. In the famous annual festival that followed, when he was surrounded on the platform by the Nations President and notables from Washington, and by il- lustrious soldiers and celebrated governors, orators and wits, from various States or Cities, there was no glory that lessened the dignity or dimmed the lustre that were at the centre. It fell to me, as one of the Committee on Invitations and as Cor- responding Secretary, to assist in engaging the speakers or guests for such occasions, and I found that those to whom I wrote were very glad to come if other engagements permitted; nor could it be doubted that they responded as they did with all the more alacrity, because Mr. Silliman was at the head. What an array it was, on each successive Forefather's Day ! At the very first dinner sat, near the master of the feast, Pres- ident Hayes, Generals Grant and Sherman, Henry Ward Beecher, President Porter of Yale, and President Chadbourne of AYilliams, William M. Evarts, A. A. Low, Edward Everett Hale, Joseph Choate and Chauncey M. Depew. That was in iSSo. Will any celebration to come ever see the like ? One of the very best speeches of the evening was that of President Hayes. It was brief, appropriate, earnest, and admirably delivered. Most of these gifted or renowned men came again and perhaps still again ; and with them came President Arthur, General Porter and Robert Collyer of New York; Mayor Seth Low of Brooklyn, Governor Long and Dr. Loring of Mas- sachusetts, General Chamberlain and Senator Frye of Maine, and many more of high repute. It is needless to say how full of wit and wisdom and eloquence were the words they all spoke. On one occasion we were privileged to hear Hon. W. W. Crapo, of New Bedford, and I have ever since thought that his address was one of the finest of the whole lot. It was characteristic of Mr. Beecher to respond quickly and helpfully to the call of any good cause, whenever his always crowded life allowed him to do it. At one of the annual meetings of the Society, President Noah Porter, of Yale, had been engaged to deliver an address on "The Old New England Meeting House.'' For some reason he was unable to be pre- sent, though he was confidently expected up to the last mo- 64 nieiit. Evening came on and it was already quite dark, yet he bad not arrived and we could not learn whether he would really be with us or not. Finding ourselves in a dilemma, we turned at once and involuntarily to the pastor of Plymouth Church, and I made haste to call upon him and ask him for the service which we very well knew he could so easily render without previous notice or preparation. I found him at home and in the best possible humor. I told him what we wanted and that the the hour of meeting was close at hand. The family were just going out to tea and he thought we had time for that, as he kindly invited me to join them at the table. This I did, but we were soon on our way together to the Historical Hall, whereof course he was immediately surrounded with admiring friends and welcomed with hearty greetings. With little delay he was presented to the audience, and forthwith proceeded to give us one of the most entertaining, humorous, and instructive talks imaginable, upon the very subject that had been advertised for Dr. Porter, "The Old New England Meeting House." The perplexity of the committee had not been known to the members gen- erally, but they were warmly congratulated all the same on the success of the evening. But not the least precious of the recollections that throng to my mind as I thus write, is that of the more social gatherings of the ofificers, directors, and some others, in the parlors and around the festive board of our venerated President, in his own ever hospitable mansion. There were always present a suf^- cient number of leading men in the city, of different profes- sions, to give character and zest to the meeting and it was a rare treat when men like General Slocum and Judge Pratt could be tempted to tell us some of their more thrilling stories of the war, or relate to us some of their own sharper experi- ences in the service. But who can describe the genial cordi- ality and delicate tact and thoughtfulness with which the host himself made each and all feel perfectly at home, or who can justly give account of the apt and weighty sayings, the choice literary allusions and quotations, the quick and bright repar- tee, and all the scintillations of a brilliant and richly stored mind, with which he beguiled for us all those evening hours ? Long may he still live, to enjoy the grateful love and honor of your people, and to be a benediction to your Society. I rejoice that your Society is so prosperous. If it be true, as is sometimes said, that the power of the old, original stock of New England is on the wane within her own circumscribed territorial domain, it is gratifying to know that her influence is 65 not the less, but perhaps all the more felt, in all other parts of the country, whithersoever her sons and daughters have gone and still are going, carrying with them her essential spirit and ideas and principles, as the seed of the great harvest that shall one day be. It is to keep alive that spirit and sow broadcast those ideas and principles, that such organizations as yours are formed and multiplied. With the earnest hope that the one in Brooklyn may long continue to thrive as in the past, with ever enlarging usefulness to the vast and still growing city whose name it bears, and with kind regards and best wishes to all its members, I am, sincerely and faithfully, yours, A. P. Putnam. Yale University, New Haven. \ February 12, 1891. f Thomas S. Moore, Esq. : My Dear Sir — Let me express to you and through you, to the Board of Directors of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, my acknowledgment of the kindness which they have manifested in electing me an honorary member of the Society. In accepting the honor thus conferred, let me assure you of my high regard. Very truly yours, Timothy Dwight. United States Senate, Washington, D. C, Feb. 9, 1891. Mr. Thomas S. Moore, Recording Secretary, etc. 102 Brodway, New York, N. Y. Dear Sir — If the duty of informing me of my election as an honorary member of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn was agreeable to you, how much more delightful to me the pleasure of accepting is, you may imagine. My memories of the courtesies of your Society, are exceedingly pleasant. I am proud of my election, and grateful to the electors. Very truly, Wm. P. Frye. PROCEEDINGS Twelfth Annual Meeting TWELFTH annual FESTIVAL OF THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY IN THE CITY OF BROOKLYN. OFFICERS. DIRECTORS, COUNCIL, MEMBERS, STANDING COMMITTEES, AND BY-LAWS OF THE SOCIETY. BROOKLYN, 1 892. CONTENTS Objects of the Society, Terms of Membership, Past Officers, . ... Oificers, .... Directors, .... Council, . . . . , Standing Committees, Report of Twelfth Annual Meeting . Proceedings at the Twelfth Annual Dinner, Bill of Fare, .... Address of President Calvin E. Piatt, " Hon. Grover Cleveland, " Genl. Horace Porter, St. Clair McKelway, Esq,. . " Hon. Roswell G. Horr, Rev. Chas. H. Hall, D. D., " Hon. David A. Boody, Certificate of Incorporation, By-Laws, .... Honorary Members, Life Members, .... Annual Members, Meetings of Society, Form of Bequest PAGE. 3 3 4 5 6 6 7 9 23 26 27 31 • 36 42 • 47 54 62 . 69 73 79 79 So S6 . 36 OBJECTS OF THE SOCIETY. The New England Society in the City of Brooklyn is incorporated and organized to commemorate the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers ; to encourage the study of New England History ; to establish a library, and to promoie charity, good fellowship and social intercourse among its members. TERMS OF MEMBERSHIP. Admission Fee, . - . . . i^jo oc Annual Dues, - - - - - - 5.00 Life Membership, besides Admission Fee, - - 50.00 Payable at election, except Annual Dues, whichare paya()kin January of eachyeat. Any member of the Society in good standing may become a Life Member on paying to the Treasurer atone time the sum of fifty dollars ; and thereafter such member shall be exempt from further payment of dues. Any male person of good moral character, who is a native or a descendant of a native of any of the New England States, and who is eighteen years old or more, is eligible. If in the judgment of the Board of Directors, they are in need of it, the widow or children of any deceased member shall received from the funds of the Society a sum equal to five times the amount such deceased member has paid to the Society. The friends of a deceased member are requested to give the Historiographer early information of the time and place of his birth and death, with brief inci- dents of his life, for publication in our annual report. Members who change their address should give the Secretary early notice. 1^" It is desirable to have all worthy gentlemen of New England descent residing in Brooklyn become members of the Society. Members are requested (to send application of their friends for membership to the Secretary. Address, THOMAS S. MOORE, Recording Secretary, log Broadway, New York, PAST OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY. BENJAMIN D. SILLIM.VN, JOHN WINSLOW, CALVIN E. PRATT, WILLARD BARTLETT, J^vesititnts : iSSo 1887 1889 1890 Creasuvers : WILLIAM B. KENDALL. CHARLES N. MANCHESTER, 1880 i8qo Jifcortung Secretaries ALBERT E. LAMB. STEPHEN B. NOYES. 1&80 1885 ©orresponOing Secrctavj REV. A. P. PUTNAM, D. D., 1880 ALDEN J. SPOONER. STEPHEN B. NOYES, PAUL L. FORD, ristorioQravters : 1880 1884 1888 ILibrariano : REV. W. H. WHITTEMORE, CHARLES E. WEST, i8£o 1886 OFFICERS 1892. President : CALVIN E. PRATT. First Vice-President : Second Vice President: ROBERT D BENEDICT. GEORGE H. FISHER. Treasurer : WILLIAM G. CREAMER. Recording Secretary : Corresponding Secretary: THOMAS S. MOORE. WILLIAM H. WILLIAMS. Histoi iographer : W. A. BARDWELL. Librarian : DANIEL L. NORTHUP. DIRECTORS. For One Year. William H. Lyon. Albert E. Lamb. William B. Kendall. Thomas S. Moore. A. C. Barnes. Calvin E. Pratt. John Winslovv. For Two Years. WiLLARD BaRTLETT. Henry W. Maxwell, RoBEjRT D. Benedict. For Th-ee Years. Benjamin F. Tracy. Frederic A. Ward. Henry W. Slocum. William G. Creamer. Nelson G. Carman, Jr. For Four Years. Benjamin D. Silliman. Hiram W. Hunt. George H. Fisher. William H. Williams. George B. Abbott. COUNCIL. A. A. Low. A. M. White. S. B. Chittenden. A. F. Cross, Henry Coffin. Charles M. Pratt. Thomas H. Rodman. Arthur Mathewson. W, H. Nichols. Francis L. Hine. Seth Low. Isaac H. Cary. H. H. Wheeler. W. A. White. Darwin R. James. John Claflin. M. W. Robinson. J. S. T. Stranahan. L. S. BUBNHAM, Henry Earl. Jasper W. Gilbert, M. N. Packard. Edwin F. Knowlton, N. H. Clement. Flamen B. Candler. Jesse Johnson. STANDING COxMMITTEES. Finance : William H. Lyon. Robert D. Benedict. Albert E. Lamb. Charity : Benjamin F. Tracy. Henry W. Slocum, Frederic A. Ward. Invitations : Calvin E. Pratt. Benj. D. Silliman. John Winsi.ow. Annual Dinner : William H. Williams. Nelson G. Carman, Jr, Joseph A. Burr, Jr. Publications : Nelson G. Carman, Jr. William G. Creamer, Frederic A. Ward. Annual Receptions : President and Vice-Presidents. THE TWELFTH ANNUAL MEETING. The twelfth annual meeting of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, was held at the Director's Room of the Academy of Music, on Wednesday evening, December 2d, 1891. Mr. Calvin E. Pratt was called to the chair, and Mr. Thomas S. Moore, acted as secretary. The minutes of the eleventh annual meeting, held December 3d, 1890, was read and approved. Mr. John Winslow made a verbal report from the Invitation Committee. Mr. Hiram W. Hunt made a verbal report from the Dinner Committee. The Treasurer's report was received and referred to the Finance Committee for audit. It shows a balance on hand of $19,656.08, deposited as follows : Franklin Trust Co., time certificates $18,000.00 Franklin Trust Co., subject to check 991.68 Brooklyn Trust Co., subject to check 664.40 $19,656.08 The annual report of the President was then read : THE ANNUAL REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT. I have the pleasure to submit the Annual Report of the President, as required by the By-Laws. The declared purposes of the Society are to encourage the study of New England history, to establish a library, to promote charity, good fellowship, and social intercourse among lO its members, and to commemorate the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers. These objects havb been kept in view since the organization of the Society. All the Annual Dinners of the Society have been successful, both as to the quality of the dinner and the brilliancy and high character of the speakers. That this is appreciated is seen in the fact that there are so many applications for tickets to the next dinner. The Society has sought to make this Annual Festival a notable event in Brooklyn, and its success in that respect is generally recognized. The indications are that the next Annual Dinner will be largely attended. The high standard as to speakers that the Society has thus far maintained for these annual occasions will be firmly upheld. It is provided by Article 24 of the By-Laws that if, in the judgment of the Directors, they are in need of it, the widow or children of any deceased member shall receive from the funds of the Society a sum equal to five times the amount such deceased member has paid to the Society. There have been several occasions when help in this manner has been given under the direction of the Committee on Charities. The report of the Treasurer shows that there is in the treasury at this date the sum of $19,65608. Most of this sum is deposited in the Franklin Trust Company, drawing interest at the rate of four per cent, per annum. Members are urgently requested to propose candidates for membership. The Historiographer's report shows that ten members of the Society have died in the past year. They are as follows : William C. Langley, Leonard Richardson, Rufus Litchfield, William Augustus Brown, Charles Pratt, James Struthers Case, William Coit, Joseph Fairchild Knapp, Albert Woodruff and Gordon L. Ford. Sketches of their lives, prepared by the Historiographer are 'appended to this report, and made a part thereof. Mr. Bardwell informs me that in every instance these sketches have been submitted to members of the family of the deceased for revision and correction, and therefore the facts stated therein may confidently be relied upon as trustworthy and accurate. William Clark Langley, who died on the gth of December, 1890, was born in Roxbury, Mass.. Nov. 15, 1810. ' Mr. Langley served his mercantile apprenticeship with the dry goods house of A. «& A. Lawrence & Co., of Boston. On becoming of age he came to II New York and was for several years associated in business pursuits with vari- ous firms. In 1838 Mr. La ngley started in business under liis own name, and two years later in 1840, taking into partnership two of his employees, he organ- ized the firm of W. C. Langley & Co., which has grown tp be one of the most reliable Dry Goods commission houses in the United States. Mr. Langley was acquainted with the principal dry goods merchants of his time, and throughout the trade was known as an honest business man — than whom none possessed a more honorable record. He was director of the American Exchange Bank from its organization in 1838 to the time of his death. Mr. Langley resided at Bay Ridge for nearly fifty years, owning there an estate of over 200 acres. The buildings are scattered about in an old fash- ioned comfortable style, attractive to the eye of the passer by ; while from the water the long.sloping greenswards and prettily laid out grounds form a picture that is one of the notable views along shore. Dogs and horses were plenty on the estate, the owner being very fond of driving. Mr. Langley was married April 8, 1840, to Sarah A. H. Prentiss, who died April 3, 1880. An only son, Mr. Wm. H. Langley. at whose residence, 91 Remsen street, Mr. Langley died, after an illness of only a few days, survives him, taking his father's place in the firm. Mr. Langley was a member of the New England Society of New York as well as of this city. The funeral took place at the Second Unitarian Church on December n, at 3.30 P. M., the Rev. J. W. Chadwick conducting the services. Mr. Chadwick spoke very touchingly of the integrity, faithfulness to duty and just dealing of the deceased, of his love for young people and his helpful encouragement of all with whom he came in contact ; of his interest in floriculture, showing an intense love of nature, and of the thorough and honest business principles so much marked in his career. The remains were interred in Medfield, Mass. Leonard Richardson died at his residence, rigo Dean street, December 25th, 1890. Mr. Richardson was born in VVatertown, Mass., on the 2d of December, 1S32, being the eldest of nine children. He enjoyed the Public School advantages of that town, and later attended Phillips Academy at Andover. When 18 years of age he came to New York and entered the employ of the firm of Raynolds, Devoe & Pratt, paint manufacturers, becoming in a few years a member of the firm which took the title of C. T. Raynolds & Co., and retaining his place until 1S88, when he retired from active partnership on account of ill health. Mr. Richardson was for thirty-five years a member of the Washington Avenue Baptist Church, was president of the Board of Trustees, and was superintendent of the Sunday School when his illness overtook him. Of a benevolent disposition his sympathies were never appealed to in vain for any worthy object. His death has deprived the city of an esteemed and upright citizen, and the poor and friendless of a generous and kind hearted friend. Mr Richardson was married on June 24th, 1858, to Sarah Louisa Cole of Brooklyn, N. Y,, who survives him. He also leaves a son and a married daughter. It was during the fearful snow storm (the blizzard) of March 12, 12 l888, that Mr. Richardson contracted a severe cold from exposure to the storm, and this resulted in partial paralysis from which he never recovered, and v?hich finally caused his death. The funeral services were conducted at the residence on December 28th by Rev. Edward Braislin, pastor of the Washington avenue Baptist Church, assisted by the Rev. John Humpstone. Interment at Green- wood Cemetery. RuFUS Litchfield, who died on the 30th of January, 1891, was born in Scituate, now known as Norwall, Mass., Feb. 17, 1814. When 16 years of age he removed to Boston, where he learned the carpenter's trade. Mr. Litchfield was a descendent of one of the early Puritan settlers, and still main- tained the old homestead in Norwall, at the time of his death. He was a director of the Nassau Fire Insurance Company and of the Metropolitan Plate Glass Company. Mr. Litchfield wa? a resident of Brooklyn for 45 years, and was the head of the building hrm of Litchfield and Ketchum. With sterling integrity be devoted his energies to the development of many public and private improve- ments, while his many estimable qualities endeared him to a large circle of acquaintances. Love of home and devotion to his family were among Mr. Litchfield's distinguishing characteristics. Mr. Litchfield was married October 7th, 1838, to Hannah Marshall, of Albany, N. Y., who died in October, 1865. He was married a second time, on the 24th of October, 1866, to Sophia E. Jacobs, of Lynn, Mass., who survives him. He leaves also a son and a daughter. The funeral services were held at Mr. Litchfield's late residence, 185 Schermerhorn street, on February 2d, at 2 o'clock P. M. William Augustus Brown who died at his home. No. 93 First place, February 26, 1891, was born at Salem, Mass., October 14th, 1817. His father was a well known minister in the Orthodox Society of Friends, and in this simple and devout religious connection the son had his early training. He attended the Friends' School at Providence, Rhode Island, in his boyhood, and entering business in 1833 at the age of 16, was taken into partnership with Robert Earle, at Worcester, Mass., when 21 years old. In 1840 Mr. Brown removed to Boston, and in 1844 was married according to the ritual of the Society of Friends. In 1851 Mr. Brown left Boston for New York where he established a branch Commission House, and finally entered with great energy and against serious difficulties and discouragements, into business for himself. In this undertaking he was eventually successful, receiving and retaining the respect and confidence both of his business associates and business rivals. He came to Brooklyn in 1852 and to his late residence in 1S56, where he lived for thirty-five years. At the outbreak of the Rebellion Mr. Brown decided, after careful consideration of the subject, to resign his membership in the Society of Friends, being convinced that love of country as well as Christian duty, required that he should aid, to the best of his ability, the armies of the Union. He made this decision not impugning the principles of the Society he left, to which he always retained a sincere attachment, but that he might be at liberty to support the cause of freedom, or to fight for it should there be need. He then identified himself with the South Congregational Church of Brooklyn, and accompanied by his wife, finally entered the communion of that church. His eminent integrity and marked business ability led soon to his election as one of the trustees of that society, in which position he remained till his death, faithful to every duty, and in every question of administration prompt, sagacious and progressive. Mr. Brown possessed a singlar insight into practical affairs in business life. He was a member of the Produce Exchange forty years, from nearly its beginning. He was possessed of peculiar readiness and fertility of combination and resource as well as of a high sense of personal honor in regard to business obligations. In the affairs of the Church of which he was a member, Mr. Brown was fearless in emergency, and enjoyed surmounting difficulties. He was steadfastly loyal to the interests of the Society. Mr. Brown was much interested in the work of the Childrens' Aid Society of this city of which he was a trustee for many years, and especially so in the Boys' Lodging House department of it, and in the Seaside Summer Home for Children. Mr. Brown was married in October, 1844. to Phoebe K. Crowell of Yarmouth, Cape Cod, Mass., who survives him. He leaves four children, a son and three daughters. The funeral services on February 28th, were conducted by Rev. A. J. Lyman, pastor of the South Congregational Church. Charles Pratt was born at Watertown, Massachusetts, October 2, 1830. His ancestry was of the true old New England stock, dating back to 1640. He was himself an embodiment of the ripe fruitage of what was best in New Eng- land characteristics of the olden time, animated by the business efficiency of the present generation. His father was Asa Pratt, born in Maiden, Massachusetts, and his mother was Eliza Stone, of Watertown. Charles was one of ten child- ren, the other members of the family being Eliza S. Andrew, Anna C, Mary, Convers Francis, George A., Alfred W. , Ellen A.. James T. and Horace a! Of these only Eliza. Frank, Alfred, James and Horace survive him. His father was a cabinet maker by trade in Watertown for nearly fifty years, and brought up his large family of children to merit the reputation estab- lished by himself, "Asa Pratt was an honest man." To be "transparently honest," was one of the admonitions of Charles Pratt to the army of young people under his influence. His mother was a woman imbued with the virtues of the old Puritan families of New England. She was singularly affectionate, and devoted to her children, and inspired them with sound moral precepts. In such a home as this parentage gave him, and in such an atmosphere of sturdy independence, economy and exertion, it is not singular that an ambition to rise developed iri the boy as inevitably as his physical growth or the unfolding of his faculties. During the days of his boyhood, there was little to indicate his golden future. He not only learned how to work, but did work with an application and steadiness seldom necessary. The economy and self-denial practiced dur- ing the years of his childhood left an indelible impression, to which the world is perhaps indebted for the singularly wise schemes of thrift developed by him dur- ing the latter years of his life. In the same way it is more than probable that the patient struggle neces- sary to gain his own deficient early education, was the cause of the inspiration which culminated in the brilliant system of education now bearing his name in Brooklyn. Few words are required to sketch his own educational training. Although technically considered it was limited to a few winter months at school in his native town, and to one year, his eighteeiuh, at Wilbraham Academy, where he supported himself, yet who can say that the best training of brain and character did not come to him through the faithfulness and steady application of three years' work on the farm in Watertowa, the year in the retail grocery store in Boston, and the three years' acquirement of tlie machinist's trade in New- ton ? The list of books which influenced him during these years of cheerful, resolute effort, is significant now that the complete tale of his life is told, — the Bible, the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, and Abbott's Young Man's Guide. Certainly these influences were of too marked a nature not to have fostered and developed his natural characteristics of energy, ambition, respon- siveness to commendation, and determination to make his life a success. His connection with the paint and oil business began with a clerkship in Boston from his eighteenth to his twentieth year. . The stimulus afforded at this time by his interest in the Mercantile Library Association and by slight intercourse with Horace Mann was gracefully acknowledged by him in later years. The paucity of his educational advantages, and the difficulties under which he labored to improve the few opportunities available to him, would seem deplorable, could one not now see the end from the beginning, and trace, in Pratt Institute, the blessed sequel which has been the direct result. Intimation of the larger possibilities of business in New York caused him independently to sever his Boston connection and identify himself with Schenck & Downing until 1854. His marriage to Miss Lydia Richardson (daughter of Thomas Richardson from Belmont) August 5, 1854; and the birth of his two eldest children, Charles M. and Lydia R., laid the foundation for that affectionate home life which was, to those who knew him best, so distinguishing a characteristic of his career. The first and only break in the family circle was made by the death of Mrs. Pratt. In January, 1854, in connection with his associates he bought out the busi- ness of Schenck & Downing, thus forming the firm of Raynolds, Devoe & Co. In 1857 the firm changed to Raynolds, Devoe & Pratt, continuing under this name until 1864, when it became Raynolds, Pratt & Co. In 1867 it became Charles Pratt, and in the same year, Charles Pratt & Co. From 1874 to the present time the business was represented by the name Standard Oil Company, and Pratt Manufacturing Co. He identified himself also with various other business men and undertak- ings, including the Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing Co., real estate enterprises of Samuel Higginboltom in 1857 and 1S58, petroleum enterprises of 1863 to 1865, and connections with W. J. Coombs, John T. Lewis, Mr. Frost, Leonard Richardson, his brother-in-law, and Charles E. Folsom, of Boston. 15 A business career of such undeviating success is in itself an indication of the far-sighted judgment, the unflinching purpose to deal only with the best of any' article, the unerring choice of the right man to the right work, the organizing ability, and the disposition to seek wide and wise counsel, which marked him among the business men of our country as "a good merchant and a good man." On September 9, 1863, Mr. Pratt married Mary H. Richar Ison, sister of his first wife, and six children were added to the family, Frederick B., Helen F., George D., Herbert L., John T,, and Harold I. As his mercantile interest.s became established, his attention turned to the subject of education which proved so near his heart. The University at Roches- ter, the Leland Institute in New Orleans, the athletic field bearing his name at Amherst College, Cooke Academy, Vassar College, the Public Library in Water- town, the Adelphi Academy in Brooklyn, and that climax of his conception in Brooklyn, the Pratt Institute — all bear witness to his far-reaching policy and the magnanimity of his disposition. The inception of this supreme plan, the Pratt Institute, was years before it assumed visible form. During his travels in his own country and Europe, his mind was on the alert for suggestions from similar existing institutions which might be modified for use. In the Spring of 1SS7 a bill for its incorporation was introduced in the Serrate, and in October of the same year classes were opened. From the time of its inception until his death, it afforded scope for emphasizing his peculiar personality and for proving the soundness of his theory that educational eff(jrt should be based on the relation of industrial and technical advantages to morals and economies. He earnestly believed in the necessity of a thorough fundamental training, and this belief is carried into effect in all departments of the Institute. No clearer proof is required of the soundness of these principles than the reputation, as extended as civilization itself, already attained by practical demonstration. Into the details of this, as into every subject which interested him, particularly into benevolent work, he carried his personal investigations. One of the first impulses of his nature was to give himself. He preferred to devote time and thought to his schemes of benefac- tion in order to be able both to modify and enlarge them in accordance with his private judgment of their real merits and success in operation. He con- tented himself with no general sentiments of good will to mankind, but inter- ested himself personally with each individual who came within the reach of his philanthropy and kindness of heart. The young especially met with lavish responsiveness. No opportunity was lost to speak to them a few of his wise, unique, inspiring words, and in his lettL-rs he showed himself peculiarly helpful and philosophical. As would be expected from one so broadly benevolent, the interests of his church were dear to him. On first going to Brooklyn he attended different churches, including those of Dr. Storrs, Dr. Cox, and Mr. Beecher, finally con- necting himself with the Baptist Church on Pierrepont street, whose pastor was Dr. Walsh, afterward Dr. Holmes. Later he attended the Washington Avenue Baptist Church, under the pastorates of James L. Hodge, Cortland W. Anable, David Moore, Jr., and Emory J. Haynes. He finally identified himself with i6 the Emanuel Baptist Church and its pastor, Dr. John Humpstone, where for eight years preceding his death his church interests were centered. It was against his principles to be anything but an active member of any association, or trust to which his name was attached, and a stout adherence to similar principles was urged by him upon others. On no occasion did he spare himself when duty was the call, or when wise and generous planning for others was involved. No man more truly, more generously, gave of himself. He held offices of trust as President of the Board of Trustees of the Adelphi Academy, Trustee of the Long Island Loan & Trust Company. Trustee of the Emanuel Baptist Church, Trustee of the Standard Oil Company and Trustee of the Bureau of Charities. His death on May 4, 1891, in spite of its unexpectedness, was but the cul- mination of a life already complete. His singular modesty and aversion to per- sonal display or notoriety made the more marked the universal and heartfelt expressions of grief and personal loss which followed. Memorial exercises were held in the church of his membership and in the Pratt Institute, where the most tender feeling of grief prevailed. No further evidence of the abiding influence of his broadminded, large- hearted, sympathetic personality is needed than a knowledge'of his works which follow him, and acquaintance with the lives which through him have been broadened and enriched. James Struthers Case died at his residence. No. 4 South Elliott place, July 26, 1891. Mr. Case was widely known and highly respected in Brooklyn where he has resided for twenty-seven years. He was born in Duchess County, February 7, 1835. His parents removing to Poughkeepsie shortly afterward he attended the public school there during his boyhood. At an early age he was employed for two or three years in a drug store until a position was offered him with James Bowne & Co., carpet dealers with which firm he was connected for fifteen years. At the end of this time Mr. Case removed to Brooklyn, having accepted a position in the carpet manufacturing establishment of E. S. Hig- gins & Co., with whom he remained for twenty-five years, from 1864 to 1889. In 1889 Mr. Case organized the firm of Case. Morris & Co., dealers in carpets, at 82 White Street, N. Y., which has been very successful from the beginning of its career. Early in 1862 he served as a member of the Twenty-first N. Y. Militia, for three months at the front, being acting quarter-master of his regi- ment. Of the New England Society Mr. Case was a prominent member, ser- ving several times upon the dinner committee. He was for twenty years con- nected with the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, an insti- tution in which he was always deeply interested. He was a charter member of Fulton Council, Royal Arcanum, serving two terms as regent of the Council, and one year as deputy grand master of the district. He was for eleven years mar- shall of the Children's Day Sunday School parade. In politics Mr. Case was a Republican and was one of the organizers of the Brooklyn Young Republican Club, and until two years since vvas its secretary. At the age of 22 Mr. Case joined the Methodist Church continuing a member of it until his death. He was 17 for fifteen years a trustee of the Simpson M. E. Church, and for two years superintendent of its Sunday School. His earnest efforts to promote the welfare of churches and Sunday Schools in the city of his home will be long remembered by those who were intimate with him. His prominence in manufacturing and commercial circles and his connection with the leading movements of the Republican Party combined to elevate him in the estimation of those familiar with his career and characteris- tics. An amiable and helpful man, he performed diliuently and unostentatiously whatever duties were imposed upon him. For deceit or unkindness, there was in his sunny and wholesome disposition no room. The business and social rela- tions which he maintained were healthful and uplifting. He found his greatest happiness in the beautiful home he loved so well, and counted its sacred atmosphere the source of his strength and usefulness. For several years past, he suffered intensely at times from heart attacks, which gradually became more pronounced and distressing. He fully realized that his life was much prolonged, through the skillful and tender care of his beloved friend and physician. Dr. Norris M. Carter. Recognizing in the alarming symptoms of his disease, the hopelessness of recovery, he faced the situation with a spirit as bright as it was brave, and with a courage born of a hope and faith in a life beyond this world; desiring to live and work on, yet willing to hear the Master's call. Mr. Case was married on August g, i860, to Miss Garetta Wainwright of Poughkeepsie, N. Y.,who with two children, survives him. The funeral ser- vices were held at his late residence on the evening of July 28. the Rev. T. P. Frost, Rev. Edwin F. See and Rev. Jas. S. Chadwick, officiating. The inter- ment took place the following day at Poughkeepsie, where the receiving vault of the rural Cemetery was made beautiful with flowers by the friends and rela- tives gathered there to pay a last tribute of love and regard to the man, who though absent for more than twenty-five years from his early home, ever held their warmest love and esteem. At this sad and touching .service, Rev. James S. Chadwick of Brooklyn, and Rev. L. M. Vmcent, Rev. Francis B. Wheeler and Rev. Mr. Snedekerof Poughkeepsie officiated. William Coit died at Elberon, N. J., at the Summer residence of his friend, Mr. George H. Prentiss, on the 23d day of August, 1881. In his death this city loses an upright and honorable citizen. Mr. Coit was born in Griswold, Conn., July i, 1815, and was the youngest of seven children, His father, Nathaniel Coit, was one of the representative men of eastern Connecticut; and his brothers, Colonel Charles Coit and George Coit, were among the most prominent, honored and useful citizens of Norwich. Mr. Coit, as a boy, attended the Plainfield Academy in Connecticut for a year, under the teaching of the brothers Edward and James Humphries. He finished his preparatory studies for college at Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass., entered Yale College in 1833, and was graduated with the Class of 1837 in excellent standing. In his class were men who achieved national reputations. Among them may be mentioned the late Chief Justice Waite, Hon. Edwards Pierrepont, i8 Walter T. Hatch, Esq., the late Professor Benj. Silliman, and Hon. Wm. M, Evarts. The Hon. Samuel J. Tilden was in the class during a portion of their course. Chief Justice Waite and Mr. Coic who were roommates at Yale, were warm friends. Dwight Johnson, Esq., of Brooklyn, a cousin of Mr. Coit, was also one of his intimate friends. In politics Mr. Coit was a firm Republican. Atone time he was Supervisor of the Sixth Ward of Brooklyn, and later, the Republican candidate for County Judge. Mr. Coit first came to New York in 1838, when he entered the law oflSce of Mr. Butler on Wall street, as a law student, remaining in New York till 185 1, when he came to Brooklyn, which has been his place of business and residence during the last forty years. He was never married but lived in the family of L. J. Edwards of Brooklyn and of his daughter, Mrs. George H. Prentiss, for a period of fifty-three years. This brief outline of Mr. Coit's career gives no adequate knowledge of his character as known to those most intimate with him. His clients knew him to be a careful and friendly adviser and one who gained their confidence and re.spect. In the circle of his personal friends he was beloved because he showed a friendly heart and a high sense of rectitude and honor. One in close relations with him during all these years says he does n >t believe Mr. Coit ever did or thought an ungentlemanly thing In charitable matters Mr. Coit was generous and considerate. He acted gratuitously for the Brooklyn Home for Aged Men for many years. He was thoughtful of the things pertaining to the life beyond, with his more intimate friends was fond of comparing views and of discussing spiritual themes. He was a member and for many years a Trustee of the South Congregational Church of Brooklyn, of which Rev. A. J. Lyman. D. D., is pastor. As attorney he was the trusted adviser of the Church Society, commending himself to all by his sagacity and good judgment Supporting generously every Christian enterprise, testifying by his words as well as illustrating in his character his adherence to the truths of the Christian faith. Dr. Lyman being out of the city the funeral service was conducted by Rev. C. T- Young of the Elberon Memorial Church, at the home of Mr. George H. Prentiss, 77 First place. The burial was in Greenwood. Joseph Fairchild Knapp died at sea on the 14th of September, 1891. He was born in New York on the first day of July, 1S32. During his boyhood his parents removed to the village of Williamsburgh, now apart of Brooklyn. His father dying, his training devolved upon his mother, a woman eminently fitted for such a charge, and to whose care his success in after life is largely attributable. Mr. Knapn received his education at a school in North Adams, Mass. Early in life he entered the employment of Sarony & Major, lithographers, on Broadway, New York, and was, after some years, taken into partnership, the firm name becoming Sarony. Major & Knapp. Subsequently, on the retirement of Mr. Sarony it became Major & Knapp. Mr. Knapp was for twenty years president of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company of New York, and also a director and trustee of the Long Island Trust Company, of the Washington and Nassau Trust Companies, of the National Shoe and Leather Bank and of the Liberty Fire Insurance Company. He was for twenty years a prominent member of 19 St. John's Methodist Episcopal Church and superintendent of its Sabbath school. The Methodist Episcopal Church on South Second street, near Driggs, of which his mother was for many years a communicant, was thoroughly recon- structed and redecorated a few years ago by Mr. Knapp, at a personal expense of $25,000. Mr. Knapp was prominent in the social life of Brooklyn and was generally regarded as one of her most public spirited citizens. His handsome residence, at the junction of Bedford avenue and Ross street, has been the scene of memorable receptions, notably those to Presidents Grant, Cleveland and Harrison, Generals Sherman, Sheridan, Gilmore, Schofield, How and Logan, Governor Hill and others. Art and music found in him an enthusiastic and liberal friend. His chari- ties were extensive, but unostentatious, and no worthy object ever appealed in vain to his benevolence. Among the Clubs of which Mr. Knapp was an hon- ored member were the Oxford Club, the Brooklyn Club and the New England Society of Brooklyn. In politics a Republican from a sense of duty, he never failed to vote at the primaries and at the polls, but he had no ambition to take a prominent part in politics. More than once great pressure was brought to bear upon him to induce his acceptance of a nomination for the mayoralty, but all to no purpose ; he de- clined the prottered honor. During the summer of i8gi Mr. Knapp, with his wife and family visited Europe, and while in Paris his last illness occurred. It was thought that a re- turn to his home might revive the sick man, and with the consent of his physi- cians the journey was begun. The trip from Paris to Havre was safely accom- plished, and the beginning of the sea voyage was auspicious, but his strength failed and death occurred on the third day out. Mr. Knapp left a widow, Mrs. Pheoebe Palmer Knapp; a daughter, wife of Mr. E. C. Wallace, of this city, and an only son, Joseph P. Knapp, his successor in business. Mr. Knapp was in- terred in the family plot at Greenwood Cemetery on September 23d, the funeral services being conducted by Rev. Dr. Wm, V. Kelley, pastor of St. John's Mo E. Church. Albert Woodruff, died at his residence, 130 State street, October nth, 1891, at the age of 84 years. Mr. Woodruff was born in the little town of Sandisfield, Mass., among the Berkshire Hills, on the 13th of August, 1807. He was taken at an early age to the adjoining town of Otis, where he remained till he was 12 years of age, when the family removed to Hartford, Conn. While there, although in business, he pursued some studies, hoping to enter college, but in 1827 gave up this project and came to New York and entered into partnership with his brother, as fish and salt merchants, under the firm name of E. P. & A. Woodruff, which after the death of his brother became A. Woodruff & Robinson, He purchased the property at the foot of Congress street, on which the stores now standing were erected, partly by himself and the remainder later by the firm of Woodruff & Robinson. In 1836 he married Harriet Patridge, of Hatfield, Mass., grand-daughter of 20 Joseph Lyman, one of the founders of the American Board. In 1844 he re- moved to Brooklyn. Between 1856 and 1S61 he retired from active business and devoted the rest of his life to the spreading of the Sunday-school system all over the non-English speaking world. He visited Europe in 1S62, particularly for this purpose, remaining there about two years, and soon after his return founded the Society known as the Foreign Sunday-School Association. He was one of the original founders of the Church of the Pilgrims and was an officer in the church for some years. Mr. Woodruff was a plain, unostentatious man of high character and much esteemed in mercantile circles for his integrity, and his death is regretted by all who knew him. He leaves four children, two sons and two daughters. The funeral services at Mr. Woodruff's late residence were conducted by Rev. Dr. E. B. Coe, pastor of the Collegiate Church, Fifth avenue and Forty-eighth street, N. Y., assisted by Rev. Dr. Charles Cuthbert Hall. A large number of clergy- men interested in foreign Sunday-school work were present at the obsequies, after which the family accompanied the remains to Greenwood. Gordon Lester Ford, born at Lebannon, Conn., Dec. 16, 1823, was the son of Lester and Eliza (Burnham) Ford. From the former he derived descent from Andrew Ford, who came to Plymouth in the ship Fortune, being the sec- ond ship which reached that colony ; and from the latter, descent from Captain Thomas Burnham, one of the earliest settlers of Hartford, Conn. What educa- tion he received was in his native town, but at eleven years of age he came to the city of New York and entered the store of his uncle, Gordon W. Burnham, as office boy. Later he gained employment with the firm that afterward became H. B. Claflin & Co., and he opened the first books of that now famous house. From the Claflin's he entered the United States Marshal's office, under William Coventry H. Waddeil. He studied law in the intervals of his daily work, and in 1850 was admitted to the bar of New York County. His great talent for business was early recognized, and led to his election to the presidency of the New London, Willimantic and Palmer Railroad, now a part of the Vermont Central system, and he managed the concerns of this road until it passed into a new control. Retiring then from the presidency, he came to Brook- lyn in 1856, and has ever since been identified with many of the leading institu- tions of the city. Till 1869 Mr. Ford practiced law in the city of New York, but in all other respects his interests were entirely centered in Brooklyn. From the first he took an active part in. both local and national politics, and was one of the first of local politicians to stand for the abolition of slavery. He was for many years president of the First Ward Republican Association, and though a strong partisan of that party from its origin till the second administration of Grant, he in several cases threw his influence against its nominees, whom he believed unfit for office. During the war he joined in founding the Brooklyn Union, that the loyal side might have an organ in this city, and he took a prominent part in the Sanitary Commission. In 1869 he was appointed United States Collector of In- ternal Revenue for the third collection district, but was retired in 1872 for refusing to allow political assessments on the employees in his office. Dissatisfied, with 21 many others, in the political results of the Grant administration, he joined the Liberal Republ can movement, and was a delegate to the Cincinnati Convention in 1872, where he used his influence to favor the nomination of Charles Francis Adams. From this time he retired from active politics and owned no party affiliations. But it was a matter of pride with him that from the time, he was twenty-one he never failed to vote -at an election. In 1873 he became business manager of the New York Tribune, where he remained until 18S1, and for s. short time in 1883 he was president of the Brooklyn, Flatbush and Coney Island Railroad, but soon retired, and since that period was only •concerned in the management of his private affairs. Mr. Ford was one of the founders of the Brooklyn Art Association and was its treasurer through many years. He was a director in the Academy of Music almost from the beginning, and was long chairman of the executive committee. He was one of the found- ers of the Hamilton Club, and a signer of the call for the great centennial cele- bration in New York in i8Sc^ and active in carrying out that celebration as a member of one of the important committees which has since become permanent for constructing the Washington memorial arch in New York city- But all these occupations and interests, whether financial or benevolent, Mr. Ford re- garded only in the light of a duty owed by each good citizen to the public, and his real interest and pleasure were quite apart from them. When but fourteen years of age he began the collection of autographs, chiefly of famous Ameri- cans, and from that time was an ardent and discriminating purchaser of such, yiot merely in all parts of America, but in the great centers of Europe. As time went on his collecting turned more and more to the gathering of historic rather thf.n autographic manuscripts, and as soon as he was settled in Brooklyn he added to these a collection of books relating to AmericA. His tastes resulted in one of the finest and most complete collections relating to the history of this coun- try in the world. Not less than a hundred thousand m-anuscripts and fifty thou- sand volumes bear testimony to Mr. Ford's enthusiasm, and will form his best monument. Such was the value of the collection that from all parts of the country ■historical writers, either asked admission to or information from his library, and all its contents were as free, to such, as if they had been in a public institution. It was Mr. Ford's wish for many years that this collection should eventually become a public library in this city ; but encountering opposition to the carrying out of his plans, he abandoned this intention and considered instead a New York library as its ultimate resting place. Though his plans were not matured to the point of more than verbal discussion with the officers of that institution, he left his collection in such a manner that his plans might be carried out. Mr. Ford married Emily Ellsworth Fowler on December 16, 1S53, by whom he had eight children, seven of whom, and his widow, survive him. He died November 14, 1 89 1, in the six^.y-eighth year of his age. All of which is respectfully submitted. Calvin E. Pratt, Presid^nL Brooklyn, December 2d, 1891. 22 The Report was on motion accepted, and the Secretary- was requested to publish it in the Annual Report. On motion the following Directors were elected to serve for the ensuing four years : Benjamin D. Silliman, George H. Fisher, Hiram W. Hunt, William H. Williams and George B. Abbott. On motion adjourned. THOMAS S. MOORE, Recording Secretary. PROCEEDINGS AND SPEECHES AT THE TWELFTH ANNUAL DINNER^ Monday, December 21, 1891, In commemoration of the Two Hundred and Seventy-first Anniversary of the Landing of the Pilgrims. The Twelfth Annual Dinner of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, was held in the Assembly Rooms of the Academy of Music, and in the Art Room adjoining, on Monday Evening, December 21, 1891. The reception was held in the Art Room and at six o'clock the dinner v/as served. Two hundred and sixty-two gentlemen were seated at the tables. The President, Hon. Calvin E. Pratt, presided. Upon his right sat Gen. HORACE PORTER, HoN. Benj. D. SiLLiMAN, Rev. Charles H. Hall, D. D., Hon. John WiNSLOW, H. D. Polhemus, Pres. of the St. Nicholas Society, Brooklyn, Joseph W. Carroll, Pres. St. Patrick's Society, Brooklyn, On the left of the President sat HON. Grover Cleveland, Hon. Roswell G. Horr, Hon. David A. Boody, Daniel G. Rollins, New England Society of New York. 24 The members of the Society were seated as follows : Table A. — Horatio C. King, Thos. E. Pearsall, C. J. Patterson, J. A- Wernberg, E H. Sumner, VV. P. Furgerson, Roy Burton, C. W. Tyson, David G. Bailee, Finley Mackenzie, J. A. Rooney, W. H. Davol, J. F. Henry, C. S. Parsons, J. S. Bailey, William G. Creamer, Walter Hanford, Silas Tuttle, A. A. Dame, F. H. DavoU W. S. Ormsby, F. D. Hoxsey, Richard McCajin, H, D>. French, George J. Reid, Sanders Shanks, C. N. Chadwick, Isaac S. Catlin, D. W. Northup, C. M'. Stafford. Table B. — Alfred C. Barnes, John Gibb, Edwin Beers, Wm. H, Lyon, J. B. Elliott, Lowell M. Palmer, Geo. W. Kenyon, E. T. Howard, Wm. H. Nichols. J. E. Leech. F. B. Candler, Geo. M. Nichols, Reuben Jeffery. W. C. Bryant, Wm. B. Hurd, Jr., Geo. H. Fisher. J. A. Burr, Jr., J. D. Perkins, Coleman Adams, Rufus L. Scott, F. E. Dodge, J. B. Ladd, Sturgis Coffin, D. S. Richardson, W. P. Ropes. A. G. Ropes, F. L. Hine, R. S. Barnes, Theo. E. Smith, W. A, Nash. Table C— William H. Williams, E. L Maxwell, H. S. Manning, C. S, Van Wagoner, Ethan Allan Doty, Frank Squier, Aug. Storrs, W. H. Hagen, E. E. Hoyt, A. H. Dailey, James D. Bell, Theo. T. Miller, T. B. Hewitt, Camden C. Dike. J. W. Gilbert, Frederick A. Ward, S. W. Boocock, E. H. Litchfield, S. B. Chittenden, Norman S. Dike. F. S. Parker, C. B. Brewster, C. E. Bigelow, L. H. Crall, H. L. Bridgman, H. E. Hutchinson, G. J. Leigh- ton, S. D. Woodhouse, T. L. Woodruff, Walter S. Logan. Table D. — Willard Bartlett, Landon C. Gray, R. S. Ransom, A. M. Caborne, C. F. Chiches-ter, George H. Cook, Geo. M. Olcott, Frank Lyman, W. A. Putman, Chas. W. West, H. W. Maxwell, J. R. Maxwell, W. A. White, John F. Praeger, Thomas S. Moore, J. S. T. Stranahan, E. H. R. Lyman, Percy S. Dudley, A. T. White. J. M. Moriison, N. D. Putnam, Fred. A. Guild, L S. Coffin, Elihu Spicer, S. R. Probasco, W. B. Davenport, Elihu Root, Geo. B. Abbott. Table E. — John B. Woodward, A. D. Wheelock, Geo. H. Prentiss. Geo. H. Southard, F. H. Lovell, Wm. E. Wheelock, R. T. Vidaud, G. L. Morse, A. Abraham, Wm. H. Taylor, J. M. Leavitt, C. E. Staples, S. E. Hovirard, E. H. Trecartin, Willett Thompson, John W. Hunter, D. L. Northup, M. S. Driggs, D. M. Somers, D. W, Bartlett. G. Hutchinson, E. H. Kellogg, Wm T. Cross, J. E. Spencer, A F. Cross, Wm. D. Wade, R. B. Woodward, T. F. Goodrich, John S. James, C. H. De Silver. 25 Table F.—R. D. Benedict, L. R. Foot. H. W. Wheeler, H. H. Butts, O. G. Fessenden, H. W. Sherill, Richard Young, J. R. Wilmarth, George A. Evans, J. P. Taylor, D. P. Darling, Henry S. Hart. H. W. Slocum, Jr., F. C. Niebuhr, Henry W. Slocum, H. P. Kingsbury, Jas. F. Pierce, C. R. Slocum, C. H. Requa, H. A. Tucker, H. A. Tucker, Jr., Nelson Gates, Wm. Adams, W. R. Kissam, E. Conway, J. B. Noyes, H. Putnam, F. W. Hooper. Table G.— Hiram W. Hunt, C. N. Hoagland, H. B. Robeson, C. A. Hoyt, J. A. Sterry, W. G. Clapp. Geo. H. Ripley, A. S. Higgins, Geo. H. Keeley, D. P. Morse, S. H. Randall, E. H. Barnes, Stephen Condit, C. F. Lawrence, John L. Hill, N. H. Clement, J. T. Marean, J. P. Adams, L. Moody C. M. Wiske, J L. Burleigh, Franklin Allen, Geo. C. Brainard, C. S. Brain- ard, Jr., J. Spencer Turner, W. H. Hill, T. A. Buffam, E. J. Knowlton, E. F. Knowlton, St. Clair McKelway. Table H.— Chas. N. Manchester, H. B. Moore, David S. Dennison, J. W. Hyde, Florian Grosjean, J. F. Cordier, F. Andemers, C. B. Davenport, Isaac H. Cary, F. A. Barnaby, Frank Bailey, David Barnett, John A. Tweedy, Walter S. Badger, W. N. Van Anden, Nelson G. Carman, Jr., E. W. Bliss, J. W. Lane, W. L. Vandervoort, C. D. Burwell, Leander T. Powell, Wm. C. Sheldon, Wm. Hester, John N. Partridge, Geo. L. Nichols, Jr., A. J. Cordier, Geo. L. Nichols, Spencer Swain, H. F. Koepke, Chas, Mallory. Table I. — William C. Wallace, James C. Wallace, James E. Dean,Benj. C. Dean, Edward E. Poor, C. H. Lowe, Calvin Patterson, A. J. McAllister, A. R. Jarrett, C. A. Gilberg, Geo. J. Collins, W. E. Smith, Geo. W. Wingate, Edwin Packard, William Berri, Henry Elliott, F. A. Van Iderstine, W. S. Silcocks, D. H. Morse, W. M. Hoagland, S. Edward Vernon, A. J. Nutting, J. E. Richardson, J. B. Davenport, W. H. H. Childs, N. T. Thayer, Q. A.Atwood. BILL OF FARE. Oysters. Soups. Broth Souveraiue. Side Dishes. Green Turtle. Olives. Timbales Imperial. Celery Fish. Salmon, Rouenaise fashion. Fried Smelts. Potatoes persillade. Joints. Filet of Beef with truffles and Madeira. Baked Cauliflower, Entrees. Breast Capons Braised. French Peas. Terrapin, Maryland Style. Roman Punch. Canvas back Ducks. Pate-de-foie-gras. Game. Cold. Jelly. Dessert. Plum Pudding, Pilgrim fashion. Charlotte Russe. Cakes. Fancy Ice Creams. Fruits. Coffee. Quails. Lettuce Salad. Pyramids. December 21, 1891. P. Maresx. ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT, HON. CALVIN E. PRATT. Gentlemen : My military friend on my left has reminded me that it is a well recognized custom in war, when an army meets with a serious obstruction, like a fortification, to select a few men who are more noted for their intrepidity than intelligence, as a forlorn hope to scale the ramparts, and lead the way to victory. If they fall, they are little mourned or missed, while behind moves the flower and strength of the army, with music and banners floating on the winds. I have been selected for that duty on this occasion, while those who come after me will captivate your fancy and take your attention prisoner. The Pilgrim Fathers have furnished a theme that has chal- lenged the best efforts of poets and orators for the last hundred years. Every fact connected with their departure from England, their sojourn in Holland, their landing upon Plymouth Rock and subsequent trials, sufferings and triumphs, has been carefully investigated, recorded and commented upon in every aspect of which the subject is capable. Their spetial traits of character, their purity of purpose, their devotion to freedom, their constancy in suffering and their intrepidity in peril have been held up to the admiration of succeeding generations, who have been inspired thereby to preserve the institutions the fathers planted, and maintain the principles they cherished. Praise and eulogy have been exhausted, and sarcasm and abuse have returned to vex their authors. Every charge of bigotry, cruelty, superstition or avarice, worthy of notice, has been triumphantly refuted, so that they stand to-day as the "winnowed wheat'' of centuries, the Pioneers of Freedom, and the founders of the greatest and happiest nation upon the earth. {Applause.) Still the subject is not exhausted, because it is intimately connected with the whole history of this vast country since 1620, and it will shape 28 the future for centuries yet to come, by the lessons it furnishes for our warning and guidance. If there is a mile stone in our history at which we can halt and look back with triumph and forward with hope, it is the anniversary of the landing upon Plymouth Rock. It is a pleasant thought that wherever in this broad land the descendants of New England are located, from Maine to California, from Canada to Texas, they are now celebrating with joy and gladness this hallowed day. But in no place can it be more appropriately celebrated than in this city of homes — our own homes, and where there are more people of New England blood than in Boston, and a city distinguished for Church spires and Home Rule. It is also a happy reflection that while we are enjoying these surroundings in such marked contrast to the circumstances that surrounded our fathers, we are at the same time performing a sacred duty. It is true we rear the noblest monuments to our fathers when we commemorate their virtues, trace their influence spreading on the centuries, and pour forth our veneration amid the rejoicing of festivity. Whether justly or not, while we are proud of our fathers we claim there is cause for saying that the glory of the fathers is in their sons. At all events, at such a scene as this, and when full — as we are to-night {laughter) of animal spirits, we feel like bragging in the words of the poet : " There is nothing this new world can show To beat the good old stock, The vine the fathers planted This day on Plymouth Rock." It has been invidiously said — partly in joke and partly seri- ously — that the Pilgrims and their descendants are always in love with themselves and their fathers, and that in this regard they never have a rival. But as evidence of their modesty it appears from history that more than one hundred and fifty years elapsed before any society was formed to cele- brate this day. The historian tells us that at the second meeting of that society, I think it was in 1770, "One Wins- low made a speech with decent firmness," a characteristic 29 which he need not have stated to those of us who know his distinguished descendant now present ; but he added the somewhat doubtful statement that it only occupied ten minutes! {Laughter). The fact is that the Pilgrims were too busy fighting Indians, forming towns, settling the coun- try and developing their institutions, to celebrate themselves. But there is one criticism, which is a fair sample of all the criticisms that have been made, I think, which I would like to answer, and that is that instead of coming to this country to found an empire based upon freedom of conscience and equal civil rights, they came here to fish and trade. Now this statement bears internal evidence of its absurdity and falsehood, for what man is there who can reconcile the vivid and " elastic " imagination of the fisherman with the truth- telling, matter-of-fact Pilgrim } You may rest assured that the Pilgrims had no such impediment to their morality as the occupation of fishing. In making this statement (looking at Mr. Cleveland) of course I exclude all those in the habit of fishing in Buzzard's Bay. {Laughter^) Gentlemen, it is a frequent custom, but I think an idle one, to compare the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries ; to state what we have that the Pilgrims had not, or what they had that we have not. Whatever laws they passed that we now deem intolerant or bigoted, were founded upon a stern morality, and were framed to make men better citizens. If some acts may be criticised as cruel and superstitious^ they were incident to the times, and were less common than in any other part of the civilized world. But we can rest assured of one thing, that they had certain tenets which they firmly held with a New England grasp. They believed in honest elections, in honest money and its honest acquisition, and in the faithful discharge of duty, which are the funda- mental attributes of honest Home Rule, and of always keep- ing their politics within the limits of the law. {Great ap- plause.) It would be an interesting thought to think what would be 30 the fate of this country if, with all the influx of foreigners of diverse characters, it were not for the established principles that lie at the base of all our institutions. " If the rainbow arch of Republican equality, springing from the solid basis of popular suffrage, now spans the heavens and encircles the earth, it is because strong hearts and willing hands planted here the principle of Home Rule.'' *' The privileges we enjoy, the blessings scattered on us in boundless profusion, the fondest remembrances that brighten this day, point to the Rock at Plymouth as their origin." Standing at Plymouth and looking from that Rock, hallowed by their footsteps, behold the tide of population rising and rolling onward in its resistless wave over the vast empire their industry has re-claimed, causing the wilderness to blossom with the rose, and the desert to bring forth fruits. The great qualities that have made this country what it is, can be easily traced to the men who smote hip and thigh their enemies under Fairfax and Cromwell. The poetry of the time was, although rough, as vigorous as their arms : " There is stout old Sir Geoffrey likes brandy and rum well, And to see a beer glass toss over his thumb well. But he fled like the wind before Fairfax and Cromwell, Which nobody can deny. You thought in this world there was no one to tame you, So you danced and you drabbed 'till the Saints overcame you, Forsooth, and ne'er stir Sir, have vanquished, God damn you, Which nobody can deny." The same spirit fought through the Revolution with Wash- ington, and achieved its crowning victoiy at Apomattox. under Grant. Whatever number of millions of people, and of whatever creed or nationality this country may be peopled, there is enough of the Pilgrim leaven left to leaven the whole mass. May the same spirit guide and guard until the people are as pure as the blue vault of our native skies. {Great applause^) 31 The Chairman .-—Gentlemen, you will fill your glasses and drink to "THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES." The Chairman .-—Q^wW^mtw, \\(t all doubtless remember that of the eleven or twelve banquets which this Society has held, most of them have been graced by the presence of a most distinguished man. You will now fill your glasses and drink "IN MEMORY OF GENERAL SHERMAN." (Drunk standing, with soft music.) The Chairman : — Gentlemen, you have heard and know a great deal about the Pilgrims who lived in Massachusetts first, and finally covered New England. Now there have been a great many Pilgrims from Plymouth, and wherever they have gone, they have carried with them and illustrated the Pilgrim principles, whether as private citizens or in the most exalted station upon the earth. We give <'A CORDIAL WELCOME TO THE HON. GROVER CLEVELAND." SPEECH OF EX-PRESIDENT CLEVELAND. Mr. President and Gentlemen : As this is the first time I have attended a dinner given by a New England Society, I wish at the outset to express the gratification which it affords me to enter upon this my new experience in the City of Brooklyn, and among those whom r have always considered as especially my friends. You are 33 by no means to suppose that my failure heretofore to be present on occasions Hke this is attributable to any doubt I may have had as to my qualification for admission. Since the first immigrant of my name landed in Massachusetts, down to the day of my advent, every Cleveland from whom I claim descent was born in New England. {Applause.) I have never supposed that the fact that I first saw the light in the State of New Jersey worked any forfeiture of the right I derived from my New England lineage, or made me an intruder or merely tolerated guest on occasions of this sort. I resent, with becoming spirit, the imputation that my birth in New Jersey constituted me an alien and a foreigner, and I have never been able to see any humor in the suggestion that my native State is not within the Union. To my mind the regularity and certainty with which she votes the Demo- cratic ticket, entitles her to high place in the front rank of the States that are really useful. {Laughter.') At all events, I shall always insist that New Jersey is a good State to be born in ; and I point to the fact that after an absence of more than fifty years, I have returned to find a temporary home within her limits, as an illustration that my very early love for her is not extinguished. Now, assuming that you agree with me that the mere fact of my birth in New Jersey has not stamped me with indelible ineligibility, and antici- pating your demand for some affirmative support of my qualifications to mingle with those who celebrate Forefathers' Day and sing the praises of the men who first settled in New England, I think I can do no better than to rest my case upon the statement that Bean Hill, in the town of Norwich, and State of Connecticut, was my father's birth- place. I hope, in making this statement, I do not remind you of the man who loudly boasted of his sacrifice in defense of his country upon the ground that he had allowed his wife's relatives to join the army. At any rate it seems to me that my claim is a perfectly valid one, with no embarrassment connected with it whatever, except the confession by implica- tion, that there may be times, and there may be occasions, 33 when the birthplace of a man's father is worth more to him than his own. I have nothing further to urge in support of my eligibiHty, except to mention something which it seems to me ought to be credited to me on my own account ; it is that by way of demonstrating my preference for New Eng- land, and the love I have for that section of our country where my ancestors lived and died, I have lately established a summer home in the State of Massachusetts. I suppose that all of us are old enough to remember the prophetic words which were set opposite certain dates in the old almanacs: "About these days look out for snow." If almanacs were now prepared as they used to be, it would not be amiss to set opposite the latter days of December, " About these days look out for the glorification of the Pilgrim." No one can deny that the Pilgrims to New England were well worthy of all that has been done or can be done to keep them in remembrance. But when we recall them, and their history, and what they did and taught and established, we can not help also recalling that there were Pilgrims /V^/a; New England, who, finding their way to the remotest parts of the country, took with them the habits and the opinions and sentiments which, having their early origin in American soil, should be best fitted to American life everywhere, and should be the best guarantees of the preservation in their integrity and purity of American institutions. We have heard much of abandoned lands in New England; but we know that if there are abandoned farms there, larger and more productive farms in remote States have been developed by the Pilgrims from New England. If the popu- lation of New England has suffered a drain, we know that the effective activity which has been lost to her has been engaged in building up new cities and towns on distant and unbroken soil, and impressing upon these new creations all that was characteristic of the New England Pilgrim. While all must admit what this great country owes to New England influences, and while none of us will be unmindful of the benefits which can reasonably be expected from the 34 maintenance and spread of these influences, a further thought is here suggested, touching the mission and the duty of the Pilgrims from New England. If they are at all true to their traditions and teachings, they will naturally teach and exemplify in a practical way the value of education and moral sentiment in the foundations of American life, and the impor- tance of industry and economy as conditions of thrift and contentment. But these Pilgrims from New England and their descendants, and all who celebrate with enthusiasm Forefathers' Day, will fail in the performance of their highest duty, if they neglect to persistently teach that in the early days there was, and that there still ought to be, a true and distinctive spirit of Americanism — {applause) — and if they fail to give this sentiment its just interpretation, it certainly does not mean that a spirit of narrowness and proscription should be encouraged, nor that a fear should be aroused and kept alive touching such additions to our population from other lands as promise assimilation with our conditions and co-operation in our aims and purposes. But it does mean the insistence that every transfer of sovereignty from another government to our own must signify the taking on at the same time of a devotion to the spirit of American institutions. {Applause.) It means that the well established love of our Government for what it is, and for its own sake, is an element of our citizenship, and that this can not be full and complete without the adoption of the ideas and habits of thought which underlie our popular rule. It means that a place in our citizenship is unworthily filled by one who merely regards it as vantage ground to fill his purse, or better his condition. {Applause.) It means that our Government is not suited to a selfish and sordid people, and that in their hands it is not safe. {Applause.) This is a time when there should be an earnest insistence on the teaching of these truths ; and occasions like this can be no better employed than by leading us to such self- examination and correction as shall fit us to teach and illustrate true Americanism. When we recall the landing 35 of the Pilgrims, let us remember that they sought not only "freedom to worship God," but sought as well the establish- ment of the freedom and equality of manhood. When we dwell upon their stern and sturdy traits, let us remember that these nurtured the spirit which achieved American independ- ence, and that only in this soil can its fruit ripen to bless our people. {Applause^ When we contemplate, how completely their lives and conduct were regulated by conscience, let us resolve that every phase of our citizenship shall have a place for conscience ; and when we learn of their solicitude and care for their new-found homes, let us acknowledge that patriotic love of country is our only guide to the path of political duty. {Applause^ With such preparation as this, and with no place for the ignoble thought that our Govern- ment can, without perversion, hold out unequal rewards or encourage selfish designs, we shall teach that this precious heritage of ours has been confided from generation to genera- tion to the patriotic keeping and loving care of true American- ism, and which alone can preserve it, a shelter to a happy and properous people — defending all, protecting all, and blessing all. {Applause.) The Chairman: — It has been thought advisable to follow the tradition of the Pilgrims in respect to our menu of speakers. You know it was their custom when they had a great feast, consisting of a few stewed rabbits and some boiled clams — but, remember, it was prepared with fingers more deft to cook it than Delmonico's or Maresi's — to have the dessert first. And I think when they had the feast, when the vessel came in with supplies to furnish it, that sweetened Indian Pudding was the first dish placed before the guests. Now we are going to follow that custom with regard to the speakers. The next speaker I need not introduce to you, because you know him to possess the warlike qualities of Miles Standish, 36 with all the arts and graces of oratory. I present my friend, General Porter. {Great cheering.) "THE VETERANS." ADDRESS OF GENERAL HORACE PORTER. Mr. President and Gentlemen : Jt is very embarrassing to me to succeed the distinguished gentleman to whose eloquent and masterly address we have just listened with so much pleasure. But since he was not destined to be his own immediate successor, perhaps I will be accepted. {Great laughter and applause.) I listened with much interest to the historic incident re- garding " Bean Hill," and the assurance given of his firm and abiding affection for that Hill. {Great laughter.) Now, when gentlemen invite veterans to a feast like this, and watch the vigor of their attacks'upon "The things which perish with the using," and which under their well-directed assaults perish so rapidly, the question must naturally arise in the minds of their inviters, " If this be the work of retired veterans, what would they not do to a dinner if they were still on the active list ? '* Long experience in attending these Forefathers' Dinners has convinced me, that one need not make the preparation in coming here, which was made by one of Sherman's men, after he had been on half rations for two weeks. The General saw him eating something, on the roadside, and said, "What is that ? " Said he, " A per- simmon.'' "What are you eating that for, it's a green one? " " Well, General, I thought I would try and kinder pucker up my stomach to fit these rations you are giving us ! " {Laiighter.) The trouble about the veteran now is that he was born too early in this century; he has to carry about with him too much solid a^mo dontini. His form, architecturally speaking, 2>7 is losing much of its Corinthian lightness, and taking on much of Egyptian massiveness. His back, which once in its straightness was patterned after the ramrod, is now, in its curvature, fashioned much after the cavalry sabre. Heads once decked with the nut-brown locks of youth are nnw wearing the "silver liverj^ of advised age." Men are going about with frosted locks and polished sconces. If there be no hair on top of the head, and a little remaining the behind, they ingeniously comb it forward, trying to make the rear guard do picket duty at the front. {Laughter.) There is one peculiar advantage which the veteran has : nobody is trying to take his place. He is not as apprehen-^ive as that man at Bull Run, at the time the army was a little previous in falling back. He saw a nice eligible ditch which would cover him from the enemy's fire. He flopped into it and lay quietly on his back. Just then General Franklin came along and cried, " Get out of that ! " He said, " No you don't, General; you are just trying to get this little bit of cover for yourself ! " {Laug/itc?-.) But when the veteran, after coming to a series of such dinners as this, finds himself with the gout, he has the proud consciousness of knowing that it has not been inherited, but honorably earned." The veteran has been described as an angel, with just enough of the devil in him to make him perfect ; and I began to realize that on my last visit to Ireland. In the G;'.p of Dunloe I was searching for the famous echo ; but it, like many things in Ireland, exists proverbially in the guide- books. I shouted to it, but it did not seem on suf^ciently intimate terms with me to respond. I said to the guide, " What is the matter with the echo ? " Said he, " It has not been here, sir, since last season." " How is that?" said I. " Well, sir, last season there was one of your ould veteran soldiers from America came over here, and he addressed that echo in such terrible, blasphemous words, that he scared it away entirely ! " I try to console these old veterans. I met one of them, a widower, the other day and I said : "Why don't you go and get 38 married again?" Said he, "I never relight a cigar!" {Laughter?) But the veteran always maintains his dignity, both the white veteran and the black veteran. In the mountains of New Hampshire, I met one of the colored troops, who was 'still fighting nobly,' driving a stage on a country route in New Hampshire ; and I said to him, " What is your name ? " Said he, " George Washington, sah ! " I said, " That is a name that is well-known to everybody in this country." Said he, "I reckon, sah, it ought to be. I'se been drivin' heah eber since de wah ! " {Applause >j Now I do not want, by any words of mine, to assist in detaining you here into the " wee, sma' early hours '' of to-morrow morning, lest stories might be circulated which would reflect on my advancing years, and I should be credited with dining with the early New Englanders. But I wish to say that from the contemplation of the living veterans who are still in our midst, our minds naturally turn to the other living, commonly called the dead ; for taps are sounding in many camps, and the lights are rapidly going out. All patriotic Americans have found themselves standing within the deep shadow of a profound grief, as they have seen passing away in rapid succession, that mighty trinity of Union Commanders, a just recital of whose acts would rise to the sublimity of an epic, the majesty of whose deeds is worthy the contemplation of the ages — Grant, Sherman and Sheridan ! {Applause?) I can not stop to recount in the few minutes that are given me here the immortal names of even the most distin-guished heroes of the war. I mention those alluded to, because they were Generals-in-Chief ; typical soldiers, and the tributes paid to them are justly shared by every worthy ofificer who served in their commands. Most of the conspicuous characters in history have risen to promin- ence by gradual steps, but the senior of that trinity seemed to come before the people with a sudden bound. Almost the first sight they caught of him was in the blaze of his camp- fires, and the flashes of his guns those winter days and nights in front of Doneldson. From that hour until the crowning- 39 triumph of Appomattox, he was the leader whose name was the synonym of victory. From the final sheathing of his sword till the tragedy on Mount McGregor, the chief citizen of the Republic and the great central figure of the world was Ulysses S. Grant. {Great applause.) As light and shade produce the most attractive effects in a picture, so, the singu- lar contrast, the strange vicissitudes of his eventful career, surround him with an interest which attaches to few char- acters in history. His rise from the obscure lieutenant to the command of the veteran armies of the Republic ; his transfer from a distant frontier army post to the Executive Mansion of the nation ; his sitting at one time in his little store in Galena, not even known to the Congressman from his dis- trict ; at another time striding through the palaces of the Old World, with the descendants of a line of kings rising and standing uncovered in his presence ; his generosity to friends, his magnanimity to foes, will be remembered as long as manly qualities are talked of in the world. He never tired of giving unstinted praise to worthy subordinates for the work they did. Like the chief artists who weave the Goblin tapestries, he was content to stand behind the cloth, and let those in front appear to be the chief contributors to the beauty of the fabric. [Applause.) If I were asked what single word in all the wealth of the English language best describes the dominant trait of his character, I should unhesitatingly say the word is " Loyalty !'^ He was loyal to his country and loyal to his friends. This produced a reciprocal effect upon all who came in contact with him. It was one of the chief reasons why men became so loyally attached to him, whose affection knew neither variableness nor shadow of turning; whose attachment strengthened only with time ; who clung to him closer than the toga to Nessus, whether he was Captain or General or Presi- dent, or simply a private citizen. He was essentially created for great emergencies. It was the very magnitude of the task that called forth the powers which mastered it. In ordinary matters he was an ordinary 40 man ; in momentous affairs he towered as a giant. {Applause.') When he served at a one-company army post there was no- thing in his acts to particularly distinguish him from his fel- low of^cers. But when he wielded corps and armies, the master strokes of his genius flashed forth and placed liim at once in the front rank of the world's great captains. When he hauled wood from his little farm and sold it in the streets of St. Louis, there was nothing in his financial or business knowledge superior to that of the little farmers about him. But when, as President of the Republic, it became his duty to puncture the fallacy of the Inflationists, to throttle with a veto the attempt of unwise legislators to tamper with the American credit, he penned a State paper so logical, so mas- terly, that it has ever since been the wonder and admiration of every lover of an honest currency. {Great applause}) He was made for great things, not for little. He could collect fifteen millions of dollars from Great Britain in settlement of the Alabama claims ; he could not protect his own personal savings from the miscreants who robbed him in Wall street. But even the valor of his martial deeds was surpassed by the superb heroism which he displayed when fell disease attacked him ; when, during those long, agonizing months, he held Death at arm's length with one hand, while with the other he penned the most brilliant chapters of American history. But to him death brought eternal rest. At last he was permitted to enjoy what he had pleaded for in behalf of others, for the Lord had let him have peace. Our most recent loss fell upon us when we felt ourselves oppressed by a sense of sorrow akin to the grief of a personal bereavement, as we stood with uncovered heads beside the bier of William T. Sherman ; when the echo of his guns gave place to the tolhng of cathedral bells ; when the flag of his country, which had never been lowered in his presence, dropped to half-mast, as if conscious that his strong arm was no longer there to hold it to the peak His loss has created a gap in this particular community which neither time nor men can ever fill. At this board he was always a thrice-welcome guest. 41 Otir hearts warmed to him with the glow of an abiding af- fection. He was a many-sided man. He possessed all the great characteristics of the successful soldier ; bold in concep- tion, vigorous in execution and unswerving under grave re- sponsibilities. Always self-reliant, demonstrating by every act that " Much danger makes great hearts most resolute," he combined in his own temperament the restlessness of a Hotspur with the patience of a Fabius. While men will always appreciate the mental qualities of the great strategist, they will see much in his marvelous career that savors of romance and appeals to the imagination. They will picture him a legendary knight moving at the head of conquering coming columns whose marches he measured not by single miles, but by thousands ; as a General who could make a Christmas gift to his President of a great sea-port city ; whose orders all spoke with the true bluntness of a soldier ; who fought from valleys' depths to mountain heights and marched from inland rivers to the sea. His friends will never cease to sing paeans in his honor, and even the wrath of his enemies may be ac- counted in his praise. {Applause.) No name connected with the army arouses more genuine enthusiasm or appeals more to the fancy than that of the wizard of the battle-field, Philip H. Sheridan. {Applause .) The personification of chivalry, the incarnation of battle. On the field, a very demon of unrest ; shouting, beseeching, cheering, inciting, inspiring all men by his acts, he roused his troops to deeds of personal heroism unparalleled in the his- tory of modern warfare, and under the inspiration of his pres- ence his troops rushed to victory with all the confidence of Caesar's Tenth Legion. Generous of his life, endowed with the dash of a Murat and the courage of a Ney, he transformed routed squadrons into charging columns and snatched victory from defeat. He preferred shot and shell to flags of truce. He would rather lead forlorn hopes than follow in the wake of charges. His standard rose above all others on the field ; wherever blows fell thickest, his crest in their midst, op- posing ranks went down before the fierceness of his onsets 42 never to rise again. He paused not till he saw the folds of his banner wave above the strongholds he had wrested from the foe. Brave Sheridan ! Methinks I see your silent clay again quickened into life once more riding Rienzi through a fire of hell ; leaping opposing earthworks at a single bound and leav- ing nothing of all who barred your way except the fragments scattered in your path. Marvellous leader, harbinger of vic- tory, we salute you ! Now all three gone ! Every great war has given rise to some one great General. No other war than our own pro- duced three such pre-eminent commanders. With souls too wcIl G. Horr, ..... 56 " Hon. David A. Boody, . . . . -65 ' Rev. H. L. Wayland, D.D , at the Annual Reception, . 70 Certificate of Incorporation, ..... 79 By-Laws, ......... 83 Honorary Members, ........ Sg Life Members, ........ 89 Annual Members, ........ 90 Meetings of Society, ....... 96 Form of Bequest, ........ 96 OBJECTS OF THE SOCIETY. The New England Society in the City of Brooklyn is incorporated and organized to commemorate the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers ; to encourage the study of New England History; to establish a library, and to promote charity, good fellowship and social intercourse among its members. TERMS OF MEMBERSHIP. Admission Fee, ----- $10.00 Annual Dues, ....-- 5.00 Life Membership, besides Admission Fee, - - S^oo Payable at elecdov, except Atinttal Dues, which are payable in January')/ each year. Any member of the Society in good standing may become a Life Member on paying to the Treasurer at one time the sum of fifty dollars ; and thereafter such member shall be exempt from further payment of dues. Any male person of good moral character, who is a native or a descendant of a native of any of the New England States, and who is eighteen years old or more, is eligible. If in the judgment of the Board of Directors, they are in need of it. the widow or children of any deceased member shall receive from the funds of the Society, a sum equal to five times the amount such deceased member has paid to the Society. The friends of a deceased member are requested to give the Historiographer early information of the time and place of his birth and death, with brief inci dents of his life, for publication in our annual report. Members who change their addresses should give the Secretary early notice. C^^ It is desirable to have all worthy gentlemen of New England descent residing in Brooklyn become members of the Society. Members are requested \o send application of their friends for membership to the Secretary. Address, THOMAS S. MOORE, Recording Secretary, 102 Broadway, New York. PAST OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY. BENJAMIN D. SILLIMAN, ..... iSSo JOHN WINSLOW, ....... 1887 CALVIN E. PRATT, ...... i88g WILLARD BARTLETT, ...... 1890 CALVIN E. PRATT, ...... 1891 ercasurcrs : WILLIAM 15. KENDALL, ...... 1880 CHARLES N. MANCHESTER, ..... 1890 WILLIAM G. CREAMER, ...... 1892 ALBERT E. LAMB. ...... 1880 STEPHEN B. NOYES, ...... 1885 REV. A. P. PUTNAM, D. D.. . . . . . 1S80 ?l}(.'»tovi'oninp})evs : ALDEN J. SPOONER, ....... 1880 STEPHEN B. NOYES, ... . . . . 1884 PAUL L. rORD, ....... 1S88 2.ibrre the settled minister. This Society soon afterward erected on Pierrepont Street, Brooklyn Heights, its present edifice which was dedicated May 24, 1844. On May 25th, Dr. Farley was duly installed in this new church. Dr. Dewey preaching the sermon as Dr. Channing had preached the ordination sermon in Providence, fourteen years before. His pastorate over the church (" The Church of the Saviour ") con- tinued for a period of nineteen years. In 1863 Dr. Farley decided after much thought and deliberation, that his pastorate over this church had extended over a sufficient number of years and he therefore resigned although at this time he was less than 63 years of age. One of the chief causes given by him for resigning was that, in his judgment, the church needed an infusion of younger and fresher blood. Although his formal connec- tion with his Brooklyn Society ceased in 1S63, Dr. Farley's relations with it grew more tender as his years increased. His presence was sought on all occasions of importance. No baptism, or wedding or funeral was felt to be what it should be without it. At the installation of his third successor, Dr. Farley's address was peculiarly felicitous and appropriate. Dr. Farley was thoroughly identified with the charitable and intellectual life of Brooklyn. Possessing great public spirit and peculiar tact for organization he has few equals as a presiding officer ; consequently his presence and help were sure to be required whenever any new educational or charitable enterprise was to be started. His labors in behalf of such interests as these knew no abatement while strength and activity remained. From time to time he also preached in his old pulpit, and still oftener in the other churches of the denomination in various parts of the country. Dr. Farley's literary work was performed largely during the years of his settled ministry, although he contributed in later years numerous articles to denominational papers. Many of his sermons and addresses were published in pamphlet form, and in i860, he published a volume of lectures which had been previously delivered to his Brooklyn congregation, under the title of " Unitarianism Defined." He was also the author of " A History of the Brooklyn and Long Island Sanitary Fair," which was held in 1S64, and of which he was Corresponding Secretary. Dr. Farley was a polished man with the courtly but affected grace of a gentleman of the old school. Of fine personal appearance, and agreeable manners and many loveable traits he attracted people and made many friends. His wife was Jane Carter Sigourney of Boston, whom he married in 1830 and ■who died in iSgo. The surviving children are Mrs. J. A. Osborne of Brooklyn, and Mr. Frederick C. Farley of Short Hills, N. Y. The funeral services were held in the church whose pulpit for nearly a quarter of a century Dr. Farley had occupied. The services were largely attended by people of various religious denomination, and were conducted by the Rev. H . Price Collier, the present pastor of the church assisted by the Rev. Robert Collier, who preached the funeral sermon, by the Rev. J. W. Chadwick, Rev. S. H. Camp, Rev. R. S. Storrs, D.D., Rev. Chas. H. HaJl of Trinity Church, Rev. A. P. Putnam of Concord, and the Rev. D. W. Morehouse, and were very interesting and impressive. Sylvester Judd Edwards died at the home of his son-in-law. George H. Prentiss, 77 First place, Brooklyn, on March 26th, 1892. Mr. Edwards was born in Roberts Meadows, Mass.. May 20th, 1813, and when a young man engaged in the dry-goods business at Greenfield, Mass. He came to New York in 1S42, and opened a dry-goods house. Retiring from the dry-goods business he removed to Brooklyn about 1850, and became secretary to the People's Gas Company which position he filled for more than 25 years. 17 Mr. Edwards was married Jan 23d, 1838, to Caroline Augusta Phelps, a daughter of Col. Ansel Plielps, edito- of the Greenfield [Mass.] Gazette, which was established one hundred years ago. He was a member of the South Con- gregational Church. The funeral services were held on March 29th, at 3 P. M., from 77 First Place. Edwin Atkins, tvho died at his home. No. 95 First Place. Brooklyn, April t7th, 1892, was born in Truro, Cape Cod, Jan. 31, 1S17 He was a brother of Elisha Atkins, formerly president of the Union Pacific Railroad, and of Joshua Atkins with whom he was in partnership for inany years under the firm name of j. Atkins & Co., the firm having been originally established by his father, Joshua Atkins, Sr. Mr. Atkins came to New York when a young man and entered the shipping "business with his father Joshua and his brother Joshua at No, 38 South street. The firm remained in active business as shippers, ship chandlers and ship owneis for over forty years, retiring about twenty years ago. Mr. Atkins was a mem- ber of both the Produce and Maritine Exchanges and of the Marine Society. He was married on June 15, 1854, to Henrietta Heron, of New York. He ieaves two children — a son and a daughter. The funeral took place at his home on April 19, 1892, at 3 o'clock P. M. Marcus Webb Robinson, who was engaged in the manufacture of hard- ware in New York, died on May 5th, 1892, in Manstield, Conn. Mr. Rob- inson went to Mansfield to attend the funeral of his brother-in-law, Augustus Storrs. who died there on the third of March. He was there stricken with pneumonia from which he recovered, but two months later died of peri tonitis. Mr. Robinson was barn in Mansfield, May 12, 1820. At the schools of his native place and in Wilbraham, Mass., he acquired an education which enabled him to become a teacher, at the age of seventeen. After teaching for several years he went South and engaged in the book business. Afterwards he re- turned North and became confidential clerk for Storrs Brothers. In 1862 he joined interests with J. W. Storrs who was selling agent for Smith and Wesson. In i86g he became sole agent in New York for that firm and for twenty-five years was also engaged in the manufacture and sale of hardware specialties. For thirty^six years he was a member of Plymouth Church and connected with many charitable enterprises. Mr. Robinson was married on Oct. 10, 1855, to Abigail Storrs, a sister of Augustus and Charles Storrs. The funeral and interment took place on May 9th at Mansfield. At a meeting of the New York Gun Trade, specially con- vened May 7, 1892, the following resolutions were unanimously adopted : Resolved, That in the death of Marcus W. Robinson, we feel in a marked and special degree a sense of personal bereavement. During the many years i8 of his honorable career he has been identified with us, his participation in oci; trade antedatinc: the time to which most of us can look bnck. He Stood among us without reproach, regarded with the very highest esteem, spotless in his business reputation a> in his private life, a friend to ail and without an enemy, his character an example of which we i\rc justly proud and one worthy of the sincerest emulation. So young was he in his sympathies and activity of tem- perament that we scaice realize that he had passed the alotted age of man. We bow in recognition of the wisdom of the Divine decree that has called him from among us to \hf rewards of a well spent life. We desire to express our sympathy with his afflicted family, and tu record our sense of the loss which we have sustained individually and as a business community. Resolved, That this expression uf our feelings be published in the daily papers and that a copy be sent to the bereaved widow. Resolved. That a committee be appointed to attend the funeral services at Mansfield, Conn. M. Hartley, Chairman. Joseph Gales, Secretary. Moses S. Beach. The death at Peekskill, N. Y., July 25, 1892, of Mr. Moses S. Beach, though it had been for some time looked for, brought with it a sense of the temporal y character of even the most lasting of human friendships — a realization of the transitorintss of life's longest associations. For nearly half a century, Mr. Beach was, until s'ricken by his last illness, a familiar figure in New York and Brooklyn, and he always brought a friendly countenance, the air of one living an active and useful life, and a keen appreciation and sound judg- ment of the intricacies and problems of many branches of business. Mr. Bearh was in his seventieth year, and his death was from paralysis, with which he was stricken three years ago. since which he had been living orv his country place at Peekskill. He was born in Springfield, Mass., October 5, 1822. He was the eldest son of the late Moses Y. Beach, and succeeded his father in the proprietonship of the New York Sun newspaper, with which he was connected for upwards of forty years. Although Mr. Beach was known principally as a business man whose full time was always needed for the proper direction of his varied and important interests, he yet found the opportunity to be considerable of an inventor, as shown by the records of the Patent Office, where a half-score or more of patents appear in his name. They related principally to printing and stereotyping— the letding of roll paper instead of fiat sheets, apparatus for wetting the paper before printing, cutting off the sheets, etc. Some of his inventions in this line facilitated the adaptation of newspaper presses to the printing of both sides of the sheet, while the paper was passing once through the press, now an indis- pensable feature of all fast newspaper presses. In the report of the Commissioner of Patents for 1892, the name of Mr. Beach appears in a brief list which is given of American inventors who have contributed materially to the promotion of important industries. Mr. Beach was for many years a near neighbor and staunch friend of the late Henry Ward Beccher, being a trustee of Plymouth Church, a superintendent of its Sunday school, and interested in several organized charities of the two rg cities. He was in all things enterprising and energetic, and. with an industry which never tired, his work was always directed to a plain, practical end. so that it was more than ordinarily successful. He leaves a wife, three daughters and two sons. Thomas Harvey Rodman, a member of the New England Society since 1880, died at his residence, 169 Congress street, Brooklyn, August 26, 1S92. Mr. Rodman was born in New York on February 14, 1822. Entering New York University in 1836, he remained two years. In 1840 he was graduated at the College of New Jersey, and two years later was admitted to the New York Bar. In 1843 the College of New Jersey conferred on him the honoraiy degree of Master of Arts. Mr. Rodman married the daughter of the late Abijah P. Mann, one of the foremost of Brooklyn lawyers of the early days, and subse- quently established with his father-in-law, the law firm of Mann and Rodman, which thereafter by the admission of Charles D. Adams, became Mann, Rodman & Adams. After the death of Mr. Mann, Rodman and Adams were in practice for nearly twenty years in the building on Liberty street, N. Y., now occupied by the Real Estate Exchange. After Mr. Adams' death in the Spring of 1889, Col. Wm, S. Cogswell of Jamaica, entered the firm which continued until Mr. Rodman's death, as Rodman & Cogswell. Within three years, all the old partners, Mann, Rodman and Adams, as well as the long-time managing clerk, Mr. Nathaniel B. Cooke, also well known in Brooklyn, have died. A graduate of Princeton, after thorough preparatory study, Mr. Rodman was well equipped both intellectually and educationally. He was a prominent figure at the bar and in local politics. He succeeded Winchester Britton as District Attorney in 1873, being himself superseded by John Winslow, and in the following year advocating the election of Gen. Philip S. Crook, the candidate of the Republican party, who was however defeated; Mr.. Britton, the Democratic nominee, being elected. Mr. Rodman also once held the position of Alderman from the Sixth Ward. An independent Democrat in local politics, he was a central figure in the Seth Low campaign, marshalling bis faction for the Repub- lican candidate in the lower part of the city. Mr. Rodman was a man of imposing presence. His ability and accomplish- ments were illustrated in his professional work and in the public stations he .worthily filled. In his more private life he will be recalled as a genial and companionable man. Mr. Rodman was married on April 10, 1845, to Mary Ann Mann, a daughter of the late Abijah Mann, and who died in August, 1865. On July 16, 1868, he married Elizabeth Selden of Virginia. Of the first marriage, two sons and a daughter survive; of the second, also two sons and a daughter. David Whorter Bartlett, who became a member of the New England Society in 1882, died on November 5th, 1892, at Montclair, N. J., where he had recently established his home. 20 Mr. Bartlett was born in the town of Viclory, Cayuga Co., N. Y. , Feb. rz; 1836. He was educaied in the district sc'nools and in Aurora Academy until sixteen years of age, when, being well equipped both mentally and physically, and possessing the highest principles of business integrity he was, in 1853, in- vited to join his uncle, Mr. E. H. Kellogg, who was then engaged in the produce commission business in New York City. When Mr. Kellogg withdrew from the commission business and entered upon the oil trade in 1858, Mr. Bartlett formed a partnership commission business with his brother. Mr. Geo. \V. Bart- lett, now one of his sur^riving partners. This business was continued for some years under the firm name of Bartlett Brothers, with some degree of success, when Mr. Bartlett became chief accountant of the Russell & Erwin Manufac- turing Co. In January, 1873, he was again invited to join his old associate and life-long friend in the lubricating oil trade. Here he remained during the re- mainder of his life under the firm name of E. H. Kellogg & Co. Mr. Bartlett was for more than thirty-five years a resident of Brooklyn, and he had been a well known and respected New York business man since 1853. Of a kindly disposition and with a frank and manly bearing he inspired the fullest confidence and friendship in all who came to know him. Mr. Bart- lett married in 1863 Emily M., daughter of Mr. James Edsall, one of the old and well-known shipwrights of New York, by whom he leaves a son, Mr. George E, Bartlett, now twenty eight years of age, and who having been for many years with the same firm and under the tuition of his father, is well endowed with his business methods and sterling manly qualities. Mr. Bartlett's first wife died in December 31, 1884, and in March, 1891, he married Mrs. Elvina C.Woods of Gardiner, Maine, who survives him. Mr. Bartlett was a charter member and First Past Regent of De Witt Clinton Council of the Royal Arcanum of Brooklyn, a member of the Knights of Honor, of the Legion of Honor, of the Home Circle of the Order of Chosen Friends, and of the Lincoln Club and the New England Society of Brooklyn. Henry Pratt, who became a member of the New England Society of Brooklyn in 18S3, died in New York City, Sept. 22d, 1892. Mr. Pratt was born in North Chelsea, now Revere, Mass., August i6th, 1838. His ancestors assisted at the famous Boston Tea Party, and afterward fought in the War of the Revolution. At the age of fourteen he began business life as a clerk with the Hudson River Railroad Company and received successive ad- vancement until 1861; he had for sometime been in a confidential position with the president and the superintendent of that road. With the first call for troops he enlisted as a private on the i<>th of April, in the Twelfth New York State Infantry, Col. Buiterfield, for three months, and was mustered out on the 5th of August following, by reason of expiration of term of service. The Eighty-ninth Regiment of New York Infantry was then being organized and he immediately reinlisted therein, receiving a commission as First Lieutenant, September rsih, 1861, and being subsequently promoted to the rank of Captam, October 4th, 1862. He was wounded at Antietam, and in 21 consequence of disabilities resulting therefrom, he resigned on the 25th of December in the same year. His service, though comparatively brief, included a very important period in the War of the Union. He was engaged in the defense of Washington, took part under Patterson in the operations in the Shenandoah Valley, with Burn- side in the North Carolina expedition, and with the Army of the Potomac in the Maryland campaign, including the Battles of South Mountain and Antietam, and the first Battle of Fredericksburg. He commanded Company A from the beginning to the time of his discharge. Upon quitting the military service, after he had somewhat recovered from his wound, Capt. Pratt became secretary to the president of the Michigan Southern Road. In 1868 he was made auditor of the road, holding that post until 1870, when he became president's secretary and assistant auditor of the Lake Shore Road, residing at Toledo, Ohio. In 1871 he helped to orj^anize and construct the Wisconsin Central Rail- road, remaining as auditor and general ticket agent until 1878, when he became assistant treasurer of the Michigan Central, and in 1883 was made treasurer of that road, which office he held until his death. On the 4th of April, 188S, he was admitted a Companion of the Loyal Legion, through the Commandery of the State of New York. He was also a Comrade of the Grand Army of the Republic, having been mustered in the U. S. Grant Post, 327, on the 26th of August, 1884. He was also a member of the Society of the Army of the Potomac, of the .Society of the Sons of the Re- volution, and of the United Service Club of New York. His business connec- tion with the railroad company had made it essential for him to make his home in the West until about fifteen years ago when he removed to Brooklyn, taking up his residence in Fort Greene place, where he lived until the death of his wife in 1891. That loss with the illness of his son, and the need of a respite from the cares of business decided him to visit the Pacific Coast, where he spent some time in travel with his son and daughter, returning alone to New York a short time before his death. Capt. Pratt was a model as a soldier, as a citizen, as a business man, or as a friend. He was a patriot in the best sense. He was an ardent believer in the national unity and integrity, and for that reason became a private soldier at the first call of the President for seventy-five thousand men, afterwards ac- cepting a commission as Lieutenant, and then as Captain. He faced death many times and always with the same calm spirit which had impelled his an- cestors in the Revolution. The same qualities which he displayed in the field — steadfastness and thoroughness in all that he undertook — he manifested in business, giving that minute attention to detail by which great results are ob- tained, and this thoroughness had its reward in promotions and advancements to posts of grave and increasing responsibilities, toucliing large business interests. Capt. Pratt was a man of many friends throughout the country, all of whom he kept in remembrance, and with many of whom he corresponded. He was very warm hearted and a good and true friend having the well being of even his 22 youngest clerk at heart. His personal kindness was remarkable and his delight in serving others was not limited to his own flesh and blood. He was always doing "little kindnesses which most leave undone or despise." The funeral services were held in the Second Unitarian Church in Brooklyn on the evening of September 27th, and were conducted by Rev. J. W. Chadwick, assisted by Rev. Mason Gallaher. The attendance was very large, delegates from several Grand Army Posts and many prominent business men being present. The remains were cremated at Fresh Pond previous to interment. Capt, Pratt was married December 15th, 1863, to Adine Edgerly of Somer- ville, Mass. Two children, a daughter and a son, survive their parents. All of which is respectfully submitted. Calvin E. Pratt, President, Dated December 7th, 1892. The report was on motion accepted, and the Secretary was requested to publish it in the Annual Report. On motion the following Directors were elected to serve for the ensuing four years : William H. Lyon, Thomas S. Moore, A. C. Barnes, Joseph A. Burr, Jr. and John F. Henry. A letter from Mr. Hiram W. Hunt, Chairman of the Din- ner Committee of 1891, was received, and leave granted that Committee to make a report. On motion adjourned. THOMAS S. MOORE, Recording Secretary. PROCEEDINGS AND SPEECHES AT THE Thirteenth Annual Dinner^ Wednesday, December 21, 1892. In commemoration of the Tzvo Hundred and Seventy- second Anniversary of the Landing of the Pilgrims. The Thirteenth Annual Dinner of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, was held in the Assembly Rooms of the Academy of Music, and in the Art Room adjoining, on Wednesday evening, December 21, 1892. The reception was held in the Art Room and at six o'clock the dinner was served. Two hundred and twenty-three gentlemen were seated at the tables. The President, HoN. Calvin E. Pratt, presided. On his right sat RIGHT Rev. Phillips Brooks, LL.D.,- Rev. Lyman Abbott, D. D., Hon. Edward L Pierce, Commander Henry Erben, The Vice-President New Eng- land Society in the City of New York, and The President St, Nicholas Society. Upon the left of the President sat Hon. Roswell G. HoRR, Hon. John Winslow, Gen. Horace Porter, Col. LooMis L. Langdon, U. S. A., Hon. David A. Boody, and The President St. Patrick's Society. 24 The members of the Society were seated as follows : Table A. — The gentlemen of the Press. Table B.— Presided over by George H. Fisher and Joseph A. Burr. Jr. Horace Graves, Rev, J. C. Adams, D. D., J. D. Perkins, C. M. Pratt. Herbert L. Pratt, W. A. McAndrew, F. B. Pratt, F. L. Babbott, Edward J. Swords, Lowell M. Palmer, Rev. George R. Vandewater, D. D., Jesse Johnson, Edward P. Loomis, Ira P. Taylor, Cyrus H. Taylor, A. A. Dame, George D. Pratt, John T. Pratt, Herman H. Baker, William H. Hurd, Jr., William O. Sumner, Daniel L. Northrup. Table C. — Presided over by Fred A. Ward and William H. Williams. Alexander E. Orr, Camden C. Dike, L. S. Burnham,, J. W. Goddard, George H. Prentiss, James D. Bell. John A. Taylor, Walter S. Logan, George J. Laighton, C. S. Van Wagoner. £. L. Maxvvell, Charles A. Moore, T. L. Wood- ruff, H. B. Moore, Winston H. Hagen, A. S. Higgins, William H. Hill, George Brainerd, C. S. Brained, Jr., John B. Ladd, Norman S. Dike, S. B. Chittenden, George G. Reynolds. Table D. — Presided over by Thomas S. Moore and Willard Bartlett. Alex. Barrie, Frank Lyman. Theodore F. Miller, J. Spencer Turner, A G. Ropes, Francis L. Hine, Henry Ide, Charles W. Ide, J. Rogers Maxwell, Henry W. Maxwell, George B. Abbott, Charles H. Otis, Charles F. Chichester, Edwin F. Knowlton, Thomas A. Buffum, Eben J. Knowlton, L. A. Lewis, Albro J. Newton, George W. Wingate, J. B. Elliott, M. D., William H. Lyon, J. S. T. Stranahan. Table E. — Presided over by Gen. John B. Woodward. John S. James, Frank E. Dodge, Eugene G. Blackford, Nelson J. Gates, William Adams, W. D. Wade, Rev. Charles R. Baker, Gardiner S. Hutchinson, George E, Bartlett, E. H. Kellogg, Henry Coffin, Charles H. Requa, Cyrus E. Staples, E. H, Treacarton, William H. Taylor, Samuel E. Howard, Alfred F. Cross, A. W. Atwater, George E. Spencer, Ferdinand L. Cross, William H. Atwater, Robert B. Woodward, Crowell Hadden. 25 Table F. — Presided over by Gen. Henry W. Slocum and R. D. Benedict. H. "W. Slocum, Jr., C. C. Broun, D. P. Darling, Geo. A. Evans, Remsen Rushmore, Charles A. Tinker, Franklin W. Hooper, Marshall S. Driggs, Wil- lard H, Wheeler, Capt. J. A. Fessenden, Hayden W. Wheeler, Prof. J. S. Crombie, Harrington Putnam, Horace E. Dresser, Mark Hoyt, W. H. C. Ingraham, Rev. T. P. Frost, Rev. Philander C. Langdon, Fred. E. Ciane, A. H. Dailey, C. R. Slocum, R. S. Barnes, Capt. H. P. Kingsbury. Table G. — Presided over by H. H. Wheeler and David Barnett. Schuyler Walden. W. C. Sheldon. Jr.. William Hester, E. Staples, W. M. VanAnden, E. Spicer, A, M. Cahoone, S. R. Probasco, George L. Fox, W. J. Gaynor, Leonard Moody, Henry Beam, D. Gilbert Barnett, John N. Wheeler, J. A, Tweedy, W^ S. Badger, John P. Adams, A. D. Martin, J. W. Ridgway, C. Marshall, C. D. Burwell, George P. Merrill. Table H. — Presided over by Nelson G. Carman, and George H. Southard. G. H. Kelley, A. J. Cordier, J. F. Cordier, F. Audemars, H. W. Cowing. J. R, Cowing, W. Wilkins, Jackson Wallace, Isaac H. Cary, C. B. Davenport, G. D. Fahnstock, George M. Coit, Rev. A. B. KinsoUng, Edwin Parkard, John N. Partridge, Floreau Grosjean, J. W. Hyde, T. Ellett Hodgeskin, F. H. Lovell, Jr., F. H. Lovell, W. J. Vandervoort, R. K. Sheldon, J. T. Sherman, H. C. DuVal, Guy DuVal. Table I. — Presided over by Ethan Allen Doty, and John F. Henry. Francis H. Wilson, Walter Scott, Jr., Wm. H. Nichols, Daniel F. Morse, Wm. H. Nichols, Jr., W. J. Matheson, E. H. Barnes, H. S. Randall, W. J. Young, B. N. Downing, David B. Dearborn, Dr. J. G. Johnson, Dr. Arthur R. Jarrett, H. K. Smith, J. H. Stoddard, L. W. Manchester, Samuel S. Utter, Geo. M. Nichols, Rufus L. Scott, G. Will Conklin, John M. Conklin, Silas M. Giddings, Geo. A. Hamm.ond, Charles C. Knowlton. Cream of Crawfish. Kennebec Salmon. Consomme Princesses Genevoise Sauce, 26 BILL OF FARE. Small Blue Points. Soups. Relish. Cromesqui h la Sassacus. FistL Tomatoe and Cucumber Salad. Releves. Saddle of Antelope. Currant Jelly. Filet of Beef, with fresh Mushrooms. Potatoes Parisiennes, Boston Beans. Bntreea Timbales a la Standish. Terrapin, Baltimore style. Vegetables. Artichokes, sauce Hollandaise. Punch. Mayflower. Canvas-back Duck. Turban Strassbourgeoise. Game. Cold. English Pheasant. Escarolie Salad. Entremets Sucres. Croustade a la Carver Dessert. ke Cream. Plymouth Rock. Fancy Cakes. Bonbons?. Candied Fruit. Gateaux Pistache. Princesse. Fancy Mottoes. Nougat Pyramids. Fruits in Season, Cheese. Cafe Noir. December 21, 1892. P, Maresi. 27 ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT, HON. CALVIN E. PRATT. Gentlemen of the New England Society and Guests : In the name of the Pilgrim, I welcome you to this festive board. I most cordially thank our distinguished guests for their presence, and assure them that all who have speeches in the hands of the printers shall have an opportunity to be heard. I congratulate this society on its continued success, and prosperity; and I congratulate the city that it has such a beneficent, social and educational society in its limits. If the historic Pilgrim groups were to be present at this meeting, they would probably regard you with as much amazement as they experienced when the Indians first startled them on the "rock bound coast." Your beards, your jewels, your dress coats would seem no less grotesque than the matted hair, earrings and clothing of animal hides of the red man. Your appetites would seem more voracious than that of the famished savages. Your demeanor as funny as a war dance, and the speeches of your guests as mysterious and unique as the big talk and war whoop of the agitated chiefs. Mark the differ- ence between the grim sober — and I emphasize sober, pious Pilgrims — and the happy, handsome men I see before me, and yet in the name of the Pilgrims, I welcome the revellers; in the name of the roundhead, I salute the cavalier. It has been sarcastically said that a Yankee will eat until he is tired and then talk until his audience is exhausted, but what- ever may be said in fun or sarcasm, it cannot truthfully be said that any Yankee ever denied his origin or disparaged the history and achievements of his forefathers. It is always unpleasant to others to hear us boast of our descent and inasmuch as it is a matter upon which we had no choice and expressed no volition, we will say nothing about it, but at the same time will insist upon singing the praises of 28 New England and applauding the character and deeds of the Pilgrim Fathers. Earth has no fairer place nor better clime than New England. The winds may not wander through orange groves or waft spicy breezes to our senses, but health is in its rugged blasts and they sweep over fields tilled by the hands of industry and along brooks and rivers whose murmurs are with the noise of the shuttle and triphammer. Its position, soil and climate are adapted to the develop- ment of the highest order of manhood and the best and happiest example of social life. It is there that adventure has been stimulated to the boldest discoveries and enterprise to the utmost limit of improvement. Time will not permit me to speak of the character and the sublime qualities of the Pilgrims or their heroic deeds. We need not go to history or to the realms of tradition to trace the influence of the great principles that they planted in our form of government as we see their benign results all around us. " The system of universal education, the sanctity of our homes — a people not restrained by penal laws or an armed police but by a noble manhood and regard for the rights of others." And perhaps more than all, a democratic republican gov- ernment with free speech and free religion. A system so balanced that opposing parties only serve as props to preserve its equilibrium. This was invented and established amid toil and suffering by the Pilgrim Fathers. It was defended by our Revolutionary sires in battle and blood, and will be revered and protected by their children under all circumstances and against all assailants. As children in New England were wont yearly to gather around the old homestead fireside to " brighten the links of the chain of affection dimmed in absence," so we come to- gether on these occasions to be reminded of our old homes in ^9 New England and the glorious history of our forefathers and the reality and greatness of human virtue. The Pilgrim teaches at once of God and his laws. Exalting every virtue, they point us ever upward to the fountain of all good, and in reality the only life worthy the devotion, the struggles and prayers of all our fleeting years. When Judge Pratt concluded his speech, there was much applause. He then proceeded with the regular toasts of the evening, saying : " The first toast is to THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, and will be drunk standing." (The entire assemblage arose and drank this toast in silence.) TJie Chairman: — The next toast, "THE DAY WE CELEBRATE," will be responded to by a gentleman whose thoughts and utterances, perhaps, are more interesting to the ecclesiastical world than the utterances of any other man in the world, certainly in this country, a gentleman who comes from the old Bay State. I have the pleasure of presenting to you, the Right Reverend Phillips Brooks, ADDRESS OF RT. REV. PHILLIPS BROOKS, D. D: Brother Nezv Englandcrs : I bring you most cordial greeting from New England. 5^ It is indeed a privilege to be allowed to bring a greeting frorrt such a mother to such sons who have gathered around her for love during these festal days. We left her this morning, some of us who love her, for the sake of being here with you this evening, resting there in the same familiar beauty with which you have known her all your life ; looking back upon her past as she opened her eyes upon her birthday, with the same old spirit, the same perpetual sense of duty and the same expec- tation that every one of her children shall do his duty, which she gathered from the old land from which she came and which she has given down to all her children. Truly it is good thus to come from every part of New England with the quick speed which belongs to these modern days, and to stop here among these happy exiles and to see them by the waters of their Babylon, with their harps taken down from the trees, try- ing to sing the Lord's song in a strange land ; bearing in mind that if they remember not Jerusalem in their mirth their tongues will cleave to the roofs of their mouths. Our thoughts turn Bibleward, because we are speaking of Bible men. There is one word in the New Testament which seems as if it were a greeting which one wants to bring to-night. It is the begin- ning of one of the great epistles, that of James, " to the Twelve Tribes which are scattered abroad," which is a proper greeting : — be sure that if you never forget New England, New England will never forget you. And she rejoices perpetually not simply in that which lies behind, but in that which lies before; in the anti- cipation of what her children are to do, in the knowledge of what her children are doing all through the land, all through the world. I am quite sure that if I looked over the series of speeches which fortunate men have been privileged to make on these occasions, I should find two strains pervading them all ; one of rejoicing that they themselves inherit and keep alive perpetually, the spirit and blood of Puritanism ; and the other of congratulation that Puritanism had gone abroad beyond themselves and was impregnating with the largest life and the best thoughts the action of the world. The 31 first of these we can never forget. I can imagine how a great man's sons must feel. I' can imagine how the children of Shakspeare, the children of Milton, the children of Webster and the children of Lowell must feel when they find that what has been familiar. to them all their days has been taken up and made the heritage and possession of all the world ; not merely as creatures belonging to the .great human race, not merely as those who have to do with all the life of humanity, but as those who have been bound to that personality in their own associa- tion, do they rejoice in the fame and character, and in the un- dying memory of him whom the world honors and who is especially and peculiarly theirs. So we feel about Puritanism. It is the world's, but it is peculiarly ours. We have our own personal associations with it ; we have the legends of our ancestry, and the stories of our homes are full of that spirit which is more and more pervading the life of all the world. The great step that shakes the substance of the earth as it moves on its way has shaken the rafters of the house in which we live. The voices to which we listen to-day sang the lullaby which soothed us to sleep. In the power of its spirit Puritan- ism has gone and is to go more and more ; but there is coming to us a deeper sense of how good it is that we ourselves belong in the very heart of it and have it peculiarly for our own. For it is to be found not simply in the legends of our history, and in the traditional stories of our homes, but we feel it in our blood. There is some compensation in a man's growing older when he knows that he is holding out to other men those conditions of his life which show the more clearly in him the older he grows. There is not one of us who does not find the Puritan in some of the worst and most malign aspects of his life; but the Puritan also ennobles, manifesting himself the better the older he grows. We see his spirit even in the faces of the children, and in their clothes, and in their character which they have inherited from their ancestors, and we rejoice in it all. We see it strongly in men who have sprung from the stock which first belonged to the Puritans ; in the conceptions and in the ideas which they 32 had when they Hved upon the earth, in the days which are pecuHarly stamped with their history. It shows itself in mul- titudes of ways ; it shows itself in the way in which the Puritan is always a disappointing man. He seems to be a selfish creature, he seems to be a harmless self-centred creature ; but there is always showing itself out of the depths of Puritanism perpetually the great public spirit which meddles with the things of all the earth, and which will show its force when that force is called for. It stands like a rusty gun in the corner of the room ; but let no man ever fool with Puritanism, thinking the thing is not loaded, for bye and bye it will go off. It is the essential positiveness of the thing that has force and life that is going to show itself when ever needed. We should all rejoice in Puritanism, and in our own personal association with Puritanism, and bear its marks upon us as we bear its signs and traditions in our blood. I suppose the real proof that we are Puritans is that we are proud of being Puritans ; which nobody but a Puritan would be. Puritanism is expressing itself through all the life of all the world. Just see : when we look back into the 17th century it seems as if we were looking to those days of Puritanism when the world gathered its forces for a new de- parture. Out of the great fountain of the 17th century the great springs of modern life have flowed, and they open themselves more and more as the centuries go on. What forces seem to be working in the world to-day ! You can trace them far back. As you do so they all seem to find their origin and combination in the 17th century, from which they spread themselves abroad to work in the world, and which has been in the development of those forces which then started, when Puritanism was the very heart and core of their life. We may recount in the simple names of the first Puritans the watch- words of the times in which they lived. What have they done? These things are now perfectly familiar to us, they are the watchwords of the people. They are: first, religious liberty. Religious liberty sprung up in the 17th century, and it has lived ever since. Next, popular government ; -33 the right of the people to govern themselves, led up to and into Abraham Lincoln's " Government of the people, by the people and for the people." Third, popular education, so that no man is counted too poor to know the best things in the universe of God ; and every man is poorer just in proportion as he fails to know the truth of which the world is full. And last, trusteeship of the world and especially of the land and country in which a nation lives. Those are the four things that have made the modern history of the whole world, and especially the modern history of America, because here has been the livest life of all the world during these two hundred years. I look back to the old Book with which the Puritan was so familiar, from which he drew the types, the patterns and the forms from which his ideas were always shaping themselves. The book was always before his mind. In the picture of the second chapter of the majestic book in which his whole life lived, there is the representation of that which his life was to be, the life of the world that was to come after him. There was always before him that old picture of the book of Genesis and those simple words in which it was recorded for him, as for us, that " Out of the Garden of Eden there came forth a river" — a watered garden — and from thence it was parted and divided into four heads, like a Puritan sermon. It embodied the Puritan life ; and the great river was divided into four heads ; Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel and Euphrates, and went into possession of the world in all its various forms. The first great river which went forth was that of religious liberty, which laid hold of the deepest life of man and realized that liberty for the feeblest child of God. Then the river of popular government went forth. Then there was another river which went forth reaching for the knowledge of all that is knowable. Then another issue came, the trusteeship of the land, the occupation of it for a moment by any race, until they should fill it with a fuller and completerjife; because the land is the responsibility for the whole human race, of any generation and any nation for the period in which it lives. 34 Now my friends I know how easy it is to look back in our history and claim those great principles which spring forth from Puritanism. I know how the religious liberty of the men in Plymouth was under perpetual litigation, and that they never freed themselves from the lives against which they themselves rebelled. I know how popular government was always haunted by the spirit of aristocracy which had pre- ceded it. I know how the search for truth was forever hampered by the preconception which it seemed must forever rest upon the human mind and which could never let it become absolutely free. I know how the possession of the land for the moment seems again and again to give the right of absolute possession to every one who takes up his residence within it. And never yet have our Puritans them- selves appreciated the fullness of the life they embody. But it is out of that Garden that the river of Eden has flowed off in its four brandies, Pison and Gihon, and Hiddekel and Euphrates, which is more and more taking possession of the world. It seems to me, my friends, most seriously, on such an occasion as this, that the great question of our time is this i How do these four great principles stand in the conceptions of mankind ? What is the power which they have gained for themselves ? Whatforce do they assume over the nation's heart to-day? That is the question which men are forever going to ask when they gather, as on this occasion, as Puritans. Where do religious liberty, popular government, universal education and the trusteeship of the world for the future, stand in the conception of the coming generation? I do not think I can misinterpret the time, or the view you take of it, when I say with regard to every one of these great principles, that there is to-day upon the minds of men, a certain strange sense of disappointment. There is a misgiving with regard to every one of them. There is a misgiving with regard to religious liberty, lest it should go too far. There is also a doubt with regard to popular government in the minds of men; there is a certain disposition to feel distrust in universal suffrage, the 35 ■great cliarter of our existence the life blood of our life. There is a certain disposition in the heart of man to have deep misgivings with regard to universal education, as to whether it may not be so broad that men may be unfitted for the work which they have to do in the world, and whether we may not have to close our school doors and close our school books that have been once opened. There is a doubt with regard to the trusteeship with which every nation and every age holds the earth on which it lives for all humanity and for the posterity that is to come, and by which it is to make it fit for the pur- poses of its trust and fit to bestow the great life which is in it for the blessing of mankind. Is there not a sense of disap- pointment, today, haunting the thoughts of very many thoughtful men. Is it not good for us, the sons of the Puritan builders, Puritans ourselves, to think of this great misgiving in many people's minds, and to insist that these are the great principles which were in the Puritan's blood which have flowed forth in the centuries, and that these are the truths through which we must live in all the ages that are to come. There are several kinds of disappointment; there is the disappointment which looks back, and there is the disappoint- ment which looks forward and presses continually onward. There is the disappointment which sees the evil of that which it has trusted, and would fling it away because the light is too rich and blinding for human eyes to bear. That is the disap- pointment of despair. There is a disappointment which is full of inspiration, which sends the disappointed man deeper into the heart and soul of the thing which he has begun to distrust and in regard to which he has had mJsgivings, and which makes him study it more deeply ; which makes him believe it with deeper faith, and more and more, so far as in him lies, bring it to its fullest application. Our people are never going to cease to believe in those four great powers which have come forth out of the Puritan life. Religious liberty in order that it should have its full power, should be made, not the destroyer but the nurse and the pro- ducer; of an intense personal conviction, without which it can never be complete. And a great government of the people by the people, must be impregnated with a strict sense of duty ; a people governing themselves must know the duty which belongs to the principle of its government. And we do not doubt that our system of public education will have to be revised and reconstructed so that what a man ought to know shall be accessible. And then through popular education for all men there can be brought to our knowledge the great purpose and ideal which must be set before us; the trustee- ship of our land for all humanity. We are never going to lose that conception ; it may be, it must be, in order that we may make our land the blessing that it should be to all the world, that we shall stand guard over it from time to time. It may be that some day we shall receive into it the lives of the oppressed, the lives of the degraded. We shall exclude them for the moment, and it may be stand guard over the quantity in order that we may make mare sure of the quality of that to which we shall welcome all the world. The one thing, it seems to mc, that we ought to do to-day in regard to this whole matter of the limitation of access to our land is to keep the true principle in view which lies behind it all. If the desire be to hold exclusively for our own interest, even our own best interest, the land to which our lives have come first, then it is unworthy of the way in which we have stood before the world for these past generations. But if, more than that, it is because we feel so profoundly the trust that God has given to us in this America of ours, that we desire to keep her pure and to receive into her that which she has abundant power to assimilate, so that she shall be able forever to receive into a higher life, a life higher than theirs^ those who come to us out of the darkness of other lands, then this limitation is not a reversal of the position which our nation has assumed in the past, that we are the home of the oppressed; but it is simply keeping the home of the oppressed so that the oppressed may come to her and shake their chains off upon the beach and live the full lives of intelligent and well-grown citizens within her borders. 37 It seems to me that the one great thing to do is to keep up the standards of our national life, and to do in new ways, precisely the same thing which it has been necessary to do in the old ways in other days. I believe that those strange gen- tlemen who play at baseball, have a way in which they can fling a ball with the certain knowledge, that in a certain direction,, at a certain distance and at a certain moment, that ball is going to change the direction in which it has been moving to another direction by the same force which they imparted to it at first. Whether I am right about that or not, that is what history is always doing; sending forth her impulse with the certainty that she will change the direction, with the cer- tainty that the impulse will be the same in the new direction as in the old. So it is that religious liberty and popu- lar government should never be restrained out of tem- porary fear. And universal education, finding the deepest and truest substances on which it shall feed the young, and the best methods by which the food shall be administered, shall build itself deeper and higher, and the school doors shall be opened wider and wider as the years go on ; and the great and solemn sense of a trust for mankind shall grow, so that each man shall know that the ground on which he stands is given to him in trust, and that the great ocean with its dancing waves and rolling tides, was given to him for a noble and universal purpose, also. When we feel this, then we are able to gather together around these festive tables under circum- ttances which are so different from those which greeted our ancestors at Plymouth, and to declare on such occasions as these, that Puritanism is not an isolated thing in the world ; that it is not their simple standing in history that we are going to admire at a distance. What the world needs to- day is more Puritanism and not less Puritanism. It is our growing consciousness that there is in Puritanism the force waiting at the door, touching the springs of action of the world at all times. That is the essential and eternal Puritan- ism; not merely the memory of the past, but the presence of the sense of duty, and the presence of God, and the 38 everlasting presence of the ideal in the lives of men, in the lives of nations, and in the lives of humanity of which we make a part. We have gone so far away from Puri- tanism to-day that we may look upon it as a mount, standing in history. We can see how great it was, but it is a very poor thing if we simply make it an object in the historical landscape. The rivers coming from that mount must take our lives into their torrent ; must make us rejoice in the past because it has exhibited itself more richly in the future in which we live to-day. And all the while we must hear what these Puritans heard, the great booming and rushing of the sea of God, the sea of the completed life of man, moving in obedience to the law of God in which they rejoiced and which was the inspiration of their life and belief. So, embodied in the past, uttered in the present and anticipating the future, too great for any man to know is the true Puritanism, such Puritans may we be; such Puritans I think we are to-night. The Chairman : — The next speaker that will be intro- duced to you is one to whom you are under deep obligations, and one whom you have often heard with deep satisfaction. It was once said by General Grant that if one member of his staff had not been buried on his staff, he would have been a great and successful general. As further proof of the truth of the statement I may remind you that the monument to General Grant was delayed some four or five years. It was necessary to raise about $500,000. $100,000, or in that neighborhood, was raised and lay in the bank for about four years, when a gentleman took hold of it — and it was the same man whom General Grant said would have made a great general — and inside of sixty days he was enabled to raise $400,000 for the completion of that great work. I know you have already anticipated me. I have the pleasure of introducing to you General Porter. 39 ADDRESS OF GENERAL HORACE PORTER. Mr. President and Gentlemen : If your presiding officer keeps on making such flattering remarks about me, before he has been in heaven twenty-four hours, I shall start a monument for him. {Laughter.) I know I speak somewhat hopefully. {Langkter.) At present he is seated very close beside our distinguished bishop. I trust that in the hereafter they may not be too widely separated. {Laughter.) As I was crossing the East river this evening, oppressed with a sense of sadness which naturally falls upon the human mind when it is expected to respond to a toast covering four hundred years of history, about the time I got half-way over the water, I found myself actively sympathizing with those sailors in Columbus's fleet who suddenly woke up to the advantages of turning back. {Laughter.) There is a grain of consolation for the speaker derived from the fact that it is understood that your committee has agreed that any one who will now take upon himself the burden of this toast, will be exempted for the next four hundred years. {Laughter.) Columbus's egg stood up on the right end, but during these Columbian celebrations, I have seen some of his more hilarious after dinner admirers, express an inclination to stand on their other end. {Laughter.) We have been searching the libraries for some months and devouring the public journals to learn new facts about Columbus, and yet skeptics have arisen, who declared that they have discovered that he was not a discoverer. Well, whether Columbus did or did not discover us, I think we have made commendable progress towards discovering Columbus. {Laughter andcries of ^ Thafs so !'') The Americ cans are a self reliant and self-helpful people generally, but on this one occasion they had to acknowledge that they were not equal to the task of discovering themselves, and had to farm out the job to an Italian so that I am not surprised that even at the present day, we find the Italians doing so much of our Work. {Laughter.) Judging from the dates upon which the 40 discovery was celebrated in New York, and afterward in Chicago, it would seem that Columbus must have discovered New York on the 12th of October and Chicago on the 21st. Yet there are people, particularly in the interior of this State, who insist that Columbus discovered Chicago by accident I that his port binnacle got out of order and he drifted out of his course and struck Chicago by accident, when he was really on a voyage of discovery in search of the northwest passage to the pole by way of the Erie canal. {Laughter.) To inves- tigate these matters, I very gladly accepted an invitation to participate in the inauguration of the Columbian Fair Buildings in Chicago. A man from that city said to me, " You had better go out there. Big thing. Why, in Chicago, during the fair, they are going to run the surface roads with cables, and the horse roads with electric mules." {Laughter.) I went out there and witnessed the ceremonies in that modest building which seated 125,000 people and left standing-room for 25,000 more. They informed me at the start that if you put Bunker Hill monument in that building, it wouldn't touch the roof within fifteen feet That is why the Chicago man grins defiance at the New Englander. They did not build the Eiffel Tower. I discovered that the reason was that the average Chicago man thinks that Heaven lies just above Chicago, and if they started that tower, the people are so progressive and ambitious, they, could not stop it until they reached that blissful abode and feared that some of their citizens who are always inclined to be previous on occasions in general, would want to take advantage of it to get to their final resting place in advance of their time, and before paying their last installment on their sub- scripion to the building fund. {Laughter.) It is a very easy thing to go out to Chicago; the dif^culty is to get back. A man went down to a ticket ofifice, put out his money and said, " I want to go to New York." The ticket agent said, " I reckon you don't exactly mean that; you may have to go to New York but I guess you don't want to.'' {Laughter.) But I only wanted to call your attention to the fact that in this great Columbian year, I think we all feel a little more profoundly than on other 'occasions that the citizen who can claim America for his home, is possessed of a priceless heritage. Only 400 years since it was discovered, but a little more than a hundred years since its people conquered the right to establish a government of their own; the American mind is not bound to a servile con- templation of the past, but is free to dwell upon the abundant blessings of the present — the promised glories of the future. The American lives not for pedigree but for posterity ; not forgetting in his pride of ancestry, the care of posterity and teaching his children that the noblest legacy which man can leave to man is the memory of a worthy name, the inheritance of a good example; and that in this land, the only recognized title to superiority is the favor of God. Without allowing our national pride to degenerate into the national egotism, we may feel that we have a country which should command our loyal devotion. Man learns but little in this world from precept, he learns much from example; and the most instructive examples are those which are set before us in history. And when cele- brating great epochs in our history, it is well for us to pause and contemplate how big with events is the history of our own land. Four hundred years ago, a howling wilderness peopled with barbaric tribes. Then the column of civilized emigration set westward; it covered our plains, it crossed our inland rivers, it scaled our m.ountain heights and stopped not till it dipped the fringes of its banners in the waters of the Western seas. But with a wholesome, vigorous immigration, there came here, also, a vicious element, men who were Godless, conscienceless, who sneered at holy things and blasphemed against Heaven. How was this demoralizing tendency to be counteracted? Here is where the work of the staunch, sturdy, brave old Puritan came in. He had seen in the old lands, the demoralizing tendency of the age and had strenuously set his face against it. He had the courage of his convictions; he had been inured to trial and practiced in self-abnegation. In his endeavors to benefit his fellow man, he had reformed religions, revolutionized society and overturned the thrones of tyrants. He was more of a soldier than of a diplomatist; m.ore of a Hercules than 42 an Adonis. He was a severe man, an austere man, but if he were more uncompromising than others, it was because he acted with the wisdom of the man who attempts to straighten a crooked stick; he not only bends it to the Hne of straight- ness but far beyond so that when it relaxes, it will remain straight. So it was with the Puritan who came here and introduced the leaven which leavened the whole loaf. The population has grown till now it amounts to a figure greater than that of any nation save one, in all Europe. America has delved down into the bowels of the earth, wrested therefrom her secrets and developed a wealth greater than the dreams of avarice. She has marshalled armies which have fought over more miles of ground than most European armies have marched over; and yet she requires no great permanent military force. She has no troublesome or dangerous neighbors. She stands almost alone upon the continent and unlike the nations of Europe, is neither goaded by jealousy nor cursed by propin- quity. She first drew the lightnings from the heaven, and made them her servants, strung the wires through the air, laid them upon the bottom of the sea and through them whispered her greetings to the old world. Three hundred years ago the whole world was amazed and startled by the magnitude of the Spanish Armada. But a few months ago, during our Colum- bian celebration here, we found rendezvoused in a single American harbor, a fleet five times as large as the famed Armada. Europe sent her vessels here, primitively rigged, and propelled by the winds of Heaven. America sent the first vessel to the old world propelled by the giant " steam.'' Upon the water, we are now building that phantom-colored fleet which is the pride of our people at home and the pro- tection of our citizens abroad. Its rapid cruisers could move swifter than a weaver's shuttle across the track of a belliger- ant's of commerce. In the restoration of our lost merchant marine, under a bill passed by Congress a year ago, we will soon add two, then two more, and I hope soon, a whole fleet of the swiftest greyhounds of the Atlantic Ocean. They will be seen going forth from American ports, breasting the mighty 43 billows of the North Atlantic, their holds filled with wealth, their cabins freighted with their precious cargoes of human souls, at each stroke of their giant engines, throbbing like the heart's pulsations of a thing of life breathing the hot breath of their power, and carrying above them the American flag. {Applause.) Who can predict, 400 years hence, how far this growing Republic may dominate the policy of the world ? Our land was not born amidst the mysteries and fabled legends of barbaric ages; it was planted, fully equipped, upon this virgin continent, and is the only nation which is certain of its own birthday. Woven of the stoutest fibres of other races^ nurtured by a commingling of the best blood ofother lands, this nation has now thrown off the swaddling clothes of infancy and stands erect, clothed in the robes of majesty and power in which the God who made it intends that it should henceforth tread the earth. To-day it is seen moving along the great high way of history, teaching by example, marching at the head of the procession of the world's events, leading the van of civilized and Christianized liberty, sympathizing everywhere with liberty, believing that liberty is a land which should know no frontiers, its manifest destiny to light the path of liberty throughout the world till human freedom and human rights become the common heritage of mankind. We say to the nations of the old world, " We have no entangling alliances with you ; we shall not interfere on your side of the water. You may quarrel over your boundary lines; you may fight over your balance of power ; you may make war amongst yourselves over your grievances or to tickle the vanity of your potentates ; you may reconstruct the map of Europe as you will, divide up among you the Continent of Africa ; it is not our affair. But if you come to the shores of the new world, to plant amongst a free people your mon- archical institutions, the giant Republic will rise in her majesty and her might and say to you, " Have a care! Have a care! '' {Applause. ) 44 The Chairman : — The next toast, gentlemen, "PURITANISM APPLIED TO THE NINETEENTH CENTURY," will be responded to by a gentleman whose name is familiar to most of you, who succeeds to and fills the place of a very dear friend of this Society, the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. {Ap~ plause.) I introduce to you Dr. Lyman Abbott. ADDRESS OF REV. DR. LYMAN ABBOTT. No great movem.ent can ever be interpreted by itself^ as an isolated thing. It is part of that which is to come afterward. It is part of that which has gone before. Puritanism as a great movement is a part of that current which the observer calls history, which the scientists call evolution, and which the men of faith call Christianity. It is a part of that great onward movement which involves the three successive stages of order, liberty and freedom. The pause between those two words, liberty and freedom is a real and not merely a nominal distinction. The Puritan believed in liberty, but he believed in a great deal more than liberty. He believed in the possession of that larger thing we call freedom. Liberty, the conception of a man simply set free from manacles and coming out from the cell and chains, an individual race, liberty having only one word on its banner — rights ; and then this other larger word, freedom ; the Anglo-Saxon word, the word that carne down as the inheritance of a nation that never knew fear, that never v/as submissive to the yoke, that cherished an ordered and organized liberty, that from the first walked in a free air, for if for a little time its hands wore manacles, they always wore them with discontent and succeeded in breaking them at last — freedom on one side of the banner and on the other, duty; freedom, the word that m.eans not merely indi- 45 vidual right but social and ordered right, that means organized and ordered liberty, that means the whole community walking in one large spirit of liberty; freedom which is at once the antagonism of despotism on the one side and mere individual- ism on the other. So it was for freedom, for organized and ordered liberty that the Puritan stood. In our age and in all all ages it represents that. Rousseau, looking backward, supposed that there was a primitive age in which man walked in absolute individualism. This was his conception of the perfect age and he sought to carry men back to it. He imagined that they had surrendered something of their indi- vidual liberty in order to get the advantages, and submit to the disadvantages of ordered government. The Puritans pro- ceeded by a different process and reached a very different result. They traced back history to its source. They went back to its origin. They were never disorganized. They never sought individualism but on the contrary, they sought for an ordered and organized liberty. They believed, indeed, in a Church without a bishop, and a State without a king. But still they believed in a Church and in a State. It would have been foreign to their conception to have religious thought that framed itself in no result, to have a State which wrought itself into no ordered organization. When a chartered religious power, the first thing they did was to assemble at Westminister, and organize a creed. When they obtained political power, the first thing they did was to organize a republican consti- tution. They have often been sneered at for going to the Old Testament. They were wise ; they knew what they wanted and they went to the book that gave them what they wanted. The New Testament is a book of the individual life. Its first four books are a biography of individuals. Its great epistles are the experiences of an individual or individuals and are uttered for the inspiration of individuals. The Old Testa- ment is the history of a nation. It is the story of an ordered and organized life. Its laws are laws for a nation. Its history is the history of a nation. Its great prophetic books are a political sermon preached to a community. The Puritan^ 46 went to the Old Testament because it gave them what they wanted — the substantial principles underlying the great com- monwealth. What did they find there? They found just those things which the Bishop of Massachusetts pointed out to us. They found popular suffrage ; they found that God himself gathering the children of Israel at the foot of Mount Sinai, would not accept the position of king of Israel until He submitted the question to popular suffrage and had been adopted by an universal vote. They found no hereditary aristocracy, they found judges and rulers elected by the common people. They found a representative assembly. They found popular education. They found all of those essential principles which they sought to incorporate in the life of the nation which they lived to found. Coming to New England, they brought these fundamental principles with them. They have been charged with inconsistency in driving the Quakers and Baptists from their communities. Wrong they were, judging from our standards ; they came here to found a theocratic republic but they were not inconsistent. The Quakers stood for individualism as did the Baptists and these Puritans did not believe in it. They never had believed in individualism. There lives were a protest against indi- vidualism; they stood for freedom, for organized and ordered liberty. Now it would be easy to show how these two con- ceptions, the individual liberty and the ordered and organized freedom, were brought to this country, the one from France and the other from England. It would be easy to show how these two currents were wrought into our history and how the controversies in our nation have been controversies between these two conflicting and contradictory ideas. It was liberty that claimed the supremacy of the State. It was freedom that insisted on the supremacy of the nation. It was liberty which maintained the right and duty of every man to take his own children and educate them. It was freedom that insisted that it was the right and duty of the republic to educate all its children. It was liberty which maintained that every man might buy his goods in whichever market he pleased. It was A7 freedom that insisted upon the right of the nation to h'mit the right of the individual if the welfare of the nation would be promoted by limitation. I do not stop to argue the events of these two conflicting conceptions. I simply wish to lay before you that which was the underlying element of Puritanism. It was ordered and organized liberty. It was not individualism^ It was a larger conception ; as I believe a broader conception ; a conception of an ordered and organized life. The Puritan would not consent to wear prison garb or walk in lockstep, but when he doffed the prison garb and broke from the lock-step it was only that he might put on the soldier's uniform and keep rank with his brother man. He would no longer fight under a despotic authority but he combined with his fellow man to dare and do and endure hardship for the great ideas which united him to his fellow man, Puritanism — the spirit of Puritanism, the spirit of ordered and organized liberty the nation still needs ; we need it in the church. Puritanism does not mean disjecta membra, the casting away of all the bonds that unite men religiously. It does not mean every man work, ing out his own future for himself in his own way. It means in its final and ultimate outcome, a church so free, so large, so broad in its scope that it shall march with unbroken ranks and do its work in the world as a united and combined force; united, not under despotic authority, not in the State infring- ing on the individual but u-nited by the combination of free men in a common enterprise, inspired for a common end. Freedom in government means something more and beyond simple individualism. It does not tend in the direction of individualism. The conception as it has shown itself in American politics, that government is an evil, the less govern- ment the better, is not a Puritan conception. In the thought of the Puritan, government was a divine order, government was a theocracy, government was a large and noble thing and the spirit of Puritanism has been steadily enlarging the functions of our government and increasing them. If the Puritan could have looked across the centuries and seen what to-day we see in America, he would have demanded some -48 changes or at least would run up some cautionary signal. It is half a century ago that this country gave to the assignees of Mr. Fulton, the exclusive right to navigate the Hudson River and New York Bay with a steamship. It is more than fifty years ago that Daniel Webster, standing in the Supreme Court of the United States, contended that the highways of the nation belonged to the nation and that no State could make them private property or give them to individuals or cor- porations. The Puritan of old New England times, looking across these centuries, would certainly question if he saw a nation whose nerves and whose arteries had become private property and he would stand for the older, ordered and organized liberty, for an enlarged consciousness and for a government that could control and not be controlled. Government passes through three successive stages. The first is paternalism, in which one man or class of men control all, the second is individualism in which government simply protects one individual against another individual. But there lies yet above these — it was what the Puritan foresaw, and toward which he turned the prow of his boat — fraternalism in government, the whole body of the people acting together in whatever they think best for their common interest and wel- fare. The industrial problem, as it presents itself to us to-day, is, I believe, another phase of this struggle between these two ideas — individualism on the one hand, and order on the other. We cannot solve it by prohibiting combinations, whether of labor or capital. We cannot solve it by attempting to break up order for the sake of liberty, and we certainly shall not solve it by stimulating order at the sacrifice of liberty. We shall not solve every problem until we have found a way to organize a system of industry which will be an ordered liberty, which will be a true freedom, organized on the basis of a true brotherhood. If Adam was created six thousand years ago, and if he had lived to our times, and if he had earned one hundred dollars a day, and if he had laid it by in a safe deposit company, where it would get him no interest, he would not, living to this time, have accumulated as large a fortune as 49 Cornelius Vanderbilt accumulated in a lifetime. I am not finding any fault with the man who accumulates a fortune. I should not object to it myself. But I do aver that Puritanism — the brotherhood of man— but not a limited brotherhood — would have looked with wonder upon this product of civiliza- tion, and would have insisted that in an ordered and organized Theocracy, in a true and genuine brotherhood such a disparity would be impossible. Christ has in one passage intimated the three stages of human progress, it seems to me. " Call no man master on earth," he says, " For God is your master and all ye are brethren." The first great truth which the world had to learn, was that there was one God, and thus the med- iaeval church taught the world, and it learned that lesson by the sixteenth century. And the second great lesson it had to learn was what Calvin taught us, " Because no man is your master, therefore call no man master." That was the lesson of liberty. The lesson that " Ye are brethren ? " is grander yet. It was in that brotherhood of the human race, in the conception of a universal brotherhood, binding men all together in one nationality, binding all nations together in one great federation, binding together the faithful in our Christian community, it is in that conception of one universal brother- hood, that the final victory for the spirit of Puritanism will be won. The Chairman : — Gentkmen, you will rise and exhibit your fine voices. All rise and sing "AMERICA." "My country 'tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of thee I sing ; Land where my fathers died, Land of the pilgrim's pride, From every mountain side Let freedom ring ! so ■" Our fathers' God, to Thee,. Author of liberty. To thee we sing ; Long may our land be bright. With freedom's holy ligtt, Protect us by thy might. Great God, our King ! " TAe Chairman : — The next toast is to "GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS." You doubtless recollect that he addressed you once or twice and was engaged to address you two or three years ago when he wrote us a fine and brilliant letter. The gentleman who is to respond to this toast was a great friend of Mr. Curtis, and has always been a friend of this Society. I have the pleasure of introducing Mr. Edward L. Pierce, of Massa- chusetts. ADDRESS OF HON. EDWARD L. PIERCE. Gentleme7t of the New England Society : Your committee will bear me witness that I accepted reluct- antly the assignment which was made to me for this evening, taking it only when others better fitted were not obedient to the summons. George William Curtis, though living and doing his work as one of the great metropolis, was in all respects a New England man. He was born in Providence, under the shadow of its college. The blood of Rhode Island and Massachusetts, and no other, mingled in his veins. His education, so far as schools taught him, was acquired only in those States — in Providence, West Roxbury and Concord. His marriage brought him into kinship and close fellowship with a well-known fairiily of Boston. His later summers were passed in his rural home at Ash field, where he mingled freely with the townspeople, villagers and yeomen, enjoying the almost unmatched scenery of Western Massachusetts. His most intimate friend, the companion of his vacation rambles was Charles Eliot Norton, a name long identified with Harvard College. His ideals were New England men — Sumner. Phillips, Bryant and Lowell — all subjects of his eulogies. He had departed from the traditional faith of New England, but none the less he was in perfect sympathy with the Puritan character, which he testified on different occasions, notably in his eulogy on General Sedgwick. Is it too much to claim, merchants of New York and Brooklyn, that he showed New England sense of honor when, with a persevering devotion recalling Walter Scott's, he toiled for many years to pay debts which, though not binding in law, he thought binding in conscience 7 It was well for Curtis, it was well for you, it was well for mankind that he brought his gifts and inspirations to the multitudinous life of New York, to this great centre of intel- lectual and commercial activity. Here was an ampler oppor- tunity ; here a more commanding watch-tower. Here, too, perhaps, was a better field for the development of the germs •of character within him ; for, as I said to you some years ago, and still verily beheve — better than a New Englander at home is a New Englander transplanted. But, absorbed as he became in great interests here, he was ever true to his origin and early associations ; always ready with good of^ces to Brown University, which had sheltered him for only a year, to the many New England friends who sought him often for help and counsel ; to his neighbors in " Arcadia," to whose annual feast his silver tongue gave a peculiar zest, and who in tender gratitude came to Staten Island to lay a memorial wreath on his bier. No one can, I think, undertake with confidence, certainly I cannot, to define what place Curtis is to hold in the history of American literature ; but I feel assured that it will be a high and lasting one. We have grown wiser, and are to grow wiser still concerning P^gypt and Syria, under the guidance of savants ?2 and explorers like Maspero and Petrie, but we shall always delight to gaze betimes on those fatherlands of history and religion, with the dreamy eyes of Howadji. For each of us, with his own Prue by his side, there will ever be a fascination drawing us to watch with interest the passing Aurelia, a vision of the life outside our own, or to loiter awhile in our far-off castles in Spain. The Potiphars and their familiars are per- manent creations ; and with the vices that wait on enormous wealth and unrestrained luxury, that remarkable passage on "The Decadence of the Romans," suggested by Couture' s picture, will remain an impressive warning, however optimistic men may be. Curtis's satire, unlike that of the ancients and many moderns, was never darkened by self-love and misan- thropy ; it was always benevolent. He was like the kindly surgeon who feels, even more keenly than his patient, the wound by which he hopes to cure. But Curtis was made of too fine stuff to continue long in reveries upon society. The Age called him to more serious work, and he obeyed the summons. His was a clarion voice in 1856, appealing to the cultivated youth of America to enlist in the great conflict of patriotism and humanity. From that time forward he was a living force and energy in American politics, and that force and energy will abide to inspire this and coming generations. What he wrote and spoke for thirty- five years — the thoughts of the " Easy Chair," playful, critical, contemplative, reminiscent, how through the Journal of Civil- ization, in weekly ministrations, he pointed the millions of his countrymen to purer politics, to a more enlightened patriotism to a soberer sense of civic duties, to an ethical comprehension of all that concerns conduct and life — this and more than this thoughtful men now see and faithful history will record. He wrote nothing which, dying, he would wish to blot ; he wrote much which aftertimes will not willingly let die. He might challenge criticism in the words he spoke of Bryant, " Does any memory, however searching or censorious, recall one line that he wrote which was not honest and pure, one measure that he defended except from the profoundest conviction of S3 its usefulness to the country, one cause that he advocated which any friend of liberty, of humanity, of good government, would deplore ? " Emphasis is justly laid on what Curtis did as a journalist ; but what he did as a public speaker was not less important. His appeals to cultured men, as at middletown and Providence, his lectures before hundreds of lyceums, his commemorative orations, his eulogies on great characters, his political addresses, his successive pleas for civil service reform — how stimulating and elevating were all these, not merely to listening audiences, but not less so to the greater multitude who in all parts of the country found hope and inspiration in his magnetic words. The well-thought essay may have power, but the distant reader feels it all the more when he realizes that it has been heard and applauded in Faneuil Hall and Cooper Institute. There is a tendency in our time to decry eloquence, and it has been said, foolishly indeed, that the age of the orator has passed. Some of you still remember the marvelous addresses of Louis Kossuth, forty years ago, on Staten Island and at Castle Garden. A year ago last September, in a half-hour interview with him in his chamber at Turin, when he had just entered on his ninetieth year which he has since passed, I said to the aged exile that his eloquence still had its spell on the American memory. But he repelled the compliment, remembering sadly, how vain had been his prayer for intervention against Russia, and quoted " words, words, words," as if from Emerson, but, as I fancy, from Hamlet's answer to Polonius. I cannot, how- ever, yield even to the authority of one who ranks foremost among the masters of eloquence in this century. The time will never come in a free country when the human voice will not give fresh power to argument, to noble passion, to patriotic and spiritual appeals. Who of us can ever forget the charming presence of our friend as he stood before the people ; the glass of fashion and the mould of form; "a figure," as he called another, "of patrician port and sovereign grace;" his features finely chiselled his elegant pose and classic gesture, his richly modulated 54 voice ringing out in clear and earnest tone the duties of citi- zens and men— always friendly, always sympathetic, always loyal to the purest taste. I have him now in my mind's eye as he stood, a fellow member with myself, in the Republican National Conventions of i860, 1876 and 1884, in the two latter the most attractive personality, and, in all, summoning his party to maintain its fealty to the cause of equal rights, and the highest standards of public life. Here with you, as on other festive occasions, he seasoned the banquet with his wit, always refined, never coarse or commonplace. You were not as he spoke waiting with expectant lips and hands to respond to the next jest ; but when one came, spontaneous, unforced, fresh from the mine, set in finest sentiment, you caught eagerly the gem, and you will keep it precious in your memory evermore. Curtis was a scholar, of no fugitive and cloistered virtue, never slinking from the race, nor shirking dust and heat; but a scholar ever hopeful, never cynical ; always in touch with men, and in sympathy with all seekers of truth He was a gentleman, fair to his antagonist, keeping his poise in contro- versy, measuring men by their worth, never by their wealth or social rank, bearing himself with infinite courtesy towards all conditions, as gracious to the maid who laid his morning meal as if she were a princess. He was a patriot worthy to be placed in our noblest list ; "a life in civic action warm, a soul on highest mission bent ;" constant to the end, keeping ever the heights which his soul gained from the first, an example of self-containment in an age of unrest ; so content with his home and work that after his first full draught of foreign travel, the old world could not tempt him again, and even the mission to England, that prize much coveted by scholars and public men, when offered to him, he waived aside without regret. No whiter character, combining scholar, gentleman and patriot, has come in our time, and all who have been privileged to commune with him, will say with William Winter : " Yet I hold my life divine, To have known a soul like thine." 5-5 It was our hope and prayer that he would be permitted to pass the Hmit which the psalmist assigns to manly life. Time decorates a youth and prime like his. There awaited him the consciousness of years well spent, of duty well done. " And that which should accompany old age. As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends." But leaving us now or spared longer he might say with confidence, as James Montgomery, dear to Christendom for his hymns, said in closing his long and troubled career as a journalist : " I followed no mighty leader, belonged to no school pandered to no impure passion, I veiled no vice in delicate disguise, gratified no malignant propensity to personal satire, courted no powerful patronage. I wrote neither to suit the manners, the taste nor the temper of the age ; but I appealed' to universal principles, to imperishable affections, to primary elements of our common nature, found wherever man is found in civilized society, wherever his mind has been raised above barbarian ignorance, and his passions purified from brutal selfishness." Gentlemen of the New England Society: Have I colored the picture too highly? I think not. Are there limitations- omitted which I ought to state ? I do not know them. What 1 have said is not a youth's hero-worship but the sober judg- ment of a man of mature years, speaking from profound conviction of one whom he knew well. {Applause.) The Chairman : — I recollect and shall never forget that there was one sentence in history which I read when a boy, that struck me as the summum bonum of patriotism and courage, that was : " I'll take those men or Molly Stark's a widow to-night." That man, of course you know, was "ETHAN ALLEN." I know of no man so capable of responding to that toast as ■S'6 an honored son of Vermont, the Hon. Roswell G. Horn [ApJ^/ause.) ADDRESS OF HON. ROSWELL G. HORR. Mr. President and Gentlemen of the New England Society of Brooklyn : I feel somewhat embarrassed at being compelled to speak to you as a New England man, while I feel the inferiority that necessary follows from never having lived very much in New England. The simple fact is, I was taken from the State of Vermont very young, without my consent, and hence I have all the advantages that come from Western ignorance and Western awkwardness. However, I was pleased when my friend here at my left wrote me announcing the toast they had selected for me to-night. Because, he added, "You won't be expected to pay much attention to the toast, but you can say whatever you have a mind to." But I was pleased because I like to think and talk about men. I like to think of Ethan Allen. J like to think and speak of men who seem to tower a little above the average. In almost everything in this world, averages are monotonous. It is so in every condition of life. In my own uneventful and uncheckered life, I have been com- pelled before now, to spend sometimes months at a common "boarding house." Now, I never complain so much at the quantity of food we get in an establishment of that kind. My trouble is that such food seems to lack identity ! One can never tell where the chicken leaves off and the mutton begins. It is the same thing right along, no individuality about the victuals. This sameness pervades all classes of society. I run on to it in the pulpit even, if these gentlemen at my right will pardon me. Sometimes I cannot tell where they leave off on "original sin" and begin on " sanctification." Their preaching lacks that distinctive peculiarity which gives flavor to life. Consequently, when you strike a man like Ethan Allen, you realize at once that he is out of this commonplace 57 rut. Whether it was owing to his surroundings or to the Puritan blood that flowed in his veins, I have never been able to decide, but that he was a marked man no one will deny. You will see it in everything he did. That was no trifling question the British officer put to him, even before he had time to put on his clothes, at Fort Ticonderoga, when he said, " By what authority do you demand my surrender?" Now, no common man would have been able to meet an emergency of that kind. The real facts were, that Ethan had no authority ; but he instantly rose to the occasion and answered, " By the authority of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress." Now the Continental Congress did not give him his commission for months and months after he made this answer. He did, however, have a commission from the great Jehovah ; he had that long before he went to Ticonderoga. It Avas a part and parcel of his make-up — that commission was. The British ofiflcer saw it in his face and strong right arm no doubt. Did it ever occur to you that the Great Jehovah usually writes a legible hand. If He has shaped a man, you can tell something about it by watching the motions of such a person. A man who has a commission from the hands of God to do a certain piece of work always does it promptly and does it well. Hence, I say, it is a great relief to strike a man who can rise to the occasion in the way that Ethan Allen always did. 1 know, according to the descrip- tion of the Puritans which we have listened about with so much pleasure here to-night, Ethan Allen hardly filled the bill. He was born in Connecticut, so his birth was all right, no trouble with that ; all right.that was not the trouble. He lived and died in Vermont, no difflculty about location there ; but there was absent from him almost entirely that wonderful religious element, that very element that they tell us made up the old fashioned Puritan. He wrote one of the naughtiest books ever written in the English language ; perhaps hardly any of you ever read it. What is its title? " Reason — the Oracle of the Soul." The book lacks in every line of it, the theology of the Puritan. But as I stated here a year ago, any person who 5^- thinks he fathoms Puritan character when he simply takes one type of that character, fails to give due credit to the breadth of these our forefathers. There were two sides to Puritan character and the one was just as much Puritan as tlie other. Ralph Waldo was just as much the outcome of Puritanism as was Jonathan Edwards. They both sprang from the same peculiarities. One took a jog in one direction and one in the other; consequently we find running all through New England life, two sets of thought, two kinds of theology and two classes of men. Both classes are getting somewhat common now, all over the United States. You know they are trying a man in the City of New York to-day for uttering things that would have been considered very moderate statements by Ethan Allen. There is something of the romantic in the history of Ethan Allen. I presume that every New Englander here has read that somewhat imaginary picture of him in " The Green Mountain Boys," written by Daniel Pierce Thomp- son, if I'm not mistaken. A marvelous book, at least it seemed so to me when I was a boy. I remember this curious incident about that book that happened in my own neighbor- hood, in Northern Ohio : We had a gentleman there by the name of Andrews, who was a great reader. Up to the time he was forty years old he had contracted a great fondness for imaginative literature, works of romance. And there came along an Evangelist and a protracted meeting followed and Mr. Andrews joined the church. We all know how the good pastors and Puritanic people at that time regarded literature of that kind. Andrews announced to his family that no more novels were to be read in that family. He had a son, Lewis. The old gentleman at that time ran a saw mill by the help of the son. It was on a little stream which had no water except in the Spring and so the mill had to be kept busy when the water was high, and his father kept the mill going night and day, because when the summer months came, the water disap- peared and the mill stopped. But the young man was not quite obedient to his father ; having secured a copy of the 59 "Green Mountain Boys," he took it to the saw mill which was one of the old fashioned kind that run through the log very slowly. While the saw was cutting through the log, Lewis would read the novel. He worked until midnight, one night and then, upon leaving the mill, by accident left the novel on a bench and forgot to hide it as had been his custom. The father took charge of the mill at midnight and Lewis went to their home. About three or four o'clock in the morning, he was awakened by his mother who said. " Lewis, get up and go out to the mill ; something has happened to your father! " she said, " I have been listening and the mill has not been running for nearly two hours?" Lewis dressed and went out to the mill and there he found his regenerated parent leaning back against a post, reading that book in spite of all his recent resolves in that direction. {Laughter.^ Well, it is a good many years since I read the book but when I did read it, I remember, I did not blame Mr. Andrews for getting absorbed in the book, because it is simply a history of Ethan Allen with a few touches that are allowed to the imagination of people who write books and are not too much hampered by facts. The fact is, it does not make so much difference what a man believes in this world, as it does that he believes it with all his might. There may be a deal of error mixed up with a man's belief and yet he may get along tolerably well if he is only in dead earnest. Ethan Allen had that merit. As I get older, I have ceased to lay as much stress upon whether a person believes this or that notion, as I did in my younger days. I am coming to look more at results. To illustrate, I remember being called to lecture before a large audience in Pennsylvania. It was made up largely of Quaker women. I shall never forget the impression those faces made upon me as I looked into them. There was a purity about them, an excellence that I could not possibly forget and I have been carrying the memory of those faces as one would carry that wonderful picture " Angelus," from the time it occurred, with me down to the present time. I do not know just what the notions or beliefs of these Quaker women were; I do not know whether they were Hichsites or some other ites. But I know this — that any life, any belief that will speak out in the countenances of people, as the divine element shone out in the faces of those women, is good enough for any one to live by here in this wicked Vvorld. That is simply one way in which the Almighty writes the results of good actions in this life. We are unfortunate in not knowing what verdict would be given in reference to Ethan Allen about whom I am sup- posed to be talking to-night. Indeed, it is almost a matter of uncertainty whether his monument even marks the place where he was buried. Yet he had a marvelous history for a man who was reared among the unbroken forests as he was- You must remember that he was declared a felon by the Governor of the State M-here we stand to-night. He was indicted, and when the war of the Revolution broke out he came to Albany on a mission as a military man ; came to get permission to raise a regim.ent and help the Colonies. The good people of New York State at first refused to listen to him ; they thought it would not be safe to trust a man who was an outlaw. That is what they called him when he appeared before the legislative body of New York. However, he re- ceived authority to raise a company of militia, and then went on a secret mission to Canada, and while there volunteered to fight in the ranks, was captured, and for a long time was a prisoner in Great Britain. He did not get his commission from the Continental Congress until after his return, when he was commissioned a Colonel. He simply lived and died as one type of the New England man. It is the type that we meet with now-a-days too seldom. They are not as thick as I wish they were. He had a power of organization that I admire. I don't know that I exactly understand the Rev. Mr. Abbott's objection to individuality or individualism ; I am not hefty on philosophy, any way ; I somehow get tangled up over it always. {Laughter.) Yet I do like that kind of individualism which asserts itself, and always " gets there ! " 6t {Applause.) A kind of individualism that people recognize as belonging to natural leaders. I think that perhaps no man during the Revolution possessed more of that than Ethan Allen. He had the rugged virtues that naturally belong to the climate in which he was raised. The people of New England were apt to get a feeling that there is something that comes from blood, and so there is ; but there is about as much which comes from the climate as from blood. The nations of the world that raise great men are the nations that have to struggle to live themselves. You understand? The New England character differs largely, I admit, from the character of the people we were told about that settled in the South, There is a marked difference in their peculiarities, in their very make-up. The one is more volatile, more enthusiastic for the moment ; but when you come to staying qualities, then you want to get among the people where every day of their lives they have to be staying, where there is no let up. Of course, it is utterly impossible for a person who observes the growth of a country to tell exactly what we ought to do in this country in comparison with what they used to do in other countries. Our problem in the United States is entirely different from the problem in any other nation on the face of the globe. We have the Puritan element — no more of it than we need — but we have very little of it to-day in its purity. Our nation is a conglomeration of everything on the face of the earth. People have come in and intermingled until for a man to say he is of this type or that type requires an assurance that few men possess. And that is not all ; every once in awhile something crops out, and then one thinks that he belongs to the other type; don't you know? {LaugJiter.) All the good things belong to no one distinctive class of our people. We have a power of assimilation, however, that I think no other nation has ever before possessed. It is the real hope, I think, of this nation. It makes very little differ- ence what part of the old world the emigrant comes from, after we have ground him for two or three generations through 62 our mills, you can't tell what he was or where he started from» We pick him up and make him an American citizen. Yet I sympathize with the Reverend Bishop as to what we ought to do in order to carry out the great destiny of this nation. I am not quite sure that I should be quite as moderate in my efforts as he intimates; at least, I am willing to tackle this question and to go at it in earnest. I think we can now easily draw a line across four-fifths of the people that land here and conclude to let them stay away, right off ; quick! Mark, I admit that it is not in that broader sense that he brought out so clearly here, to-night, that I felt it tingle from the ends of my fingers, and yet it is in that broad sense which he calls the great work of humanity. But humanity, in order to reach its highest type, has always to be careful, and now and then shut itself up, for a little while anyhow, and do a little work of its own. Here is the trouble to-day. If we were getting a class of immigrants such as we used to get forty years ago in this country, T 'would say open the gates and let them come. But since I have been in these two large cities I have several times thought that you may need them here, but out West they don't need that kind of people. Here is the trouble. The tendency of that class of people is not to tone up our own civilization, and we ought to keep toning up, in- stead of down. You see the difference. I would restrict immigration to that class of people that wont drag us down ; that will not injure the civilization that we are developing here in the United States. {Great applause.) It is a difficult ques- tion to settle, however. It becomes a personal question, you know ; a man that I might think would drag me down, if I could get at his feelings, I might find that he thinks I would drag him down. But we are compelled to do the best we can ; and my idea is that one of the problems we have to meet here in this country, and meet it early, is a proposition to shut down the flood gates and to try and do for this country that which will develop the highest type of manhood right here in the United States of America. {Great applause.^ I would do it for the benefit of the whole world in the end. I would 63 do it upon this theory, that until we do do that I am afraid we can not show the rest of the world the possibilities that the human race is capable of reaching. After we have shown it, and when we get to being run mostly by giants over here, why then let the pigmies in again, if you please, but just now keep them out. Let us make of this nation the grandest nation on^the'face of the earth and let usdevelope the highest type of civilization known to the human family, right here, and develop it, too, for the rest of the world, so that they can see what the possibilities of humanity are, if they will only behave themselves and live properly. That is all I can say about emigration. I don't know that there is anything further about the char- acter of Ethan Allen that I can develop here. {Laughter.') Of course every New England man is proud of the New Eng- lander nearest to himself. You can get up quite a row between a man from New Hampshire and one from Massachusetts, both of them claiming Daniel Webster. The New Hamp- shire man will tell you that he got his strength and intellectual vigor, and everything that goes to make up a man, up in the hills of New Hampshire. But the Massachusetts man will tell you that he did not amount to very much till, they moulded him and brought him out. The fact is that he is the result of both New Hampshire and Massachusetts, and then he is the result of himself. He had a big start originally, that did not come from any particular type of Puritanism. He pos- sessed natural gifts very rare, that Nature grants to a man only once in a long while in this world ; not as often as we wish she did. I take it that Ethan Allen, because he was raised and lived right near the place where I was born, has special demands upon my admiration. These New England anniver- saries are getting to be great institutions. It is a good thing for people to get together who think alike and look back to the same ancestry and the same surroundings. And it is well for them, too, to devote every once in awhile in that way an evening to letting the world know just what excellent people we all are. Tliat is the great opportunity of a social gather- 64 ing of this kind. We are not expected to go into the faults of our ancestors on an occasion like this. We are expected to show the world why we should rejoice and why we get together and have a feast over our ancestors. And to do that it is necessary that we should remind the world of everything that we can think of that is all right, and then, as to the errors, keep as quiet as possible, don't you know ? {Laughter.) Consequently I propose to entirely skip certain elements of the Puritan's character, against which I have entered so many protests during my life, but in which there may be only a small grain of truth. Taken as a whole there is no use in trying to gainsay the fact that the old New Eng- land stock that is represented here to-night, and that so fills up every Northern State in this entire Union, for I have travelled through them all, from end to end — is as good ; I do not say it is the best, but I say that it is as good stock as you can find anywhere on the American continent. No doubt about it ! It has an element of integrity, an element of growth, an element of solidity about it that people may well envy, and we all have the right, and ought to try and imitate it. Let us rejoice that we belong to such a race of men. {Great ap- plause.) The Chairman : — The next toast is "THE CITY OF BROOKLYN," in which all take a deep interest. Brooklyn has always been fortunate in the selection of a Mayor and perhaps at no time more than the present, for the Mayor is not only a distinguished citizen, but a " Simon pure" New Englander by birth and education. I take pleasure in introducing to you the Hon. David A. Boody. ADDRESS OF HON. DAVID A. BOODY. Mr. President and Gentlemen : Some one witty in after dinner words has said : " The first thing that the early settlers of New England did was to fall upon their knees, and the next thing they did was to fall upon the Indians," and it might be added, that the third thing which they did was to fall upon the rest of the country ; they always liked the rest of the country well enough to stay. Following this line of thought and the channel of history I may be expected to say a word about the New Englander of Brooklyn. But in order to remove all apprehension I hasten to say that I shall not speak of all his falls after coming here. But, Mr. President who is this New Englander, the song of whose fame makes a constant melody in the New England ear? Who is this individual, ubiquitous, wise, patient, at least with himself? Who is this New Englander, maker of laws and customs, creator of standards of conduct, tireless inaction and invincible in will? To say that he is the product of one of the six Northeastern States does not answer the question. There can be nothing in the air of New England which pro- duces a nobility of thought different from that in other sec- tions. There can be nothing in the soil which produces strength of character not found elsewhere. It does not de- tract an iota from ail that the New Englander stands for, from the grand history which he has made, to enlarge the angle of our vision, to enroll a more extended map, to look upon both sides of the Atlantic, to trace those forces, those experiences, those principles, which created the New England character before his foot touched the New England shore. Where did theNew Englander gain his hardihood, his courage? Where did he learn habits of industry, of perseverance, if not in reclaiming from the sea that land which aptly has been called a cross between the ocean and the earth ? Where did he gain his love for country and national independence, if not in that eighty years war with the foremost military power of the age, th« 66 great Spanish empire foremost in Europe with rich possessions in America, Asia and Africa? Where did he obtain his love for religious liberty, if not in that terrible conflict in which Motley says that 50,000, and another historian says 100,000 lost their lives in givin g liberty to the human conscience ? Holland rocked the cradle of liberty before the Pilgrims stepped upon the deck of the Mayflower. In Holland we find his teacher, his exemplar, his protector, before he crossed the ocean. Here we find him gaining instruction in the art of government, with liberty and legal responsibility as the leading principles, before a single American colonial government had been formed. Here we find a devotion to the political prin- ciples which v/e cherish, which fairly anticipated our own Declaration of Independence. One of the grandest things which Massachusetts did in her early history was to declare in 1647 that every township containing fifty people shouM sustain a school where all the children could learn to read and write. And yet, a writer tells us that 100 years before that date it was difficult to find a child in Holland that could not read and write two languages. New England gave us the system of town meetings, making practical the principles of political freedom. And yet the charters of the grand old cities of Holland form models for these political structures. All honor to what New England has stood for : liberty, know- ledge, faith in God and respect for the nobility of manhood. All honor to those, also, who went before, .sowing the seed and defending it with blood and life, all honor to them no matter what their nationalit}'' or language or creed. The principles which the New Englander has stood for are not for locations, not for parties, not for nations ; they are for humanity, they are for the world — in honoring them we know no geographical limitations. The New Englander is the re- presentative of ideas and of principles which were fashioned in the terrible conflicts which preceded his own age. He stands before us as a type of character grandly fitted for the conflicts and the triumphs of life. He stands before us as a great propelling agency in the onward march of the race. But lam 6; getting away from Brooklyn, my theme. Well, the New Englander is here ; he is here fresh from the soil of New England ; here with her habits and her love of industry and knowledge, and he is here without ever having crossed to the border. He is here direct from the grand history of Holland. He is here bringing the principles which established the com- monwealth of England. He is here from the struggles for Irish liberty. He is here from the liberty loving struggles of many nations. He is here with another nationality behind, with another language upon his lips. He is a brother because he honors the same mother ; he is defending the same princi- ples ; he has drunk at the same fountains of inspiration. This view of the character which we honor to-night and the history which we celebrate will help us to carry along the work upon which their hands wrought. With this central sentiment before us to-night, it is difficult to keep down to any one loca- tion. Brooklyn may not have been aggressive in the past in a material sense ; she has not insisted upon those landmarks which denote commercial supremacy. She has allowed her commerce to be registered upon the other side of the river. She has permitted her financial operations to be cleared there. But she has been building up a wealth which no financial storm can destroy. She has been creating a greatness which no material shock can wreck. Brooklyn has laid her founda- tions strong in the purposes and in the virtues of home life. She is probably the most moral city of her size in the world. She is the most home loving city in our land. Her sentiments, whether religious, or political, or educational, Care honored everywhere. She is one of the youngest of the great cities upon the Atlantic coast. She was a village fifty-eight years ago. There are those living among us who knew her then. She has possibilities based upon location and habits and sen- timents which no other city has. She is assuming a rank in education which honors her and the nation. Her high school buildings are without rivals in capacity and appointment. , In commanding thought she has stood behind no other city in our land. Here Beecher taught the grand sentiments of 68 fiberty and common humanity. Here Storrs has given us the student's research and the oratory of the classical scholar. Here Talmage gives to the wings of the morning his pictu- resque and eloquent discourses, and they fly around the world. Here the judges' ermine has never been tarnished. Here philanthropy has given us a Pratt's institute. Here are the Young Men's Christian Association and the Young Women's Christian Association, v/ith buildings unsurpassed by any like institutions in the world. Here steps have already been taken to build up the Brooklyn Institute, which is destined to be the most complete educational institution in the country for the masses. Here is a city just stepping into her greatness, with the lines of youth still upon her, a greatness which is not reflected, which is not transient, which is not accidental, which is not wholly material. The sentiments which she most earnestly cherishes may not have a commercial character or value, but they are such as give character to her people and strength to her institutions. Considering the advantages which she furnishes, Brooklyn is one of the cheapest cities in the world in which to live. The conditions which have checked the increase in her wealth have given her large equivalents instead. Those conditions, how- ever, are passing away. The science of our times, the enter- prise and wealth of our age, are destined to do more for Brooklyn in the immediate future than for any other city on the Atlantic coast. We have seen what one bridge can do. Brido-es will multiply ; tunnels will supplement them. These facilities in transportation are destined, I believe, to produce such a change in trade and commerce as we little dream of to-day. Long Island is greater than Manhattan Island. I would not, however, indulge in any comparison which might seem to disparage other cities. I am proud of the City of New York, giant of the Western v/orld, large in sentiment and deed. I am proud of Chicago, marvel of enterprise and growth. I am proud of Boston, conservator of knowledge. I am proud of every part of our country v/hich illustrates the vigor of our nation and which has helped in any way to adorn our history. 69 I have no patience with that sentiment which teaches that the way to rise is by pulling others down , that we can gain strength only by making others weak. With the strength and power which is before Brooklyn she can advance with her hands locked in friendship with the hands of her sister cities. Let up appreciate our position. Let us be faithful in our duties and loyal in our sentiments. Let us believe in our city because she deserves it and because she is ours. Let us honor her before men and honor the men who honor her. Let us say to all who labor to promote her welfare and her greatness, just as we are saying to our Stranahans and just as we should say to them, " Well done, good and faithful citizens." Let the work of the fifty-eight years during which our city has existed remind us of what she must become when greater years are added to her age. Let us appreciate the grand opportunities and the serious obligations which are centering in and crowding upon modern municipal life. The exercises was brought to a close by the singing of the Doxology : " Praise God from whom all blessings floW;, Praise Him all creatures here below, Praise Him above, ye heavenly host, Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." SPECIAL MEETING. A meeting of members and their families and friends was held in the Art Rooms in Montague street, on the 19th day of April, 1892. There was a large attendance. Mr. William H. Smith kindly led the audience in singing the hymn "America." Rev. H. L. Wayland, D. D., of Philadelphia, delivered an in- teresting and able address, after which Mrs. Oliver Campbell- Schafer delighted the audience by singing two pieces of music appropriate to the occasion. This was followed by a short and very acceptable address from Hon. Roswell G. Horr, who in his own unique style discussed some aspects of New England life and character. The refreshments, served by Maresi at 9.30 o'clock, were abundant and satisfactory. The audience seemed much pleased with the entertainment and many expressed the wish that such a meeting might be held every year. ADDRESS OF REV. DR. WAYLAND, ON " PURITANISM." Mr. Pres'ident and Fellow Exiles from the pleasant land where it is spring by the almanac, and where the sun feebly, futilely tries to make an impression on the snow-drifts of Jan- uary, — The topic assigned me on the programme is no doubt much better than that which I had in my mind; but it is not exactly the same. I had purposed, (in case I should unfortun- ately be called upon for a few words) to speak briefly upon " The Triumph of Essential Puritanism; " for there is a Puri- tanism that is essential, and one that is incidental. Modes of 71 speech, tones, phrases, observances — fish balls and brown bread of a Sunday morning, Indian pudding, baked pork and beans (now, I believe, called in the restaurants, " Boston and Chicago Limited ''), these are incidental. Dress is incidental; though here Puritanism has triumphed in the usage of all civilized peo- ple. Everybody except fops and barbarians, is a Roundhead. If a man should walk down Hicks street, dressed in Puritan garb, his hair neatly trimmed, with clothes of sober hue, men would say: "A quaint old gentleman and old-fashioned, but very respectable.'' But if a Cavalier should go through your streets, with curled lovelocks dangling down to his waist, dressed in all manner of parti-colored taffetas, swearing strange, outlandish oaths, you would say: "A fantastic old fool! I wonder from what asylum he has escaped. They are culpably careless at Bloomingdale and Flatbush about letting these peo- ple go at large." Persecution was incidental ; it belonged to the age, and was presently outgrown. Men talk as though persecution was a monopoly enjoyed by the Puritans, as though no one ever suffered for his faith either before or after Baptists were flog^red and Quakers hanged in Massachusetts, If any of your neigh- bors try to harrow your feelings by bringing up these memories, you will naturally remind them of John Bowne, of Flushings who, in 1662, nearly thirty years after the banishment of Roger Williams, was arrested by Gov. Stuyvesant and the Council for the crime of having allowed his wife to have a Friends' meeting in the house, and who, after being kept in prison on bread and water, was sent in irons to Amsterdam. The burning of witches was incidental ; it belonged to the times. What, then, were the essentials ? Chief of all, a regard for righteousness, a belief that there is a right, and that there is a wrong; that certain things are right and that certain things are wrong, and that, while guilt may vary with circumstances, right is always right, and wrong is always wrong. They held to uprightness in life, in manners, in government. Their very name, given them in contempt and sarcasm, is a decoration. y2 They had none of that notion, begotten of less robilst times, that the one moral requisite is an easy good-nature. They believed that right deserves protection and reward, and that wrong deserves punishment. They had not the disposi- tion which would let infamous wrong go unchecked and unre- buked for a series of years, and reserve all its indignation for the methods which some man, raised up of God, might take to expose and uproot them. It is wonderful sometimes what a jealousy there is in un- expected quarters for the honor of religion. When a clergy- man, in fulfillment of his convictions of duty as a guardian of morality, and as president of a society for the suppression of vice, at his own charges, provides the police with evidence which they — guileless men — were unable to secure, then every saloon, every gambling hell, every house of prostitution, echoes with agonized cries and lamentations over the lowering of the standard of ministerial dignity; " Not that we disapprove of his object; oh, no! this, no doubt, was excellent; not that we impugn his motives; these, unquestionably, were of the best. But, oh! his methods were so unprofessional. Now, what he should have done was to drop a postal card to the head of each of these establishments, asking, "Will you kindly inform me if you are in the rum and prostitution business, and what is the number of your inmates, and what is their age and nativity, and what Sunday-school they attend, and what is your average daily number of patrons? Doyoupaythe policeman a fixed sum or a pro rata?" That would have been unexceptionable, strictly ministerial. The Puritans did not feel that it was for the criminal to select the method of his own detection. They might have anticipated (for they were not averse to a bit of grim humor) the words of Sydney Smith, used a century or two later: " It is not the practice with the destroyers of vermin to allow the little victims a veto upon the weapons used against them. Otherwise, we should have one set of vermin banishing small tooth combs ; another, protesting against mouse traps ; a third, prohibiting the finger and thumb ; a fourth, exclaiming 73 against the intolerable infamy of using soap and water. It is impossible, however, to listen to such pleas. They must all be caught, killed, and cracked in the manner and by the instru- ments which are found most efficacious to their destruction; and the more they cry out, the greater plainly is the skill used against them." And they would have felt that, if all this applies to the smaller crimes and nuisances, it applies much more to the greater, which eat out the very life and soul of nations. They had no respect of persons. If the offender were an carl or a duke or an archbishop ; nay, even if he were " that man of blood, Charles Stuart," they would bring him to justice as quickly as the meanest of his servants. " If 1 should meet the king in battle, "said the typical Puritan, " I would as lieve fire my pistol against, him as against any one else." In their eyes, success did not condone crime. They did not feel that because a man had stolen a great deal, he had thereby become a financier and was entitled to great deference at the hands of the court, or that, because a man had murdered a great many, therefore he merited a throne. This love of righteousness came from the fact that they believed something. And what they believed they believed with all their soul. They would peril everything upon it. You say, perhaps, that this intensity of belief made them nar- row. Perhaps it did. They had none of that breadth and lib- erality which consists in not knowing what you believe, except that you believe what you don't believe a great deal more strongly than you do what you do believe. They were not of those whose doubting is gigantic, whose believing is pigmy, who doubt with both hands, while they do not believe with so much as one of their fingers. Say they were narrow ; well, a scimi- ter is narrow, but it goes through. A certain narrowness is a condition of force. The Niagara River is narrow. Widen it fifty miles, and what have you ? This love of righteousness, this intenseness of belief, forced them sometimes to differ from their fellows, to stand alone. One of the essentials was individualism. They had to believe 74 for themselves, to act for themselves. They realized that the most serious of all relations are those which concern each man individually, and his God. They knew that, if they had the misfortune to mis-read the guide board to heaven, and if they should hereafter find themselves unpleasantly situated, there was no one to buy them out or to pray them out. They did not look to the king for a religion, though, indeed, James, or Charles, or any of the Stuarts, might have given them all the religion he had, without laying them under an embarrassing obligation. It was because of this individualism, in part, that they were serious. Life is a very solemn thing for a man who must bear its burdens himself. Those who believe that the priest or the king will pull them through, somehow, if they only shut their eyes and pay their taxes, may perhaps to be afford jocund, to dance and sing, but to the Puritans life did not come in that way. No doubt the strength of their individual convictions ren- dered them sometimes unpleasant companions. An amiable man agrees with every one. The man who has ideas of his own is pragmatical, opinionated, dogmatic. He would make no show at all in running for office, any more than if he were candidate for Mayor of Ne'A'- York, and were actually born upon the soil, and his great-great-grandfather came over in the ''Mayflower ' and his great-great grandmother in the ''Half Moon " Not, however, that this individualism made them selfishly forgetful of the welfare of others; for another essential of Puri- tanism was public spirit, a sinking of personal interests for the general good. They thought that the safety, that the liber- ties, that the rights of the Englishmen were worth taking some trouble about. They would not have suffered them- selves to be dominated and over ridden by monopolies and corporations and the saloon and corrupt politicians, because of a selfish indolence that would not take the pains to protect or to act. But it was not alone the welfare of his own country with which the Puritan felt himself charged. He realized that 75 he was neighbor to the human race. I do not know a prouder day in the history of the English people than that on which the great Protector, through Milton, his secretary, said to the Duke of Piedmont and to the Pope of Rome: ^'Unless this persecution of the Albigenses stop, the English ships will be seen at Civita Vecchia, and the English guns will be heard among your hills." That was a Lord Protector worthy of the name. A few years ago I saw down in Kent what the posses or treasures, and I believe with reason, as the head of Oliver Cromwell. Under the orders of the " Merry Monarch,'' the body of Oliver was dug up by men who had not dared to look in his face, living ; the head was severed from the trunk by the headsman's axe, and was stuck up on a pike over West- minster Hall. In time the pike rotted off, and the head fell to the ground. It was secreted, and in the course of events, it came into the hands of its present possessor. It is believed that the body was built into the walls of a mansion in York- shire, so that it might be secured from further outrage. I think the time will come when the people of Great Britain will gather from every quarter the relics of the Protector, and will bury them with more than royal honors, in one of the high places of the nation, and will erect over them a monument which shall tell coming ages of the immortal fame of the greatest man that ever trod the soil of England, of the man who made his country safe at home and honored abroad ; whose name was a defense to the humblest saint in the re- motest recesses of Europe. Was there not in all this a proph- ecy? Has Providence given to England and America, to the English-speaking race, a primacy among the nations, that they may selfishly enjoy their wealth and power and predom- inance ? Shall not the time come when this race, possessing in common the memories of Runnymede and the Common- wealth, and of the Declaration of Independence, and of Get- tysburg, shall utter its protest against every great wrong, whether inflicted by a stronger nation upon a weaker, or by an absolute monarch and a dominant church upon the mem- 76 bers of a proscribed race, and the professors of an unpopular creed — a protest strong, because it is just, and because it has behind it an irresistible force ? These men had faith in the distant and unseen ; God was a reality. They believed in the coming human race, compared with whom the England and America of their day was incon- siderable. They reckoned that there were interests not visible to the eye, and that bigness was not greatness. They real- ized that, as a later Puritan, Mr. Lowell, has said : '* On a map of the world, you may cover Judea with your thumb, and Athens v.'ith a finger-tip; neither of them figures in the Prices Current; but they still rule in the thought and action of every civilized man." These men had the Anglo-Saxon desire for what is practi- cal. They were far removed from the Irish patriots of whom it was said, " They don't know what they want, and they are determined to have it.'' They knew what they wanted, and they took the surest means toward it. They did not care for names or theories; they wanted results. They wanted the in- stitutions t'.at were best fitted to give liberty and justice to the Englishmen and the Americans of their day. They were in earnest; and they achieved. The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Baltimore, who can hardly be supposed to have spoken under an undue bias, has said of the men who settled New England, "They had the faults which spring from intellectual narrowness and religious prejudice; but, when I consider their qualities, I know not where to find such men to- day. To them we owe mucli of what is best in our lives." Essential Puritanism has greatly triumphed; and its tri- umphs have been, without drawback or allowance, for the benefit of the human race. Lay down the map of America, lay down the map of the world, and mark the places where life is most safe and rich, where civilization is the highest, where liberty is most jealously prized, where woman is most honored ; then mark the places where Puritanism is most predominant, and see if the two are not identical. You will agree with me that the one thing that is needed in all our great cities, where 77 now misgoverament and dishonesty and ignorance and degra- dation hold carnival, is an infusion of Puritanism. A generation ago Puritanism in America roused itself, first to restrict, and then to annihilate, an institution that was an offense to God and a crime against humanity. After it had made up its mind, the issue was sure. One of these days Puritanism will again arouse itself to annihilate the saloon and all the allied enemies to civilization. Nor will the issue be different. In England, it is Puritanism which rules the century. It was Puritanism that created the Nonconformist conscience with which every English statesman has to reckon. When Lord Beaconsfield could see nothing worthy of his attention in the ravageri villages of Bulgaria, where the unspeakable Turk was murdering, impaling, ravishing, then the Noncon- formist conscience came to the fore, and put in his place that Puritan statesman at whose triumph the Christians of Bul- garia crowded their churches, rendering thanks that now, at last, heaven gave them a promise of existence and of liberty. A few weeks ago, there passed through South London a funeral procession such as London had never seen. The shops, even the public houses, were closed, and not seldom draped in black ; on either side of the streets, for five miles, crowds stood in the rain, uncovered. It was a plain man that they were carrying to his grave, a Nonconformist minister, with no title, with no social station, with no honors from the universities ; he was a Puritan in his descent, in his theology, in his life, in his speech, in his bravery, in his outspoken love of righteousness. And this Puritan they buried with the burial of a king. France exiled and massacred her Puritans, and left in the kingdom only an ignorant and debased peasantry, and an im- becile and cowardly nobility and priesthood ; and, when the time of trial came, there was no wise, cautious, strong middle class to guide the inevitable revolution to a safe, if not a bloodless, conclusion. But to day the workingmen of France are crying out for a day of rest, for the Puritan Sabbath ; and 78 lour years ago the people of France erected, in the centre of the brilliant capital, a statue of the immortal, the murdered Coligny, a tardy recognition of the chief of the French Puri- tans. In Russia, desolated by starvation, oppressed by an irre- sponsible autocrat, and by an aristocracy dissolute, merciless, one figure stands erect, the centre of gratitude and hope ; the figure of a man who, in the simplicity and uprightness of his life, in his perhaps narrow interpretation of the Scripture, and in his enlarged public spirit and unwearied benevolence, may well be called the Puritan of Muscovy. And, wherever man shall attain to his highest elevation and happiness anywhere on earth, it will be along the lines of essential Puritanism. But why go abroad for exemplars of Puritanism, when your own city has furnished them so richly ? One of your citizens whom you have given to be the teacher of the young men of the neighboring metropolis, himself descended from a Puritan line down in old Salem, re-discovered among you the lost art of honesty in politics and uprightness in administra- tion. Another whom I may venture to call the foremost of your citizens, also a son of Massachusetts, of Puritan ances- try, illustrates the fact that steadfastness and definiteness of faith is not at variance with the most generous culture. As President of the greatest missionary organization in America, he has brought order out of confusion, harmony out of discord, hope out of despondency. Long may he continue to dignify the position which he now honors as minister of the Church of the Pilgrims. PROCEEDINGS Fourteenth Annual Meeting FOURTEENTH ANNUAL FESTIVAL THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY IN THE CITY OF BROOKLYN. OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, COUNCIL, MEMBERS, STANDING COMMITTEES, AND BY-LAWS OF THE SOCIETY. BROOKLYN. 1894. Press of Eagle Book Printing Department, Brooklyn, N. Y. CONTENTS Objects of the Society, ------- 5 Terms of Membership, ------ 5 Past Officers, ------ - - 6 Officers, --------- 7 Directors, --------- 8 Council, --------- 8 Standing Committees, ------- 9 Report of Fourteenth Annual Meeting, - - - - 11 Proceedings at the Fourteenth Annual Dinner, - - - 22 Bill of Fare, -------- 25 Address of President Robert D. Benedict, - - - - 26 Hon. Joseph H. Choate, ----- 31 Rev. Richard S. StoiTs, D. D., ... 39 Frederic Taylor, Esq., - - - - - 46 Hon. David A. Boody. ----- 52 Professor H. B. Sprague, - - - - - 5S Certificate of Incorporation, ------ 76 By-Laws, - 79 Honorary Members, ------- 85 Life Members, .-.-.--- 85 Annual Members, ------- 86 Meetings of Society, .------92 Form of Bequest, ------- 92 OBJECTS OF THE SOCIETY. The New England Society in the City of Brooklyn is incorporated and organized to comniemorate the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers ; to encourage the study of New England History ; to establish a library, and to promote charity, good fellowship and social intercourse among its mem- bers. TERMS OF MEMBERSHIP. Admission Fee, ----- $10.00 Annual Dues, ------ 5.00 Life Membership, besides Advn'sswii Fee, - - 50.00 Payable at Election, except Aiiiutal Dues, wkich are payable in Jamiary of each year. Any member of the Society in good standing may become a Life Mem- ber on paying to the Treasurer at one time the sum of fifty dollai's ; and there- after such member shall be exempt from further payment of dues. Any male person of good moral character, who is a native or a descend- ant of a native of any of the New England States, and who is eighteen years old or more, is eligible. If in the judgment of the Board of Directors they are in need of it, the widow or children of any deceased member shall receive from the funds of the Society a sum equal to five times the amount such deceased member has paid to the Society. The friends of a deceased member are requested to give the Historio- grapher early information of the time and place of his birth and death, with brief incidents of his life, for publication in our annual report. Mem- bers who change their addresses should give the Secretary early notice. C-^ It is desirable to have all worthy gentlemen of New England descent residing in Brooklyn become members of the Society. Members are re- quested to send application of their friends for membership to the Secretary. Address, THOMAS S. MOORE, Recording Secretary, 32 Liberty Street, New York. PAST OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY. PRESIDENTS. BENJAMIN D. SILLIMAN. ...... 1880 JOHN WINSLOW, ....... 1S87 CALVIN E. PRATT, . . . . • . .1889 WILLARD BARTLETT, ..... 1890 CALVIN E. PRATT, . . . . . . .1891 TREASURERS. WILLIAM B. KENDALL, . . . . . .1880 CHARLES N. MANCHESTER 1890 WILLIAM G. CREAMER, ...... 1892 RECORDING SECRETARIES. ALBERT E. LAMB, ....... 1880 STEPHEN B. NOYES, ...... 1885 CORRESPONDING SECRETARY. Rev. a. p. PUTNAM, D. D., . . . . 1S80 HISTORIOGRAPHERS. ALDEN J. SPOONER. ...... 1S80 STEPHEN B. NOYES 1884 PAUL L. FORD, 1S88 LIBRARIANS. Rev. W. H. WHITTEMORE, ..... 1880 CHARLES E. WEST, ... . . 1886 OFFICERS 1894. President : ROBERT D. BENEDICT. First Vice-President : Second Vice-President : HENRY W. SLOCUM. GEORGE M. OLCOTT. Treasurer : FRANKLIN W. HOOPER. Recordi)ig Secretary : Corresponding Secretary : THOMAS S. MOORE. WILLIAM H. WILLIAMS. Librarian : WILLIAM H. INGERSOLL. Historiographer : W. A. BARDWELL. DIRECTORS. For One Year. Benjamin F. Tracy, Frkderic A. Ward, Henry W. Slocum, William G. Creamer. Nelson G. Carman, Jr. For T7V0 Years. Benjamin D. Silliman, Hiram W. Hunt, George H. Fisher, William H. Williams, George B. Abbott, For Three Years. Thomas S. Moore, Flamen B. Candler, A. C. Barnes, Joseph A. Burr, Jr., Franklin W. Hooper. For Four Years. Calvin E. Pratt, John Winslow, Henry W. Maxwell, Robert D. Benedict. William B. Davenport. COUNCIL. A. Augustus Low, , A. M. White, S. B. Chittenden, A. F. Cross, H. L. Bridgman, Charles W. Pratt, N. H. Clement, Arthur Mathewson, W. H. Nichols, Francis L. Hine, Seth Low, Isaac H. Cary, C. C. Dikp:, W. A. White, Darwin R. James, John Claflin, J. S. T. Stranahan, L. S. Burnham, Henry Earl, Jasper W. Gilbert, M. N. Packard, Edwin F. Knowlton, Augustus Van Wyck, W. D. Wade, Jesse Johnson. STANDING COMMITTEES. Finance : Joseph A. Burr, Jr., Robert D. Benedict, Henry W. Maxwell. Charity : Benjamin F. Tracy, Henry W. Slocum, Frederic A. Ward. Invitations : The President, Benj. D. Silliman, John Winslow. Annual Dinner : William P. Davenport, William H. Williams. Joseph A. Burr, Jr. Publications : Nelson G. Carman, Jr., William G. Creamer. Frederic A. Ward. Annual Receptions : President and Vice-Presidents. THE FOURTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. The Fourteenth Annual Meeting of the New ENGLAND Society in the City of Brooklyn was held in the Directors' room at the Academy of Music, on Wednesday evening, December 6th, 1893. The meeting was called to order by Mr. Robert D. Bene- dict, President of the Society, and in the absence of the Recording Secretary, Mr. Joseph A. Burr was elected Secre- tary pro tcvi. The minutes of the Thirteenth Annual Meeting held December 7th, 1892, were read and approved. Reports of committees being called for, the Committee on Finance, through Mr. Joseph A. Burr, reported that the accounts of the Treasurer in June had been audited, and the November accounts had been referred to them, but had not yet been examined and audited. The Committee on Charity, through Mr. Frederic A. Ward, reported that no disbursements had been made. The Committee on Invitations, through the President, made a verbal report as to the speakers who would probably attend the annual dinner. The Dinner Committee, through Mr. Joseph A. Burr, reported progress. The report of the Treasurer was received and referred to the Finance Committee. It showed a balance on hand of $22,672.19, deposited as follows: Franklin Trust Company $22,000 00 Cash deposited in Nassau National Bank 637 19 Checks in the hands of the Treasurer 35 00 Total $22,672 19 The annual report of the President was then read. IT THE ANNUAL REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT. Members of the Neiv England Society: — In accordance with the requirement of our By-Laws, I am to make a re- port to you of such matters as I deem of interest and im- portance. The financial condition of the Society has still farther improved during the year. Our Treasurer's Report shows a balance on hand of $22,672.19, being an increase over last year's balance of $1,408.26. Our list of members also shows an increase during the year. The report of our Historiographer gives brief sketches of nine members lost to us by death. They are as follows : Hon. Rutherford B. Hayes, Abiel Abbot Low, Capt. Elihu Spicer, Henry Coffin, John F. Henry, James S. Noyes, James R. Allaben, Philander K. Shaw and Daniel Lewis Northup. Sketches of their lives, prepared by the Historiographer, are appended to this report and make a part thereof. It is noticeable that one of them was an ex-President of the United States, Rutherford B. Hayes, who was one of our Honorary members. Mr. Bardwell, our Historiographer, informs me the sketches have, in every case but that of Hon. Rutherford B. Hayes, been submitted to relatives of the deceased for criti- cism and correction, so that they may be believed to contain only correct statements. The subject of increasing our membership and filling up the gaps in our roll which death is continually making, and must naturally increase, has occupied the thoughts of the Board of Directors, and some measures to that end have been adopted. It seems to me that it would be a desirable thing if we had in this City of Brooklyn a society building, in which the vari- ous societies of similar purpose to our own might find head- quarters, in which there should be a suitable hall for such meetings as any of them should desire to hold, and rooms in which to preserve the various objects of interest which would 12 surely begin to be gathered together by those societies, if such headquarters were once established. I took occasion at the dinner of the St. Patrick Society last spring, at which I was requested to speak for sister socie- ties, to make this suggestion ; and I am sure from the favor with which the suggestion was received that if some plan could be formulated and pressed to execution for that purpose, it would receive sympathy and help from the membership of every one of the sister societies of Brooklyn. Probably we could not legally employ any of the funds of our Society to aid in the construction of such a building. But if such a building were once in existence we have the means of making the rooms of the New England Society an attraction and a source of pride to all our members. I commend the subject to the earn- est consideration of the members of the New England Society, and hope that my suggestion may be a seed from which shall in the future come forth some goodly plant. All of which is respectfully submitted. Robert D. Benedict, President. Dated December 6, 1893. The biographical sketches referred to are as follows : Hon. Rutherford Birchard Hayes, nineteenth President of the United States, was born at Delaware, Ohio, October 4, 1S22. In his earher profes- sional career he practised as an attorney in the Ohio courts, and after 1849 at Cincinnati. In the Civil War he greatly distinguished himself, more particu- larly at the battles of Fisher's Hill and Cedar Creek, Virginia. At the end of 1865 he took his seat in Congress as a Republican, denounced repudiation of the national debt, and opposed increased pay to members. In 1867 he was elected Governor of Ohio, and was re-elected two years later, but was an unsuccessful candidate for Congress in 1S72. Reluctantly he again, in 1873, became a candidate for the Governorship, and carried the election on the issues of secular education and "honest money." In 1876 he was elected President in opposition to Samuel J. Tilden, on the platform of civil service reform, the currency, and pacification of the South. He was successful in carrying out the last, but on the other points met with much opposition. In 1879 he vetoed the Chinese Immigration Bill, and also that to prohibit military interference at elections. Mr. Hayes was an honorary member of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn. He died on January 17, 1S93. 13 Abiel Abbot Low died at his home, No. 3 Pierrepont place, on Satur- day morning, January 7, 1S93. By his death Brooklyn has been deprived of one of her foremost citizens, and one who was a familiar figure in the life of the city for more than half a century. He witnessed the development of this city from very small beginnings to its present magnificent proportions, and has constantly contributed in many important ways to its growth. Mr. Low's life was a continual example of industry, enterprise, sound judgment, recti- tude and Christian charity. His career was remarkakle in many respects and worthy of emulation by young men of this generation. He will be remembered with a respect and an affection, which form the fortunate record of few men. Mr. Low's native place was Salem, Mass., where he was born on the 7th of February, 181 1. His parents were Seth and Mary Low. As a boy he attended the public schools, and at the age of 14 became a clerk in the mer- cantile firm of Joseph Howard & Co., of Salem, Mass., remaining there for several years and becoming familiar with the South American trade. His family in the meantime removed to Brooklyn, Mr. Low following in 1S29. The parents of Mr. Low located on Nassau street, then one of the most fash- ionable neighborhoods in the city. Later they removed to Concord street, owning and living in the house now occupied by the Brooklyn Maternity. In 1833 Mr. Low went to Canton, China, where he remained for years engaged in the tea trade. On his return he pursued the same business here, establish- ing the famous house of A. A. Low & Bro.; afterwards E. H. R. Lyman, his brother-in-law, became a partner in 1S52. In 1 84 1 Mr. Low married Ellen Almira Dow, the youngest daughter of Josiah Dow of this city. The young couple began housekeeping on Wash- ington street, between Concord and Nassau streets, at which place four chil- dren were bom to them. Mrs. Low died in 1850, and in 1S52 Mr. Low mar- ried Mrs. Ann D. B. Low, the widow of his brother, William H. Low, and a daughter of Mr. Mott Bedell, of Brooklyn. Mr. William G. Low was the only child of William H. and Ann D. B. Low. Two sons, Mr. A. Augustus Low, and Hon. Seth Low, President of Columbia College, and ex-Mayor of Brooklyn, and two daughters, Hamette and Ellen, the latter the wife of Henry E. Pierrepont, were the children of the first marriage. The last two are dead. When Washington street became a business thoroughfare Mr. Low erected the house at the foot of Montague street on Columbia Heights, where he lived for thirty-six years. In 1S66 Mr. Low, with Mrs. Low, and his son A. Augustus Low, sailed for San Francisco, and went from there to China. On his return from his visit abroad he was tendered a banquet by the representative business men of New York. Mr. Low was one of the best informed men in the city concerning historical biography. He read the lives of famous men and read them very closely, deriving a vast fund of informa- tion from this source. By reading the lives of the Governors of India he acquired an extraordi- nary knowledge of the conditions of the East India trade. 14 Mr. Low was identified with many of the leading financial institutions of the city, and was the organizer of the Nassau Fire Insurance Company thirty years ago. He built the Hamilton Building on Court street thirty-five years ago, and more recently the Garfield Building, Court and Remsen streets, and the Franklin Building on Remsen street. Those who invested money in the institutions with which Mr. Low was connected were almost sure of good results. Mr. Low was a life member of the New England Society from iS8o. He was a director of the Long Island Historical Society, a permanent member and patron of the Brooklyn Library, one of the largest contributors to the City Hospital, the Society for Improving the Condition of the Poor, the Union for Christian Work, the Bureau of Charities, and many other societies ; also he was a trustee of Greenwood Cemetery. His name has always been identi- fied with every movement that had for its object the improvement of the city he loved and in which he took the deepest interest. In all public matters he took a leading part, and as a contributor to the various religious and chari- table institutions none was more generous or unostentatious. Mr. Low often took part as a speaker on public occasions when affairs relating to the interests of the State and Nation, to finance and other import- ant business matters were discussed, and was always listened to with marked attention. His opinions on most questions had much influence. During the Civil War Mr. Low's loyalty and patriotism were greatly appreciated. He was an active member of the Union Defense Committee, and did good work for that cause. He gave his time, money and influence in assisting the great Sanitary Fair, which resulted in the raising of $400,000. He also served on the Citizens' Committee during the cholera epidemic of 1S64. Although active in public affairs Mr. Low never accepted any political office. He was a member of the Chamber of Commerce of New York city, and served eight years as its President. Mr. Low was especially interested in the Packer Institute, and was one of the founders of this prominent Brooklyn institution. On the death of his father in 1S51 he was chosen as his successor to its presidency, and served continuously thereafter in this capacity until his death, being annually re-elected. He was chairman of the Committee on Instruction, and gave constant attention to the organization of the work, keep- ing the Institute in the van of schools of its kind. Mr. Low kept himself at all times thoroughly informed about the Packer, inspecting its records and books, and frequently appearing at the morning service in the chapel. He was constantly on the lookout for some one needing his assistance. To such he was a generous and, usually, an unknown friend. Mr. Low was a Unitarian, and one of the founders of the Church of the Saviour. One of his nearest and dearest friends was the late Rev. Dr. Farley, the pastor of this church. His children are, however, known as Episcopali- ans, and Mr. Low's attitude towards that church is indicated by the fact that he built St. Phoebe's Mission, and gave it to the St. Phoebe Society as a memorial of his daughter, Harriette, who belonged to the Society before she died. 15 The funeral services were conducted by Rev. Dr. A. P. Putnam and Rev. Dr. Charles H. Hall in the Church of the Saviour on January loth, and were of the simplest character. There were present the Mayor, a delegation from the New York Chamber of Commerce, and many prominent citizens of Brooklyn. The interment was in the family lot in Greenwood. Captain Elihu Spicer, a member of the New England Society since iSSo, died at his residence, 7 South Oxford street, Brooklyn, February 15, 1893. He was born in Noank, Conn., April, 1S25. Descended from a race of seamen he instinctively adopted the profession of a sailor. From cabin boy on a coaster he gradually rose to the com- mand of ships that during the prosperous times of the American marine were engaged in the East India, China and Pacific trades. He experienced all the vicissitudes of a sailor's lot, including shipwrecks and other dangers, and made an enviable record for fast and prosperous voyages to San Fran- cisco in the 50's, when trade to that port was carried on by American clipper ships. When the war of the rebellion broke out he became a captain of government transports, one of his own steamships, the Victor, being one of his commands. Captain Spicer formed at the close of the war a partnership with another sea captain, Charles H. Mallory, under the firm name of Charles H. Mallory & Co., the firm running a line of ships to the Gulf ports, chiefly to Galveston, Texas. The sailing ships of the time were soon exchanged for steamships, and their trade developed rapidly. After the death of Mr. Charles H. Mallory, Captain Spicer became the head of the firm, and was seldom absent from his place at Pier 20, East River, during business hours. As good a business man as he had been sailor he made money rapidly, his estate at the time of his death being valued at $1,350,000. Besides pro- viding for surviving I'elatives, liberal bequests were made for various philan- thropic and educational purposes — $5,000 to the town of Groton, Conn., for the maintenance of the farm and buildings there known as the Spicer Home ; fio.ooo to the schools of Noank, Conn. ; $20,000 for the establishment of a Circulating Library at Mystic, Conn. ; $10,000 to the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, in addition to $25,000 previously given that institution for library pu:-poses. Captain Spicer was of an even and genial disposition, and was beloved alike by old and young among the members of the Brooklyn and Hamilton Clubs, to which he belonged. His dislike of any public parade of his liber- ality was marked. Reserved concerning himself he had a gi'eat fund of sympathy for others. A man of self-culture and innate refinement he loved beautiful things and surrounded himself with them. He was a good judge of paintings, and his house at Mystic, Conn., bears abundant evidence of a highly cultivated taste. Captain Spicer was mamed in 1852 to Miss Mary Dudley, of Mystic, who died October 14, 1871. His only son, Uriah Dudley Spencer, died in 1877. Funeral services were held at his late residence, and the interment was at Mystic. i6 Henry Cofkin, a life member of the New England Society since 1880, died March 18, 1893. He was a descendant of Tristram Coffin of Nantucket, and on his mother's side of Maria Mitchell ; and was born at Athens, N. Y., March 9, 1S19. Mr. Coffin was educated at Athens and at Hudson, N. Y. While yet quite young he took up his residence at Poughkeepsie, N. Y., where he mar- ried a daughter of Dr. Sturgis Phinny of that city. Some twelve years after- ward his wife died, leaving a daughter and a son. In 1864 Mr. Coffin came to Brooklyn, and in 1867 he married a daughter of Henry Everit, who survives him, Mr. Coffin entered upon his business life as a clerk in the Poughkeepsie Bank. Later he formed a co-partnership with C. A. Van Valkenburgh as wholesale dealers in drugs and chemicals, under the firm name of Van Valkenburgh & Coffin. He withdrew from that firm in 1862, and soon after coming to Brooklyn, joined Mr. Junius Gridley in forming the firm of Gridley & Coffin, commission merchants and dealers in drugs, etc. About fifteen years ago Mr. Coffin retired from active mercantile life, and he has since been identified \\dth the Long Island Loan and Trust Co., Lloyd's Plate Glass Insurance Co., The Phoenix Chemical Works, The New York and Marine Underwriters, and the Brooklyn Athen- aeum, of which he was president at the time of his death. Mr. Coffin was a man of marked personality. Among his distinguished traits were a keen perception of character in his dealings with men, an excellent judgment in business affairs, and an innate financial ability which was developed to the highest extent during a long and active life. With a remarkable fund of general information, and a kindly and genial disposition he endeared himself to all who knew him. His remains were interred at Westbury, Long Island. John Francis Henry, who became a member of the New England Society in 1880, died at his residence, 140 Second place, Brooklyn, May 25, 1893. Mr. Henry was born in Waterbury, Vermont, February 25, 1834. He received his early education in Vermont, imbibing at the same time the characteristics that in later years made him prominent among his fellow men in business and in politics. While young he began to take an interest in public affairs, becoming active as a politician of the old Grant school, working hard in General Grant's campaign for the presidency. When he came to Brooklyn he immediately identified himself with the Republican party. He became a delegate to the General Committee and held various offices in that body, being its treasurer at the time of his death. Whenever a point was to be gained he was a most energetic worker, attending all-night sessions of the most wearisome and turbulent character with fidelity and patience. In 1S76 he was a candidate for state senator against John C. Jacobs, and although, in the vigorous campaign that followed, he was defeated, Mr. Henry had the satisfaction of knowing that he ran ahead of his ticket. In the mayoralty contest of 1S77, when James Howell was the Democratic 17 candidate, the Republicans selected Mr. Henry as their standard bearer, who ran eight thousand ahead of his ticket, Mr. Howell being elected by a majority of only about 2,500. In the Tenth Ward, where he resided. Mr. Henry held the reins of the party, winning the ascendancy after a long con- test with the late Wm. H. Beard. He was no friend of the reorganization movement, believing the old methods to be as effectual as anything that could be devised. Mr. Henry was engaged in the wholesale drug trade, in College place. New York for many years, and was uniisually prosperous in business ; his wealth being at one time estimated at one million or more. He possessed a marked individuality, being tall, with clean-cut decisive features and prepos- sessing appearance. In meetings he was apt to be quiet and usually listened much before delivering his own opinions. He could make a good speech and often did so at political meetings. He was a Vice-President and Director of the Board of Trade, a member of the Chamber of Commerce, the New Eng- land Society of New York as well as of Brooklyn, the Union League Club, and Masonic fraternities. He was also prominently and responsibly con- nected with other jDublic organizations and patriotic societies, among which might be mentioned the " Sons of the American Revolution," "The Ameri- can Protective Tariff League," and "The Long Island Historical Society," of Brooklyn. Mr. Henry was twice married. His second wife, who was Lydia Del- phine Hart, daughter of Silas Hart, Esq., of De Ruyter, N. Y., and their daughter, survive him ; also two sons of his former marriage, one of whom, John F. Henry, Jr., is assistant appraiser of the Port of New York. James Sullivan Noyes was a son of Samuel and Betsey [Adams] Noyes. He was born at Boston, Mass., September 10, 18 16, and died at Brooklyn, N. Y. at the residence of his son, Henry F. Noyes, June 24, 1893. He was buried in Greenwood Cemetery. On December 8, 185 1, he married Mary Ball Edes, daughter of Captain Robert Ball and Sarah [Barker] Edes, of Charlestown, Mass., and leaves two sons, Henry Frothingham Noyes and James Atkins Noyes. On his father's side he was a descendant in the eighth generation from Rev. William Noyes who was graduated from University College, Oxford, in 1592, and afterward became rector of Chalderton, which is eleven miles from Salisbury, England. His emigi-ant ancestor was Deacon Nicholas Noyes. son of Rev. William, above, who with his brother, Rev. James, were among the settlers of Newbury, Mass., in 1635. Deacon Nicholas Noyes was for four years Deputy to the General Court at Boston, Mass. Rev. Joseph Richardson, who was for 65 years minister of the Unitarian Church at Hing- ham, Mass., was a cousin of his father Samuel. His father was an ardent supporter of James Sullivan, Governor of Massachusetts, and so when his son was born he named him for the Governor. In 1823 he entered the Mayhew School in Boston, remained there four years, received a Franklin Medal and then entered the Boston Latin School with the class of 1S27 and was graduated with them in 1832, winning another Frankhn Medal. He also delivered the Latin oration. He then matriculated at Harvard College with the class of 1836, but owing to his father's death near the end of his Freshman year he was obliged to leave the college. Not long after this he was employed by Shaw, Patterson and Co., who were dry goods jobbers in Boston, and in eight years was made a partner, when the style of the firm became Shaw, Blake & Co. In 1842 and '43 he went abroad as buyer for them, staying most of the time in London and Man- chester. In 1S49 he was employed by Merriam, Brewer & Co., a dry goods commission house in Boston and agents for the Amoskeag Cotton Mills. This firm became afterwards Gardner, Brewer & Co., and soon afterward he entered the firm. The style of the firm changed afterward to John L. Brewer, Bro. & Co., and finally to John L. Brewer & Co., as it now is— they being the selhng agents of the Amoskeag-Stark-Amory-Langdon and Naum- keag Cotton Mills. He established and was the head of the New York branch of this house from 1851 till his death. He was a hard worker and became a very sucessful business man. His early life was a severe struggle, for his father had left his mother largely in debt. The New York Journal of Cotnmerce, at the time of his death, said : "He was widely known, and in the walks of trade was respected by his associates for his kindness of manner and frankness of speech. In his later years his extreme modesty caused him to shrink from any pubUcity, and much comfort was derived from the exercise of his charities that were numerous, though only known to the recipients or to those who were made the dispensers of his bounties." Among his classmates at the Boston Latin School were Frederick O. Prince, Mayor of Boston, Brigadier-General Edward D. Townsend, U. S. A., Lieutenant Francis Winslow, U. S. N., and Rev. J. F. Ware, late minister of Arlington Street Church, Boston. Among his classmates at Harvard were Henry Lee, Overseer, of Har- vard, Dr. Henry Bigelow, and Edward J. Morris, U. S. Minister Resident in Turkey. James R. Allaben, a member of the New England Society since 1S86, died in Flatbush, L. I., September 14, 1893. Mr. Allaben was born in Rox- bury, Delaware County, N. Y., October 20, 1823. He was educated at the Delaware Academy, and afterwards, taking up the study of law, he taught school during the winter terms to defray expenses. In 1845 Mr. Allaben was admitted to the bar and began the practice of the law in the town of Delhi, Delaware County, continuing there till 1861, when he removed to Brooklyn. He was, in i860, a presidential elector on the Republican ticket when Mr. Lincoln was first elected. Mr. Allaben was also for a time connected with the Custom House, and was afterward made a quarantine commissioner. Soon after his removal to Brooklyn he was elected Member of Assembly, and later became internal revenue assessor for the Second District. Always active in the affairs of the Republican party, he was deeply Interested in the 19 Greeley Liberal Republican movement, being associated in that with Charles W. Godard and Archibald M. Bliss. Mr. AUaben's law office was in the Garfield Building, and he was associated in practice with his son, W. H. AUaben. Mr. AUaben was twice married, his first wife having died in 1873. Two sons, Mr. Wm. H. AUaben, a lawyer, and Dr. Charles S. AUaben, and a daughter, Mrs. Lizzie M. Moore, wife of George T. Moore, of Flatbush, sur- vive him. Philander Shaw, a member of this Society from 18S0, died in Brooklyn September 25, 1893. Mr. Shaw was bom in Newport, R. L, in 1819. He was educated at Kingston, R. I., and came to Brooklyn in 1839. He was secretary to Commodore McKeever for a year or more, and from this position went to the Custom House, where he received an appointment to a clerkship. Soon afterward, by dint of an untiring industry and the character he had gained for probity and good judgment in business matters, succeeded in interesting capitaHsts in the project he had formed of founding the Phoenix Fire Insurance Company of Brooklyn. He may be said to have been the father of that company, for although he held the position of secretary, he was the life and spirit of the concern, remaining connected with it for more than forty years. Mr. Shaw was attached to Brooklyn, where he had lived from the time he went out into the world, but Newport was peculiarly dear to him. He loved the people and institutions of the place of his birth, and was wont to spend his summer outings there. There, also, the funeral services were held at Channing Memorial Church, Rev. Dr. Cutler officiating. The serv- ices were attended by a large number of friends and relatives of the deceased living at Newport and in other places. The interment was at Newport, where Mr. Shaw had provided a burial place. The last of his family, Mr. Shaw was the youngest son of the late Josiah C. Shaw, at one time editor of the Newport Mercury. He was married in Newport to Nancy, eldest daughter of Lysander and Martha D. D. Wash- burn, but he left no children. Daniel Lewis Northup, who died on the seventy-sixth anniversary ol his birth— as well as the forty-fifth of his maniage— November 20th, 1893, was one of the oldest and best known office-holders in the city of Brooklyn. He was born on the 20th of November, 1S17, at Hebron, Washington County, N. Y. When twenty-six years old he went to Yucatan in company with a number of American capitalists, for the purpose of forming a colony which might, in the course of time, be annexed to the United States. The scheme was not a success, and after five years' absence he returned to the North. In 1847 Mr. Northup married Miss Sarah Anne Wilde. Mrs. Northup died about twenty years ago. Mr. Northup established his home in what was at that time Wilhamsburgh, where he held office, and when, in 1854, it was consolidated with Brooklyn, was elected city auditor and remained in that 20 office for more than four years. During the time when Mr. Northup was audi- tor, Mr. William B. Lewis was controller, both occupying desks in the same room. Before his connection with municipal affairs Mr. Northup had studied law, and, although never admitted to the Bar, the knowledge of jurispru- dence he possessed gave him a marked advantage over others, in his insight into the workings of city government. Nearly all the laws relating to water supph' and to sewerage in Brooklyn were drawn by him. In 1S56 he was appointed a member of the Board of Education, in which capacity he served for fourteen years. He was the originator of the free book system in the Brooklyn Public Schools, and also started the well- known " Eastern District " School Library. For ten years, dating from 1859, he was one of the Water and Sewerage Board. He was chosen its secretary, and when the number of commission- ers was changed from four to three, by act of the Legislature, he was con- tinued as secretary by appointment on May 7th, 1870, and when the Board became the Department of City Works, he still continued as secretar}' from May 2ist, 1872, since which time he has held the office continuously, being so familiar with the work of the Department that changes in administration never caused his removal. Mr. Northup was favored throughout his life with excellent health, and his last illness was but of a few days' duration. His knowledge of the details of the department with which he was long connected was encyclopaedic. Endowed with an acute intellect, and a wonderfully retentive memory, he absorbed and retained during more than half a century a thorough under- standing of everj'thing pertaining to our local administration. Of a cheerful disposition, his presence carried sunshine among his asso- ciates in the great constructive branch of the municipal government. A familiar token in the Mayor's office was his almost daily gift of a bouquet of freshly cut flowers from his garden in the suburbs. Mr. Northup was Librarian of the New England Society from 1S90. A son, Mr. N. Augustus Northup, Assistant Engineer in the Bureau of Local Improvements, and a daughter, Miss Tildena E. Northup, svurvive him. The funeral took place from All Souls Universalist Church, South Ninth street, and was attended by people from all parts of the city. The sersdces were conducted by Rev. J. Coleman Adams, rector of the Church, who in his sermon said of the deceased: " He certainly illustrated in him- self the virtue we so much need to-day, the virtue of civic fidelity, which involves a patriotism as high and self-sacrificing as that which devotes itself to woiinds or death on the battlefield." On motion of Mr. William H. Williams, it was resolved that a committee of three, of which the President should be chairman, be appointed to report to the Directors upon the expediency of engaging a room for the use of the Society at an expense not to exceed one thousand dollars a year. 21 The President appointed as the associate members of the committee Mr. John Winslow and Mr. W. G. Creamer. On motion, the following Directors were elected to serve for the ensuing four years: Calvin E. Pratt, John Winslow, Henry W. Maxwell, Robert D. Benedict, and William B. Davenport. On motion, adjourned. Jos. A. Burr, Jr., Secretary pro tern, ' PROCEEDINGS AND SPEECHES AT THE FOURTEENTH ANNUAL DINNER, Thursday, December 21, 1S93. In comnieinoration of the Two Hundred and Seventy-third Anni- 7'ersary of the Landing of the Pilgrims. The Fourteenth Annual Dinner of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn was held in the Assembly Rooms of the Academy of Music, and in the Art Room adjoining, on Thursday evening, December 21st, 1893. The reception was held in the Art Room, and at 6 o'clock the dinner was served. Two hundred and three gentlemen were seated at the tables. The President, ROBERT D. BENE- DICT, presided. On his right sat Rev. Richard S. Storrs, D. D., Hon. John Winslow, Frederick Taylor, Esq., Rear Admiral D. L. Braine, U. S. N., Colonel LooMis L. Langdon, U. S. A., and the President of the St. Patrick Society. Upon the left of the President sat Hon. Joseph H. Choate, Hon. James S. T. Stranahan, Professor H. B. Sprague, Hon. David A. Boody, the President of the New England Society in the City of New York, and the President of the St. Nicholas Society. The members of the Society were seated as follows : Table A. — Presided over by George H. Fisher and Josepli A. Burr. William C. Bryant, Thomas Pollock Peters, James D. Perkins, Daniel Sim- mons, M. D., Rufus L. Scott, Rufus L. Scott, Jr., W. S. Logan, Jesse John- son, Judge August Van Wyck, Lowell M. Palmer, Edward N. Loomis, Edward P. Loomis, C. P. Geyer, WiUiam S. Wandel, William B. Kurd, Jr., Horace Graves, Rev. J. C. Adams, D. D. Table B. — Presided over by H. B. Moore and Charles A. Moore. A. J. Cordier, A. A. Dame, Rev. H. Richard Harris, H. A. Pratt, G. J. Laighton, Dr. R. N. Dennison, W. W. Goodrich, Thomas E. Pearsall, T. L. Woodruff, Eugene L. Maxwell, E. B. Bartlett, J. G. Dettmer, Gen. S. L. Woodford, John Hannan, Emery N. Downs, William H. Homon, A. S. Higgins, William H. Hill, Albert Haley, Donald F. Ayres, Dr. J. W. Hyde. Table C. — Presided over by Thomas S. Moore and Judge Willard Bartlett. E. H. R. Lyman, John S. Frothingham, John F. Praeger, Francis L. Hine, J. Spencer Turner, George L. Pease, Thomas A. Buffum, E. J. Knowlton, E. F. Knowlton, Judge George B. Abbott, Henry W. Maxwell, George B. Alexander, J. Rogers Maxwell, Judge Calvin E. Pratt, Theo. F. Miller, George W. Wingate, John Arbuckle, W. H. Lyon, W. H Male, F. B Candler, J. S. T. Stranahan. Table D. — Presided over by Gen. H. W. Slocum and Prof. F. W. Hooper. H. W. vSlocum, Jr., Capt. H. P. Kingsbury, Clarence R. Slocum, Rev. Lewis Francis, B. L. Benedict, H. L Wing, James McKeen, Dr. Robert Ormiston, Dr. A. E. McAllister, J. Edward Swanstrom, Dr. Charles H. Levermore, Dr. W. H. Maxwell, George H. Roberts, Horace E. Dresser, Mark Hoyt, Jr., Arthur C. Hume, H. C. M. Ingraham, Mark Hoyt, Stephen Condit, C. C. Broun. Table E. — Presided over by George H. Southard. Charles H. Requa, Samuel E. Howard, Cyrus E. Staples, E. H. Ti-ecartin, William H. Taylor, William Adams, WilHam P. Wines, Rev. C. H. Buck, William D. Wade, Marshall S. Driggs, George M. Coit, Alfred T. Cross, Ferdinand L. Cross, Edward H. Kellogg, Charles H. Sanxay, G. E. Bartlett, R. E. Brown, Dr. J. G. Johnson, Abram H. Dailey, William G. Creamer, Charles M. Pratt, F. B. Pratt. Table F. — Presided over by George P. Merrill and N. G. Carman. Wilham H. Buffum, William Hester, James H. Race, S. R. Probasco, James W. Ridgway, Ernest Staples, Isaac H. Cary, William H. Reynolds, Frank Bailey, William M. Van Anden, A. M. Cahoone, W. B. Wilkins, Julian D. Fairchild, John T. Sherman, F. H. Lovell, Thomas Perkins, W. S. Badger, John A. Tweedy, Francis D. Beard, Arthur Gibb, H. Adams, Jr.,Chauncey Marshall. Table G. — Presided over by Ethan Allen Doty and Charles S. Whitney. Walter Scott, Jr., Irving L. Bragdon, Dr. Albert C. Perkins, Enos N. Taft, Dr. J. B. Elliott, Cyrus H. Taylor, Ira Preston Taylor, William F. Fuller, Marshall T. Davidson, Howard O. Wood, James W. Adams, Charles H. Simmons H. S. Randall, E. H. Barnes, Daniel P. Morse, Wm. H. Nichols, G. Will Conklin, John M. Conklin, Francis H. Wilson. Table H — Presided over by Frederic A. Ward and William C. Pate. Judge N. H. Clement, William C. Beecher, Camden C. Dike, Eugene D. Ben-i, L. S. Burnham, J. F. Goddard, E. Gulick, William Bern, Frank 24 V. Gregory, George F. Gregory-, Dr. C. N. Hoagland, David B. Dearborn. Alexander Robb, W. S. Taylor, David R. Morse, Russell E. Prentiss, Arnold G. Dana, George E. Prentiss, Richard S. Barnes, Albro G. Newton, Walter T. Hatch, Judge George G. Reynolds. The gentlemen of the Press. Table I. -Presided over by William B. Davenport. Brooklyn Stand- ard Union, Brooklyn Eagle, Brooklyn Citizen, Brooklyn Times, New York Tribune, New York Sun, New York Times, New York Herald. New York World. 25 BILL OF FARE. OYSTERS. Blue Points. SOUPS. Green Turtle. Consomme Printanier. SIDE DISHES. Radishes. Celery. Olives. Small Patties, Queen Style. FISH. Salmon, Lobster Sauce. Fried Smelts, Potatoes Parisienne. REMOVES. Tenderloin of Beef braise Rothschild. Cauliflower in cases. ENTREES. Spring Chicken saute Mushrooms. French Peas in Drawn Butter. Terrapin, Maryland Style. Asparagus, Hollandaise Sauce. NEW ENGLAND PUNCH. ROAST. Canvas Back Duck. Celery Mayonnaise. DESSERT. Sweets and Confectionery. Diplomat Pudding. Fancy Ice Cream. Assorted Cakes. Macedoine Gelee. Charlotte Madison. Pieces Montees. Bon Bons. Cheese. Fruit. Coffee. Cigars. 3 26 Grace was said by Rev. J. C. Adams, D. D. ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT, ROBERT D. BENEDICT, LL. D. Members of The Neiv England Society and Friends : — I assure you one and all that your presence at this, our Four- teenth New England dinner, is very welcome. There are many kinds of dinners. The hod-carrier takes his tin can in the morning that he may eat his dinner at the foot of the wall in his nooning. The city man, who works as hard, goes home at night to his dinner with his family. We gather our friends together for social pleasure at dinner. And we give public dinners to those whom we wish to honor, so that a man who has become prominent in public service may fairly expect, if not to be canonized, at least to be dinnerized. But highest of all are the great festivals of remembrance, where men come together and solemnly eat a dinner in memory of the days that are past, and of the men that made the days memorable. We celebrate this day because it was a beginning day. We might well celebrate the day of the adoption of the Constitu- tion of the United States, as we do celebrate the day of the Declaration of Independence. Those days were, in one sense, beginning days ; yet they were also days of culmination ; days when movements of thought which had been long working among the people of this land of ours, took shape and burst into flower. But Forefathers' Day — the day of the landing of the Pilgrims— was for our country purely a day of beginning ; a day of planting ; and looking back to that day, from these days of growth and accomplishment, we may well, if we value what we now possess, come together on this day and keep high festival in remembrance of that day and what was then done. I am inclined to think that the picture of the landing of the Pilgrims which presents itself to the fancy of many people is quite erroneous, and that the prevalent idea as to the attitude of mind of the Pilgrims when they landed is not an accurate one. 2/ The name of the man is not known (though it is said that he was a very wise man) who said that " if a man might but write the ballads of a nation, he need not care who made its laws." He might have added, " or wrote its histories." I fancy that many people are indebted for their idea of the landing of the Pilgrims to Mrs. Hemans' poem more than to the actual fact, and that when they call up that picture to their minds' eye they seem to see the Mayflower at anchor in Ply- mouth Bay, with her decks thronged with Pilgrim fathers and mothers, looking out upon a " stern and rock-bound coast ; " that they seem to see boats making their way from the barque to Plymouth Rock, in which were to be seen " men with hoary hair," and in which also "There was woman's fearless eye, Lit by her deep love's truth ; There was manhood's brow, serenely high, And the fiery heart of youth." And that they fancy that, as soon as the Pilgrim Fathers had thus set foot on Plymouth Rock, they gathered around it, and, though "the heavy night hung dark, the winds and waters o'er," they " shook the depths of the desert gloom," with hymns till the " sounding aisles of the dim wood rang," while the one thought which was in the minds of all was the exultant thought that they had reached a land where they had " found freedom to worship God." Now as to the landing itself, we can, if we put Mrs. Hemans' poem out of our minds, form a pretty accurate idea. We know that the Mayflower was not present at all, nor were the main body of the Pilgrims. They had been left in Cape Cod Harbor, more than twenty miles away. There was nothing to be seen on those quiet waters but one shallop, and from that small shallop there landed neither woman nor child. The landing of the Pilgrim Fathers was a landing of ten men who wore coats of mail and were armed with muskets and cutlasses. And the narrative, which Mr. Prince in his Annals gives of their doings after they landed, is not a narrative of prayer or singing of hymns, but a statement that they marched into the land, saw 28 divers cornfields and running brooks, with a place they judged fit for habitation, and then returned to the ship. If we wish to find a picture in any way resembling the ideal one which I have suggested as possibly prevalent, we must go back a month earlier, to the 2ist day of November; for on that day the Pilgrim Fathers made their first landing on the conti- nent from the Mayflower as she lay at anchor, not at Plymouth but in Cape Cod Harbor. And on that day, though they did send a boat ashore, it bore no women and children, but only armed men ; and it is plain that the thoughts of the whole company were busy, not with the singing of anthems or with rejoicing that they had found a place where they could have freedom to worship God. The chief subject of their thoughts that day was not worship but work ; not the next world, but this ; not religion, but law. Not that they gave no thought to religion, or found no place for prayer. On the contrary, they began with them ; for we learn from Bradford that, " being thus arrived, they fell on their knees and blessed the God of Heaven." But those thanks being given, they proceeded to business. And what was their first business ? It was to com- bine into a body politic, by a solemn contract to which they set their hands in the cabin of the Mayflower as the basis of gov- ernment, thus adopting an instrument which has been called the first Constitution adopted on this continent. And their next business was to elect a Governor. The Pilgrim Fathers signalized their coming to this continent by holding a Consti- tutional Convention and an election for Governor on the very first day. It is no wonder if their descendants have ever since been given to constitution making and have taken a decided interest in elections. I am afraid that that " solemn contract " is not as well known even by New Englanders as it should be. I suspect that there might be found some, even among the enthusiastic sons of New England whom I see before me, who would be compelled to confess, if they were asked, that they had never read it. The substance of it is in one sentence. In it the Pil- grim Fathers covenanted with each other, by " virtue hereof, to 29 enact, constitute and frame such just and equal laws, ordinan- ces, acts, constitutions and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most mete and convenient for ye generall good of ye colonic, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience." That was the determination with which the Pil- grim Fathers landed, to make just and equal laws for the gen- eral good and to obey them. And that simple sentence, with one small addition, expresses what has been and is to-day the true New England spirit, which demands a government of law ; demands that laws shall have for their purpose the general good, and that they shall be just and equal, and insists that to such laws due submission and obedience shall be yielded. A friend of mine told me that he once attended a Quaker meeting at which, after long silence, one of the Sisters arose and said : " Spirits are nigher kin than flesh," and sat down. That sermon of six words contained more than many speeches of an hour long. It is a truth appropriate for us. Few of us can trace back our kinship in the flesh to the Pilgrim Fathers ; but, if we are to-day firm in our determination that our laws shall be just and equal and for the general good, and that we will not only yield but enforce due submission and obedience thereto, we are, after two hundred and seventy-three years have passed, bound to the Pilgrims by a kinship of the spirit which binds more closely than ties of blood. It is for the purpose of cherishing that kinship of the spirit that the sons of New Eng- land gather together all over the land and that we are gathered here. May the day never come when that purpose shall be abandoned or when that kinship of the spirit to the Pilgrim Fathers shall cease to be a living influence not alone on the stern and rock-bound coast of New England, but through the length and breadth of our Avhole land. Now, gentlemen, I know very well that not all those who attend New England dinners are New Englanders. I cannot claim all of you who compose this assemblage as of New England's blood ; but I know well that from whatever ancestry you may claim descent you are all united in one thing, viz.: in attachment to the country which shelters us all, and love for the 30 flag, which symbolizes the sovereignty to which we give hearty adherence, and whose glory meets our eyes upon these walls. In token of our love for that flag and our respect for that sovereignty I ask you to rise and drink with me the toast "TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA." This toast being thus given, Mr. Benedict proceeded. It is not inappropriate to what I have said with reference to the law that the gentleman whom I am to request to respond to the next toast should be one distinguished among those who follow the profession of the law. We have recently had a declaration by the people that the man who is to be set to admin- ister and judge the law must not be one who has notoriously failed to render obedience to it. That declaration has been so firm and so powerful that it will be heeded. Nothing has happened in my memory which has had, in my opinion, so great an influence to secure to us a pure, independent and up- right judiciary, as the result of the recent judicial elections in this State, and, I may add, in Chicago. That result in this State was largely contributed to, as it should have been, by the members of the Bar ; and especially by a class of them who have been characterized by a well known, if not high, authority as "briefless, namby-pamby lawyers." It is especially appro- priate that the gentleman whom I shall call upon should be one who is distinguished among those at whom that venomous characterization was aimed. The old proverb is that brevity (not brieflessness) is the soul of wit. Our friend is not briefless. He may not be brief ; but we all know that he is " the soul of wit." Those of us who have known him, as I for years have known him, not merely as an after dinner speaker but as a lawyer, know well that it is not the flash of wit alone which makes him distinguished. We know that it has been his keenness of perception, his power of gathering facts and of applying them to principles of the law, and his persuasive and forceful eloquence of speech which have 31 made him prized and feared by his associates and his oppo- nents. It gives me great pleasure to call upon him now to speak. I assure you, gentlemen, that there have been occasions when the thought that he was to speak after me was far from giving me the unmixed pleasure which it gives me on this occa- sion. I give you, gentlemen, the next regular toast, "THE DAY WE CELEBRATE," and I call on Joseph H. Choate to respond. ADDRESS OF JOSEPH H. CHOATE, ESQ. Mr. President and Members of the New England Society. Gentlemen : — I am much obliged to your accommodating Presi- dent for this compliment which he has paid me, because when I was last over here on an occasion like this, his predecessor, the venerable and honorable Judge Pratt, who presided, undertook to account for my success by saying that facts never did stand in my way. [Laughter.] Now, gentlemen, if the Pilgrim Fathers themselves could have chosen the place where the 273d anniversary of their landing should be celebrated, I am sure they would have selected Brooklyn. This godly City of Churches, as it is known the world over, redolent of the old New England spirit, must always have been dear to their hearts. The lines of your ancestry, running straight back through eight generations to Plymouth, and to Salem, and to Boston, identify you closely with all the traditions and the history of the glorious old Bay State. Brooklyn has always been a little nearer to the sacred rock than the Dutch island of Manhattan. I fancy that you more closely resemble the passengers of the Mayflower in feature, in appearance, in carriage, in character, than any other of the 70,000,000 of our people. The New Englander in New York always looks good, but the New Englander in Brooklyn always looks — better, and that, I imagine, is exactly how the Pilgrim Fathers themselves used to look. [Laughter.] If these worthies could arise out of their forgotten graves to-night, and, staff in hand, start on their travel westward to see how 32 their descendants were getting along, it is here I fancy that they would take their way and here their weary steps would be stayed. " We recognize," they would declare, " these crowded steeples ; here, too, is Plymouth Church, and in the faces of these godly men we see ourselves repeated." [Laughter.] I am not quite sure whether they would venture to visit Coney Island or even Gravesend [laughter and applause], however much the fame of its Sunday-school might tempt them. [Great laughter.] They had already learned from Shakespeare that the devil may cite Scripture for his purpose, and there they might have learned that he could run a Sunday-school in the same interest. [Laughter and applause.] But they would not feel quite so sure of that medley of strange voices and that din of foreign customs that is echoed from across the East River, and so here they would pitch their tents and here they would set up their Ebenezer. But if this was always so until now, how much more true is it in this year of grace 1893, and in this particular month of December, when the men of Brooklyn have hardly yet recov- ered their wind and wiped the sweat from their brows after the struggles and the triumphs of a great Puritan outbreak, in which they have rescued their fair city from the hands of the Philis- tines. I don't know, gentlemen, whether it has made an impres- sion in Brooklyn, but it has shaken up the rest of the country like the rumble of an earthquake. [Applause.] It was such a splendid illustration of the grand old Pilgrim maxim which Pris- cilla MuUins uttered in her first curtain lecture to John Alden : " If you would have a thing well done, you must do it yourself, John ; you must not leave it to others." You have here found the true Puritan panacea for all municipal evils, and have taught the rest of the country a lesson which they may well heed in following your example ; they must do it themselves — they must not leave it to others. But I have not come here to-night to discuss any of the burning questions of to-day. I might get myself into trouble if I did. I have come here to speak of " The Day We Celebrate," and of the heroic men and women who made it one of the great 33 red-letter days in the history of the human race. In the last thirty years I have responded to this sentiment so often, here and elsewhere, that I am in great danger to-night of getting actually stalemated at last. The pitcher that goes once too often to the fountain is sure at last to be shattered and to have all its contents spilled upon the ground. Did you not already know it all by heart, I might well perform the ancient duty of telling the story of the Pilgrims over again ; how that miserable but still hopeful congregation at Scrooby, led by the pious Rob- inson and the brave Brewster, finding it impossible to worship their own God in their own way, shook from their shoes the dust of their dear old Mother, England, whom they never loved so well as at that sad and cruel hour of parting, and fled from the oppressor ; how they found shelter in Protestant Holland, and for fourteen years on her gory soil, red with the blood of count- less martyrs for liberty, they waited for a better day which it seemed would never come ; how at last they set sail from Delft Haven in a crazy little barque on a stormy and wintry sea, that would surely have carried them all to the bottom had not God held them all the way in the hollow of His hand, as once before He divided the waters for His chosen people to pass through dry shod. How at last in the depth of winter they sighted the inhospitable shores of Cape Cod and landed upon the Rock of Plymouth ; how cold and starvation and disease carried off half of their number in the first winter, and yet they struggled on, trusting only to the hand that led them and to the everlasting arms that were around them, and succeeded in founding the State which is yet peerless among all the States. [Applause.] And then I might conclude by singing, as it has so often been sung before, the everlasting pasan to their glory, and launch out upon that strain of mutual admiration and adulation which has made this day almost as much of a terror to all the rest of man- kind as it is a jubilee for all the sons of New England. But perhaps, gentlemen, by way of variety, it will be a little refreshing for once, once only, to indulge in a little self-denial and to consider some of the great things which our Puritan Fathers did not do ; some worthy institutions which they did 34 not found, some priceless virtues which they did not possess, and to recall how by gradual correction of their errors, by a slow but radical departure from the maxims that they laid down, great good was accomplished for the benefit of all mankind of which they never dreamed, and a nation founded upon an im- perishable basis, but upon lines which they did not project. And yet perhaps it will be found after all that it was by means of what they insisted upon and succeeded in accomplishing for themselves, and by a natural evolution from the germs which they planted, that these great and good things so little expected by them were at last accomplished. And in the first place, it has been truly said that they came here to plant a Church without a bishop, and a State without a king. But their Church and their State were one and insepa- rable ; or rather, their Church swallowed up and dominated and governed the State altogether. It was a Mosaic dispensation that they sought to establish, and their priests drove the chariot of State with taut reins. And yet to-day, if there is one idea more dear to the American heart than any other, it is that there shall be no connection whatever between Church and State, and that the clergy shall rule only in the hearts of men by their su- perior virtues and by their inspired mission to seek and to save, and to teach hoHness to the Lord. [Great applause.] Again, it is the great glory of our Pilgrim Fathers to have founded the common school. But the common school as the founders of Massachusetts first designed it was not governed only by the New England primer, but by the Longer and the Shorter Catechism, and was riveted with the dogmas which made up the creed which they loved so well. And yet so far have their descendants departed from their views that now the maxim that the door of no common school or public school shall ever be opened to sectarian teaching, and that no public money shall be devoted to any sectarian purpose, has become so priceless a thought to us all that we are all ready for a cru- sade against whomever in any quarter by open or insidious means shall seek to divert one dollar from the public treasury for the aid of schools that belong to any sect. [Tremendous 35 applause.] Again, gentlemen, as you remember, our Puritan forefathers insisted on their absolute right to believe and to speak the truth as they understood it, but they as absolutely denied to everybody who differed from them the right to speak at all. And yet to-day, free speech, free thought for every form of belief and unbelief, is the watchword of the republic. And so they drove out good old Roger Williams, who founded a freer State and became the Protestant of the Protestants, the apostle of free speech and free thought. Dear little Rhode Island ! What a debt of gratitude we owe to the cruel decree which compelled her birth ! And how often have we heard that debt grandly, proudly, eloquently acknowledged from the lips now sealed in death of that peerless champion of liberty and of public virtue, the true heart's child of Roger Williams — George William Curtis. But yet again, you know how they persecuted and whipped and hanged the Quakers ; and yet only last year all New Eng- land — yes, and all America— wept and paid tribute at the grave of that sturdiest of the broadbrims, that sweet mouthpiece of liberty, John G. Whittier, who never tired of pleading the cause of the oppressed and downtrodden ; whose greatest boast was New England redeemed, whose eulogy he was always speaking, who wrote : ' ' The treasures of the commonwealth Are stem, strong minds and hearts of health ; And more to her than gold or grain, Are cunning hand and cultured brain. For well she keeps the ancient stock, The stubborn strength of Plymouth Rock ; Nor heeds the skeptic's puny hands. While near the school the church spire stands ; Nor fears the blinded bigot's rule, While near the church spire stands the school." In the same spirit they founded Harvard College, on the same narrow lines at first, with the single view of furnishing pious and godly ministers to the infant colony, and they kept it so all through the seventeenth century, down even to the dark days of Salem witchcraft. And when the brave Robert Calef 36 published his exposure of the wickedness of that infernal delu- sion, the President of Harvard College ordered his precious book to be burned in the college yard by the hands of the com- mon hangman. But to-day fair Harvard stands for absolute freedom of knowledge to all kinds and conditions of men. [Ap- plause.] There the Christian and the Jew, the Catholic and the Protestant, the believer and the unbeliever, the white man and the black man and the yellow man may feed with the same free- dom upon the fruit of the tree of knowledge and drink together from the fountains of learning. [Applause.] There religion was once compulsory ; it was originally part of the prescribed course, but now, thanks to Phillips Brooks of immortal memory [applause], the last vestige of compulsory worship has been gotten rid of, and yet how his Puritan ancestors of the first gen- eration would have shrugged their shoulders and frowned at that. And again, only once more, how our worthy Puritan fathers lorded it over the good Pilgrim mothers. In what absolute sub- jection these pious women stood to these worthy men. Where is the fair woman of to-day that, as Forefathers' Day comes around, does not thank her stars that she was not born in time to be a Pilgrim mother. Our Puritan forefathers were grand and rugged pictures in history, but what kind of men were they to have in the house all day? They lived up to that stern old maxim of the common law, that " the husband and wife are one, and that one is the husband." [Laughter.] But at last, thanks be to God, even woman is emancipated ; she holds at least one of the reins that guide the family chariot, and sometimes she even cracks the whip. [Laughter.] She can follow any profes- sion that her former master can, not excluding the conservative profession of the law, Mr. Chairman, to which you and I belong. And what is better than all that, at last she has established a right to equal education with her brothers, and only last month RadclifTe College, inaugurated under the banner of Harvard, has been authorized to offer to all women who desire it the same studies, the same teachers, the same degrees under the seal of Harvard that are open for men. [Applause.] And yet, think 37 how Cotton Mather and his Puritan followers would have been shocked at such a result of their teaching and precepts. And, gentlemen, this is the lesson I would draw from this anniversary day of the landing of the Pilgrims. We can afford to refer at last to their weaknesses, their errors and their infirm- ities without a blush, because those were mere excrescences, which they themselves threw off. When the fullness of time Avas come, God said "Let there be light," and the light came. And it revealed them with the scales fallen from their eyes, ex- posing to full view all those splendid qualities of the Puritan character that have redeemed the modern world. Their never- failing faith in God and faith in man and faith in work ; their omnipresent sense of duty, their ever-living devotion to con- science as the sole guide of life ; their downright honesty and their upright conduct triumphed at last, and led them on, and their children after them, to the accomplishment of all thee great things that have followed. And they came in good time to see that that absolute liberty of conscience and of thought, and that perfect equality of civil rights which they had claimed and won for themselves, was the common birthright of all other men. May we and our children never seek to return to any of the frailties which they outgrew and discarded. Let us cherish and transmit their great virtues and their noble example, and forever honor their glorious memory. [Applause.] TJie Chairman : — Gentlemen, I had hoped early in our prep- arations to have the privilege of introducing to you one of the men who represented our country abroad in the recent interna- tional arbitration, and to have heard from him something of that great international event. But I regret to say that we have not been able to procure his attendance. I have received, to-day, a telegram from Justice Harlan, of the United States Supreme Court, whom we had invited to attend, conveying his regrets that he could not leave the Court and be present with us on this occasion. I had hoped also to have the privilege of introducing to you another gentleman, who was to speak to us upon the 38 subject of " The Composite American." I suppose he would have taken the idea of the composite photograph, which is made by taking hundreds of photographs together and com- bining them into one, and that he would have looked upon the people of this nation, treating them as a composite indi- vidual, to see if he could trace in that individual the elements of the men who settled New England. So I expected to have the privilege of introducing to you President Merrill E. Gates, of Amherst College; but I regret that a telegram from Mrs. Gates states that he is detained by illness, his physician abso- lutely prohibiting his absence from his home. We therefore must pass the next regular toast and come to the one that follows it. On such an occasion as this is we have gathered together in remembrance of New England. We are proud of our relations with New England. And yet we know very well that we are not all New Englanders, and it is not needful that we should be in order to be proud of those who were such. We are proud of New England because of our appreciation of the qualities of the men who settled New England ; and therefore we are glad, appreciating and valuing these qualities, when we see them around us and in the community in which we live. Therefore, bringing our thoughts down to the pres- ent time, and joining Plymouth and Brooklyn, joining 1620 and 1893, I give you the next regular toast of "THE NEW ENGLANDER IN BROOKLYN." And I am sure you will all agree with me that if I were to ask through the length and breadth of this city to-night who was the man who should be called upon to speak to that sentiment, who was the man of our citizens whose name was the best syn- onym for all that was best in New England purpose and New England thought, the acclaim of this whole city, from one end to the other, would give the name of the man whom I now call upon, viz : Dr. Richard S. Storrs. 39 ADDRESS OF REV. RICHARD S. STORRS, D. D. We have, many of us, observed, I presume, in certain saloons of the European palaces, and we may have noticed occasion- ally, upon a smaller scale, in the drawing rooms of our Amer- ican homes, an arrangement by which mirrors are set into panels of the wall, so that a man walking up the saloon sees on one side or the other, and in front, fifteen or twenty gentlemen walking at the same time and keeping step with him ; or sit- ting down in a chair he finds apparently twenty people doing the same thing in the same chair ; and he naturally comes to the conclusion that the spectators or associates whom he cannot touch are more numerous than those on whom he can lay his hand. I think the proper response to this sentiment of" The New Englander in Brooklyn " would be to insert in these walls such mirror panels, and let you see yourselves multiplied about twenty-five times. That would exhibit, in a surprising way, the concrete New Englander in Brooklyn. But, as such visible reflections are hardly practicable on short notice, some verbal reflections, and very few, may not be wholly out of place. The New Englander is certainly in Brooklyn, and it is no wonder that he is, for he is everywhere, pretty much, in all the earth. You will find him in Africa, and in Australia, and in Japan, and in Thibet, even in Hawaii [laughter], and all over South America. He is searching into the Catacombs at Rome, and he is climbing Vesuvius ; he is sitting serenely on the top of the great Pyramid ; he is swapping tinfoil for cocoanuts and coral, to his own great advantage, on the Cannibal Islands. So it is no wonder that he should be in Brooklyn. For, while there have been a great many criticisms made upon the Puritan as being austere, severe, grim and glum, nobody ever charged him, so far as I know, with not knowing a good thing when he saw it, or with being too timid and sluggish in laying his hands upon it. So he sought Brooklyn Heights, of course ; and he found the air here like that of his own native hills, only with a saltier and more stimulating breath of the ocean in it, and found 40 the views from the Heights far finer than he could any- where gee on the surf-beaten coast of New England. He came here early, therefore, and has stayed ever since, and here he will stay, undoubtedly, till the end of time. I think that of the population of this city when I came into it, which was then 60,000 or so, at least one-third must have been New Engend- ers in origin, born there themselves or of parents who had been born there. I remember that the first Mayor of the city, just before I came, was a New Englander — George Hall. I am not quite certain about the next one — Jacob Trotter ; I rather think he was. I know that Cyrus P. Smith came not long afterward in the succession, who certainly was a born and bred New Eng- lander, if any man ever was, and we have had a host of Mayors from New England ever since. I suppose it possible, and indeed probable, that of the million people within the city limits at this time, as large a proportion as at first is of New England parentage, either of the first or second or the third generation ; and, as I said, I have no doubt that this will con- tinue as long as suns continue to rise and set. But then the question comes, " What sort of a man is this New Englander in Brooklyn ? " And it is that question which would be answered better than I can answer it by the reflec- tion of your countenances in the mirrors of which I have spoken. I should say he continues to be much the same man that he was at home in New England, only, perhaps, a trifle more so. He is really, like our friend Mr. Choate, the old Puritan considerably modified. But this modification does not imply decadence at the present time, though I think it did imply that at one period in the history of New England. I do not know that I was ever at a New England dinner in the years now gone, and a good way gone, when I was in the habit of attending such in New York, at which I did not hear some pretty sharp remarks about the degeneracy of New England, as compared with the early times. I think my friend, Mr. Choate, and his friend and mine, Mr. Curtis, were the only two speakers with myself who did not indulge in gibes of that sort. The earlier New England character has doubtless been modi- 41 fied in transplantation to Brooklyn, and I should like to have anybody point out to me in history a people or a tribe, a clan or a person that has not been modified by such a change in their surroundings. The Scotch Highlander — we have him here on our pavements, and in our pulpits, and in our commercial establishments- but even if you give him the breeks and the bagpipes he will not be the same sort of High- lander that his ancestors were on their native heather. So with the Norseman and the Dane, the Gascon and the Bava- rian, and all the rest of them : they change when they come into new surroundings ; and sometimes it is a change which, measured against their earlier history, is of the nature of a decadence. So it certainly seemed to be in New England for a time. Dr. Ellis, in his admirable volume on the Puritan Age, dates that age, if I remember aright, from 1629 to 1685, a little less than sixty years, when, at the end, the theocracy was gone, practically, and the new influences came in with great power. A lady of this city, an accomplished, intelligent, and diligent student and writer, personally known, I am sure, to many of us, and highly esteemed and honored wherever she is known — has lately published a charming volume detailing, in an extremely graphic and effective manner, the changes in the old New England customs after that time ; changes in dress, for example. She tells how rich stuffs came to be imported, and costly embroidery, and wigs tied with peach-blossom ribands. She gives us the attire of John Hancock, with his velvet cap, with white silk interior cap underneath, turning up at the edges, and his blue damask robe, lined with velvet, and his red morocco slippers. That was quite a change, certainly, from the sombre apparel of the early Puritan. She gives us an account, too, of what they ate, and what they drank, the latter part of which is almost frightful ; the punch, and the rum, and the flip, and the black-strap — whatever that may have been ! [Laughter.] There was certainly a distinct modifica- tion, and I think we must admit a decadence from the older time. We cannot associate Higginson and Hooker, Salton- 4 42 stall and Mather, with black-strap, any more than we can associate Daniel Webster with the Polka or Mazurka, or the Father of His Country with swinging on a trapeze. One drink she describes, I remember, as a fat ale, made of oat-malt and wheat-malt, which bore a name that I am confident I have sometimes heard in recent years associated with a much more effervescent and perhaps stimulant liquid than that could have been — the name " Mumm." [Laughter.] But in the earlier instances I believe it was the consumers, and not the liquid which were accounted " extra dry! " Well, these men had been modified, so that there was a time in New England history when to establish the exact moral relations of the descendant with the ancestor would have been about as difficult as to read the time on a clock which the owner greatly valued, you remember, but by which his friends were extremely puzzled. They wanted- to know how in the world he could tell the time by that clock, which seemed to be going every which way. " It is perfectly easy," he said. " You see, when the hands mark 20 minutes to 9 the clock strikes ii, and what that means is that it is 18 minutes after 3 ; it you will just keep that in mind you can always tell the time without any difficulty." [Laughter.] I think they did switch off a good way from the early example. And then, when they came here and met other elements, such as they had not met before, the modification, no doubt, went further. Originally, the Puritans, of course, never had to encounter the multitudes of a great city; and a certain effect was then produced, naturally, upon those who followed them and who here found their homes. They came in contact with the Dutch life, having in it the same heroic qualities which had been in the Puritan's ; the Dutch life, whose fame in history is imperishable, which had rescued the Lowlands that its repre- sentatives had first wrested from the ocean from the tyranny of Spain, from Phillip and the Inquisition ; yet which was more capable of enjoying life in the world, I think, than the Puritans were. Equally frugal, not so restless, equally enterprising and energetic, yet, as I have said, with a sensibility to pleasure 43 which the Puritans had missed ; this modified them. They came in contact also with all the other nationalities — Germans, French, Swedes, Scotchmen, and the others, and so there came to be among them a chemical compound, as it were, essen- tially different from any one of the individual elements going into it to compose it, but which was broadened and enriched through that contact with others. They did not lose strength, but they gained grace and polish. And while history may recount, and does, certain stages of decline in the moral life, as when the Westminster Shorter Catechism ceased to be taught in the public schools — as our friend has reminded us — and various other abuses came in [laughter], it must always be remembered there were, and are, grand elements which no one can dispute in the Puri- tan character. History takes long views. History has a far perspective, and history says, without grudging, that there was in them a strength, a steadfastness, a power of endurance, a heroic faith, which are elements of great character in persons or in peoples. Granite is not as pleasing to look at as marble, and may not take as easy or as fine a polish. Iron has not the lustrous surface which belongs to silver ; but the granite and the iron are fitted to uses to which the marble and the silver are altogether inadequate. And it was the work of the Puritan to put the iron and the granite into the public life of New England, and largely of the country of which New England is such a memorable and important part. And those elements have not disappeared. The Puritan was not a sentimentalist, in any sense ; he was not a dainty, artistic person ; he had a great work to do, constructive, and not merely destructive ; he had a time of manifold, troubled perplexity in which to do that work ; he required qualities that were apt to the times and adequate for the work ; and he no more needed the fine polish of the dilettante diplomats of feebler peoples than the stiff and stubborn Alpine climber requires a pair of shining roller-skates. He needed the stout alpenstock, the hobnails in his shoes, and that was his sufficient equipment, and in that equipment he appears in history, marching up the steeps of 44 difficult problems and reaching their summit, looking upon the landscape behind and far off upon the landscape in the future. [Applause.] These qualities have not departed from the New Englander of to-day, from the New Englander in New York, or from the New Englander in Brooklyn. And there never was a time, in my judgment, when they were needed more than they are at present. We want these very qualities of character, in public and in private life. We want that strength and steadfastness of purpose, that heroic faith, that unconquerable fortitude, and we want the strenuous energy with it. I remember that a friend of mine, a clergyman, once told me that in a confer- ence meeting in his church a good brother, who did not under- stand Latin, I presume, but who was very much impressed by the sound of a word which a preceding speaker had used, arose eagerly and said, " Yes, pastor, that's what we want ; more of that moral inertia ! " Well, that is not what we want. We want moral energy ; we want devotion to an ideal ; and if I was to select any one quality in the Puritan character nobler and more fruitful than any other, it would be precisely that devotion to an ideal ; an ideal of a church ; an ideal of a commonwealth. Out of that ideal sprang the mistakes to which Mr. Choate has referred, but the ideal itself was mag- nificent. We want, gentlemen, that ideal for the city in which we live ; that it shall be not merely echoing with enterprises, not merely connected by the shipping along its piers with all the earth ; that there shall be in it a moral life, rich, powerful, governing, before which vice and shame shall flee, and by which everything good shall be carried to consummation. We want here a moral life representing itself in churches and in charities, more numerous than we have ; in great institu- tions of philanthropy and culture, in richer libraries than we have, and, above all, in greater multitudes still of prosperous and nurturing Christian homes. That is to be our ideal. And let us not forget that he who works for the benefit and up- building of his city, in our times, works for the State, works for the nation, works for the world ; since cities more and 45 more are coming to be powerful, almost governing factors, in the development of the political, social, intellectual, and relig- ious life of the State, and of the nation itself. It is a grand work we have in hand, it is a superb ideal which inspirits us, and lifts us forward and upward. Let us each resolve that in our several ways we will do whatever in us lies to accomplish that ideal. In the very temper, and with something of the power, as God gives it to us, of the fathers who were before us, let us determine, each for himself, that when we go hence it shall at any rate be possible to say of each : " He was not perfect ; he made mistakes ; he did not always live up to his standard, but he loved the city in which he lived, and he gave his whole power of mind and will, with joyful zeal, to make it nobler." [Applause.] The company then rose and sang " America." " My country, 'tis of thee, Sweet land of Liberty ! Of thee I sing ; Land where my fathers died, Land of the Pilgrims' pride, From every mountain side Let freedom ring I ' ' Our fathers' God, to Thee, Author of Liberty, To thee we sing ; Long may our land be bright With freedom's holy light ; Protect us by Thy might, Great God, our King ! " After the singing of "America," the Chairman then said : Gentlemen: — Ever since the days of the two knights who met on different sides of the gold and silver shield, the point of view has been recognized as a point of importance. I think you all see that the view with which one might look at the Puritan from Brooklyn Heights, and from the Church of the Puritans, might not be the same as the view from the business 46 circles of New York city. In order that we might have a dif- ferent point of view and a different look over the field, we have invited a gentleman to speak to us who will give us some knowl- edge of how that subject looks from the point of view of the business of New York, and I introduce to you Mr. Frederic Taylor, of New York, who will speak on " THE PURITAN AND HIS MISSION TO-DAY." ADDRESS OF FREDERIC TAYLOR, ESQ. Mr. President : — If, when the Pilgrims set out from the other side they had meant to fetch up where they did, the fact would argue much against the level-headedness for which they have always had credit. But, as we all know, of course, they never meant to land at Plymouth. On the contrary, out of a desire which was, perhaps, as natural then as it certainly always is now, to live as near to New York city as possible, their inten- tion was to locate just across the bay in New Jersey. But when that great storm overtook them, on their way across, the skipper in command of the Mayflower — -one Jones by name — claiming to have lost his reckoning and professing fear for the safety of his craft, made for the nearest shore — that was Plymouth. If the record of history may be believed, however, the burghers of Manhattan had, some time previous to the sailing of the Mayflower, " caught on " to what was the Pilgrims' in- tention ; and not appreciating the privilege of Puritan associa- tion, had caused Jones to be " seen," with a view, if possible, of thwarting that intention. As a result of that interview the skipper " put up a job," so to speak, on his passengers, and got them ashore at a point several hundred miles short of the spot to which he had contracted to take them. The " deal " that was had with Jones may be safely accepted, I think, as the first instance of practical politics in the affairs of Manhattan Island. [Laughter.] Of course it was shabby, to sav the least, in the Dutchmen 47 to " beat " the Pilgrims' scheme for a settlement in New Jersey ; but, as the poet hath it, " the whirligig of time brings in his re- venges ;" and the whirligig certainly fetched in a terrible revenge in this instance, when, years afterward, a Plymouth pilgrim be- came the first Mayor of New York. Ever since that day, when Willett was sworn in, the Puritan has been a constantly growing factor in the affairs, not only of that city, but of the country. It is our habit to think of Plymouth Rock always as being at Plymouth, and nowhere else. Well, it was there once — all of it ; but as the rock in Scripture gushed forth water when Moses smote upon it, so when the Pilgrims' feet pressed that boulder at Plymouth it became instinct with life and began to broaden at its base ; and its base has ever since been spreading out, till now Plymouth Rock underlies the continent. [Applause.] A record of the times and ways and places in which the rock has cropped out would be a history of the country. Dear old Tecumseh Sherman rested his pad upon it, when, a college professor down in Louisiana, he wrote, in reply to the offer of a Confederate command, that for nothing in this world would he ever think a thought or do an act against the Government of the United States. [Applause.] Worden had it for ballast in that little Monitor when he sailed out to tackle the Merrimac. Grant stood upon it when he dictated the dispatch to Buckner that no terms but immediate and unconditional surrender would be accepted. [Applause.] Glorious old Ward Beecher carried a jackstone of it in his pocket for luck. When only a citizen of the Republic he crossed the Atlantic, and grappling, single- handed and alone, with English greed and English envy, he cried them hold off their hands till we had fought out our fight. [Great applause.] It was with a rough and jagged piece of Plymouth rock in his big, bony right hand that Abraham Lin- coln shattered the manacle of the slave. [Loud applause.] The rock and the Puritan — they go together. As Longfellow wrote of the bow and cord, " useless each without the other,' and while the one has been spreading out beneath, the other has been multiplying upon the continent. 48 But as the erstwhile slimy rock at Plymouth has been cleaned up, as there is now a gilded railing around, and a mansard roof above it, so the Puritan is no longer the disagreeable creature that he was. Bradford and Carver, with us to-day, are not clad like that statue in our Central Park — grim of feature and satur- nine of manner. They wear sharply creased trousers and dis- play boutonnieres of appalling dimensions, part their hair in the middle and sport the conventional mustache, and are " thorough- breds clean down to the ground." [Laughter.] Indeed the Puritan of to-day is so much like everybody else that you rub up against him without knowing it ; but you have no dif^culty in recognizing him in any one who rises from the lap of artificial life, flings away its softness and startles you with sight of a man, [Applause.] That quaint old gentleman who used to jog about our city in a ramshackle buggy, w^ho reared the institute w^hich bears his name, and who, dying, left the world better to live in, because he had lived in it — [Applause] — that hero, who gave up his life to service of the dumb brutes, which knowing nothing of his labors could not so much as look their gratitude — that man, w^ho though warned that for him to write a letter declaring for honest money, would be to kill his every chance of renomina- tion, still wrote and signed the letter because he believed it right — [Applause] — that mayor who said there wasn't room on the top of our City Hall for more than one flag — [Loud ap- plause] —that editor who, louder than anybody else in either party, daily thundered against the wrongful methods adopted in the effort to win success for his party — [Applause] — that dominie who steps "down and out" of his pulpit that he may fight vice at shorter range — [Applause] — it makes no difference where these men were born or what stock they came from, you have no difficulty in detecting the Puritan strain in every one of them. No matter how or when or w^here the strain betrays itself, you always know it. I am to speak, however, of the Puritan's mission to-day, as if his mission to-day is in anyway different from what it always has been. But it isn't. The Puritan's mission to-day is 49 precisely what it was when he climbed the ship's ladder to the Mayflower's deck — to advocate, to elucidate, to vindicate one idea, the sacredness of man — to assert, and, at any cost of sac- rifice or struggle, to secure for himself and for his own the rights and privileges vouchsafed to God's creatures ; and by so doing to show the way along which the rest of mankind may pass to enjoyment of the same rights and privileges. [Applause.] In the Pilgrims' day it was a great question how best to ac- complish that purpose ; whether to stay at home and keep up the fight there or to establish and continue the struggle from a new and distant base of operations. Hampden and Cromwell stayed at home, but Bradford and Carver sailed away ; and let history tell which have effected the most — which have dealt the heaviest blows at aristocracy, have most contributed to the up- building of man in the Old World — the efforts of those who have stood nearest or the sight and example of what has been built up here. [Loud applause.] Did I say the Puritan's mission has not changed ? I was wrong — wrong in that once his mission called only for an effort to secure his own individual liberty. But when he had achieved that, then his mission broadened into an imperative duty to complete the work his fathers had begun by accomplishment of the same liberty for all the world, so that the Puritan of to- day and of to-morrow will know no rest till the brotherhood of man has been everywhere acknowledged — his mission will not be ended till the right to " life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness " shall be nowhere on the globe denied even to the humblest. [Applause.] And that glad day is coming — coming, perhaps, sooner than we think — because nearly all the nations of the earth, respond- ing to the pressure of the Puritan idea, are to-day surely, though in instances slowly, moving toward a larger liberty and better conditions for their peoples. Chiefest among the exceptions, of course, is that benighted land wherein men and women still are trampled under foot, where for crimes imaginary they are consigned to living death in prisons, or herded like cattle on bleak and barren wastes — 50 the realm of the knout, whence there has come to our ears at times the cry of a gentle woman, stripped of her garments, and in the presence of coarse men flogged — the pressure of the Puri- tan idea has not budged that land one inch from where it stood centuries ago. It has seemed, indeed, as if nothing short of dynamite could ever move the power which Munster so aptly characterized as "a military despotism, tempered by assassination." And yet that power quailed before the storm of indignation which burst upon it a few years since, when those poor creatures were driven out from their homes — quailed in a way to inspire hope for even its people in that the power was not beyond the reach of public opinion. [Applause.] What Webster said fifty years ago is just as true to-day : " There is one thing among men more capable of shaking des- potic power than lightning, whirlwind or earthquake — it is the threatened indignation of the whole civilized world." In the outburst of that storm of indignation was most ex- hilarating evidence of the permeation of the Puritan idea. It told of a quickened conscience everywhere, with increasing ap- preciation of the value of the individual. It signaled the sure coming one day, no matter how far off the day, of the brother- hood of God's creatures, and, better than all, it proved the irre- sistible power of public opinion. Public opinion — it is the mightiest engine on the globe, be- cause we have got past the battle-fighting period of the world's history and are now far entered upon the era of thought. The men who, more than any others, make history and change geog- raphy ; who accomplish reforms and move the world ; who chal- lenge wrong, however intrenched, and champion the right always — they are nowhere to-night, drilling in squads or resting on their arms. You will find them over in Printing House square, fifteen stories up, scratching away for dear life beneath electric bulbs, or down in the cellars watching presses grind. [Great applause.] And it is through the power of public opinion that the Puri- tan works toward accomplishment of his mission to-day. There- fore, it is incumbent upon him by every means at his command, 51 the platform, the pulpit, the press, not only to make but to keep that opinion right. His it is to constantly prod the conscience of the world, that it shall not be indifferent to any question in- volving human rights— to burn into the brain of the world, so to speak, those words of Humboldt, " Government, religion, books, are but the scaffolding to build up a man, that he may be strong and free," to keep the eye of the world constantly fixed upon the liberty of the individual, as the one thing of more import- ance than anything and everything else in this life. [Applause.] That done, and public opinion will rapidly hasten fulfillment of what is the Puritan's mission to-day.' You remember how in that beautiful poem of Keats', the youth stood at the altar about to be wedded to the phantom girl that had led him captive. One moment more and the boy would have been forever lost, but just then entered "his trusty guide and good old instructor," Appolonius, who fixed upon the expectant bride his " cold, keen, perceant stare," under which the phantom Lamia " melted into shade," and the boy went free. The time was when an unholy institution covered half our continent. There seemed no way to get rid of it, no way to check its growth, but a Puritan woman, pointing at it with her pen, directed toward it the stare of the civilized world. Under that stare it became constantly more restless, till finally, writh- ing like a coil of angry snakes, it struck with its venomous fangs at everything within reach, and then, in very self-protec- tion, we stamped out its accursed life. [Loud and long applause.] With a wider spread of the Puritan idea, with increased intelligence and a more quickened conscience throughout the world, with a fuller realization by the peoples of the earth of the sacredness of man, with a nearer approach of the brother- hood of God's creatures, the time will come when, toward any trespass on human rights, any restriction of individual liberty, anywhere on the globe, it will be only necessary to direct the stare of the civilized world. Under that stare the wrong will cease, even as under the " cold, keen, perceant stare " of the old philosopher the phantom Lamia "melted into shade." [Great applause.] 52 The CJiainnan .- — Gentlemen, we have had to-night speech as to the New Englander in Brooklyn. But we all know that the New Englander is not alone in Brooklyn. We all know that the men of Brooklyn carry back associations not only to New England but to every other country on the globe ; and we love this city in which we live, because it is the centre of all these grand and beautiful associations. We cal^ upon the Mayor of our city to respond to the toast "THE CITY OF BPvOOKLYN." SPEECH OF HON. DAVID A. BOODY. Mr. President and Gentlemen of tJie Neiv England Soeiety : — I think I ought to say, first, that this is one of my posi- tively last appearances in the play of Brooklyn. A new com- pany has been formed, with new artists and with improved scenic efTects. I would bespeak for the new company the earnest and unwearied attention from the press which I have received. I do not think we all of us appreciate the press. Perhaps we have not all of us come to realize its willingness to think and speak for us and in fact to assume the ordinary obligations of life. An election occurred in our city recently. [Laughter.] Perhaps every gentleman present does not recall it, but I do, distinctly, on account of a little incident which occurred per- sonal to myself. [Laughter.] It occurred on the evening fol- lowing the election, or rather early the next morning. About 3 o'clock a message came to m}^ house ; I opened it with some feelings of apprehension — I had become somewhat nervous during the evening — and I read among other words not un- friendly, these words: "You have failed to understand the needs of Brooklyn." I rubbed my eyes and read again. I felt very positive that there was a mistake, for I had confi- dently believed that Brooklyn had failed to understand my wants. I looked in the papers next morning and found that the views of my friend seemed to be the prevailing ones, and so I have been thinking-. I saw at once that I should have 53 ample time to think. And my first thought here to-night is this: how long it takes history to correctly interpret facts. Our distinguished friend from over the river has alluded to some events in history about which it seems to me there should be some correction. He alluded to the political whirlwind which recently overtook this city. He seemed to attribute it to the New England idea. I think that he is very much mis- taken in that interpretation ; I think that we may find an interpretation in the Dutch character rather than in the New England character, for we are told that the Dutch once sur- prised themselves by conquering Holland. Now I am inclined to think that the truth is this : that the New England idea had nothing to do with this recent event which concerned me so much. The fact is that the dominant party in this city had become very tired of conquering all the political parties which have ever existed, and, following the old Dutch idea, they thought they would ascertain how it would feel to conquer themselves. [Laughter.] It seems to me that mistake was on a par with another mistake which seems to prevail here to- night, that New England is the mother of the New England idea. It seems to me that we ought to look away back beyond the history of New England to find the home of what we call the New England idea. Reference has been made to the schools which were established in New England at an early date, and to the attention which was given there to the cause of education. History tells us that the common school pre- vailed lOO years before those days, in Holland, and that it was difficult to find in those times a child in Holland that could not read and write two languages. It seems to me that on an occasion like this we ought to give to that country the credit which is due her. We ought to remember how it was that Holland established that noble character ; how it was that for lOO years she fought the foremost power of the world in establishing for herself religious and political freedom ; how it was that she established those conditions of industry and of courage and of fortitude which will forever distinguish her history so long as human language is read. We do, indeed, honor the New England character, but let us begin back at 54 the foundation ;" let us trace it as it existed in the original country, through England and through New England, and through New York and through New Jersey, and through Pennsylvania, and as it exists in its best showing in our own State and in our own city to-day. I am expected to say a word, perhaps a practical business word in regard to our own city. We are a city of a million of people, and yet we are one of the youngest — the youngest great city in the East. We are only three years older than the City of Chicago as a municipality. We have no rival in rapidity of growth except Chicago, and the circumstances which surround the two cities are very different, entirely so. Chicago unites the agricultuaal products of an empire with the commerce of a great inland sea. The energies of her people are devoted to the development of their city. It is very different with us in Brooklyn, We stand beside a greater city, the great metropo. lis of a continent. Brooklyn men are almost as much identified with that metropolis as they are with their own city. It is Brooklyn labor which sustains or helps sustain the industries o( the other city. It is Brooklyn brains which fosters and plans the great enterprise of that city. Brooklyn men are foremost among her merchants and her financiers; they are prominent in her professions, and whatever New York stands for to-day in volume of trade, in business or professional character, Brooklyn has aided to produce. [Applause.] A stranger coming to our city is told of our population, is told of the area which we cover, of the miles of our streets, of the energy and intelligence and morality of our people. But he has not learned all. He must go with the tens of thousands — perhaps a hundred thousand — who daily go to that other city and spend their time and their energies in adding to the wealth of that city. And when we come to the government of this city we discover the consequence of the conditions to which I have referred. We proceed to levy a tax for the purposes of government; we levied during the present year or for the present year, $10,000,000 for municipal purposes. In order to do that we had to lay a tax of $2.77 on every $100, and we 55 had to do it at an assessed valuation of jo cents on the dollar. And when we look across to the city upon the other side we find that New York raised $35,000,000 with an assessed valua- tion of only 50 cents on the dollar, and a tax of less than $2.00 on the $100. We turn to Boston and we find a city about half as large as our own raising almost as much in the way of taxa- tion as Brooklyn. If we go to Philadelphia we find a city a little larger than ours raising double the sum which we raise. Now these are conditions which should fix themselves in our minds. The fact is that Brooklyn men can not reach the property for taxable purposes which they themselves create. It exists in another city, it is controlled by another city, it is used for the purposes of taxation by another city. You have just elected a new administration, and when you find that that administration can not do what it is impossible to do, don't blame the administration. [Applause.] When you find that it is utterly impossible under present conditions to materially reduce taxation, don't blame the administration for it, but thoughtfully and carefully consider these conditions to which I have referred. I say to you, as one who is about to leave the re- sponsibilities of government, that there is no city in this Union where a dollar of public money goes further than in the city of Brooklyn. That may seem startling to you, but search the record, look at the amount which is raised and compare it with other cities ? I point out these facts to you that we may understand these conditions, that we may acknowledge them, that we may meet them. Brooklyn must raise practically the same amount of money for her schools, for police protection, for fire protection, for water and for sewerage as she would have to raise if her own citizens remained upon her own soil spent their energies there and developed the wealth of their own city. And how are these conditions to be remedied? When we have understood them, when we have acknowledged them, we have taken the first step toward remedying them. You know that during the last Legislature a bill was intro- duced to consolidate the city of Brooklyn and surrounding towns with the city of New York. That bill, as it seemed to 56 me, was faulty in one respect ; it provided that a vote should be taken by the people, but it did not provide that that vote should govern the action of the committee appointed to carry out the purpose of consolidation. I said then what I would be glad to again repeat, that I believed a bill should be prepared and should be submitted to the people for their vote on that same question ; for I say to you that it is a question that in the immediate future will press upon you. Will you continue to drift as you do to-day? Will you continue to suffer from these conditions to which I have referred, or will you take heroic measures and declare that Brooklyn shall have the institutions of a great city; that she shall have within her own borders those institutions around which valuable property springs up ; that she shall have here great Exchanges, the Custom House and the Clearing House, and that she shall be an independent city? Or will you say that she shall unite her destinies with the other city, that she will consolidate in gov- ernment as well as in business ? And this, my friends, is the problem that is before us ; and it is deeper than any political problem about which we have been thinking and which we have been trying to solve. It is a problem of conditions which confronts us, it is not a theory. Will Brooklyn look these facts in the face ? Shall we consolidate and be one, and we derive the benefits of consolidation ? Brooklyn will be the gainer in money values, in the increased value of taxable prop- erty, or in the reduction of taxes, and New York will be the gainer in having opportunity for that grand expansion which she must have if she goes on toward the destiny of a great metropolis. There is one other thought — and I will be brief — and I refer to the question of transportation. You know, I think, that in many respects Brooklyn has wonderful advan- tages, even superior to those of New York. Our commercial advantages are greater; our manufacturing facilities are equal. We handle more than 50 per cent, of the great staple products that come to the great harbor of Nevv^ York. We send to the West more than 50 per cent, of the products that are shipped from this harbor, and yet we do not derive the benefit from it. 57 While we handle the business at our wharves, the pecuniary, financial transactions occur in the other city. There, I repeat, is the Custom House ; there is the Cotton Exchange ; there is the Produce Exchange ; there are the great exchanges which represent the money value of these great products. You know what followed the building of the one bridge which we possess, how rapidly it has increased our population, and how rapidly it augmented the wealth of the great city of New York. It is strange to-day that in our consideration of another bridge we find men in New York opposing it. Do they not realize that while the building of other bridges will increase our population they will increase her wealth, because she must have homes for the people who are desirous of spend- ing their days in her workshops and in maintaining all the lines of her business? Does she not realize that it is as much her salvation as it is in the interest of our own city that these facilities shall be afforded. You have not for- gotten, because the impression has not passed from your mind, the eloquent words of Dr. Storrs as he referred to the duties that come to us who live in these great cities. The popula- tion of cities is increasing much more rapidly that the popula- tion of the surrounding country. All that is best in the way of physical strength, all that is best in the way of habits of industry, all that is best in the way of rational and praise- worthy ambition is constantly tending to these great cities. Here are the great prizes of life ; here talent of every kind will meet its reward ; here are the high places toward which men climb. It is the duty of the men who live in these cities to prepare for the grand future which is before us. Within the lives of many of those who now live there will be a population surrounding the great harbor of New York greater than exists in any other spot in the world within municipal limits. It seems to me, then, that there can be no grander duty of citizenship than to prepare for that future which is pressing upon us. We should be to-day building bridges ; we should be creating tun- nels ; we should be laying our great highways or driveways which we shall need ; we should be reserving parks which we 58 should have ; we should be preparing for that great metropolis which is pressing upon us, which must correspond with the grand nation of which it shall be the heart. I believe that the men whose statues will be erected in the future will not be those men who have accidentally held of^ce, but they will be the men who are wise enough to discern the future and patri- otic enough to prepare for it. [Applause.] The Chairman : — Gentlemen, the first New England dinner which I remember to have attended took place forty-three years ago. It was held at the Astor House in New York city. One of the speakers at that New England dinner was Daniel Webster, and one of the sentences from his speech has lingered in my memory ever since. He had been speaking of the May- flower, and he closed his sentence with these words : " Ah, gentlemen, that Mayflower was a flower of perennial bloom ! " Our friend who is to speak to us to-night has this subject, "AMERICA IN THE MAYFLOWER," which, is to show that the Mayflower was not only "a flower of perennial bloom," but a flower of infinite promise. I am very glad to introduce the gentleman to you. He was formerly a citizen of our own city, who stood high here in the ranks of those educators who have charge of the educa- tional institutions in which Brooklyn is unsurpassed. Since that time he has traveled far and seen other lands, and we are glad to welcome him back again and to hear him speak to us on this subject. I introduce to you Professor H. B. Sprague. [Applause.] ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR HOMER B. SPRAGUE. Mr. President and Friends : — The colored brother who prayed " that the Lord would be a rock to those that sail upon the sea," was not altogether wrong if he had in mind Plymouth Rock ; the corner-stone of the great Republic that is, and of 59 the greater Republic that shall be. Mr. Taylor has told us in eloquent language of the expansion, the multiplication of that rock. It reminds me of Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the little stone cut from the mountain without hands, the stone that filled the earth and crushed in pieces all that was wrong ; that little stone quarried from the mountain without hands, rejected for ages by the builders, rude, unsightly, a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence, yet surely spreading, breaking him that falls upon it, and grinding to powder him on whom it falls, till wiser architects discern its eternal beauty and make it the corner-stone of the great temple of Christian civilization. Political philosophers tell us that nations, like individuals, have prevailing traits, ruling ideas, at least dominant senti- ments. Assyria stood for brute force. Egypt deified life, ani- mal rather than spiritual. Persia worshipped light, not unming- led with darkness. Israel enthroned purity, not without the stain of bigotry. Athens idolized beauty ; Sparta, prowess ; Rome, dominion ; France, fame ; Germany, discipline ; Eng- land, wealth ; America, Liberty. It was the desire for freedom of conscience that led our Pilgrim Fathers across the waters from England to Holland in 1608. It was the desire to escape the subtler and more dan- gerous bondage of error, worldliness, immorality and irreligion — it was these two motives combined that brought them across the Atlantic and landed them at Plymouth Rock. Liberty, spiritual liberty, freedom of conscience ; and that liberty with which Christ makes free — these two principles, I think, were chiefly dominant in the Pilgrim Fathers. When a century and a half has rolled away, another phase of liberty is manifest in the Revolutionary struggle ; it is national liberty, independence. Seventy-five years more and it is personal liberty. That at least was one of the two great inspiring causes of the triumphal settlement of our Civil War. When our fathers fled from England to Holland, and when they came across the sea in the Mayflower, they brought with them, as our friend at my left, the Mayor of the city, has said. 6o a great body of inherited liberties, reaching far back to Magna Charta and beyond, held in abeyance, but ready to spring into visible life, like Minerva from the brain of Jove, whenever necessity should arise, trial by jury, the writ of habeas corpus ; the precious rights pertaining to justice, assuring that it should not be sold, it should not be denied, it should not be delayed, it should be impartial. A month before they landed, as the President of the New England Society has said, they drew up that document, the first written Constitution the world ever saw ; the type in min- iature, or at least the germ, the constitution of every State and of the nation. There, too, was the first real Democracy. Democracies without number had existed, but in all of them were privi- leged classes, masters, and slaves, wealthy burgesses and men who had no vote. But here, for the first time, a perfectly free government is established. Forty-one of the fifty men in the cabin of the Mayflower signed that Constitution. They were equal before the law. No one had political preference ; every one had the right of choosing and being chosen to this of^ce. Here in this equality before the law was the archetype of the New England democracies, the little towns and town meetings which did so much to educate the people in the rights and duties of citizenship, to prepare them for the great struggle of the American Revolution, and carry them triumphantly through. Here, too, was perfect autonomy. They were independent. They had cut loose from England. Their charter was a com- mercial charter ; it neither helped nor hindered them. They were a nation in a nutshell. As a nation they made war and peace without saying to the mother country, " By your leave." Within four months after they arrived they made a treaty, offensive and defensive, with Massasoit, King of the neighbor- ing Indians. They established that little army, with their gen- eral. Miles Standish, and when John Billington insulted him, they tied him neck and heels ; and when ten years later he committed murder, they hanged him till he was dead, without 6i asking permission of anybody. Such was the beginning of the great series of commonwealths that we have to-day. In this colony, this little nation, the principle of representa- tion was contained as the oak in the acorn. In 1638 Plymouth, Duxbury, and four or five other towns held a general court, and deputies from each met to make laws. The first New England confederation — Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts Colony, New Haven Colony, and Hartford or Connecticut Colony, uniting in the year 1648— this was the beginning, the prototype, the prophecy of our American Union. Freedom of worship prevailed at Plymouth. I am sorry to differ from our distinguished friend, Mr. Choate, whose elo- quent and polished speech you listened to in the early part of the evening ; but there was a perfect freedom of worship at Plymouth, resulting from the kind of church organization which they established. There never was any persecution for religion in the Plymouth Colony, at least during the life of the Pilgrim Fathers. Under their rule there is no case on record, I think, where a man was at all troubled for his religion. Mr, Choate told us, in eloquent and beautiful language, that at school the early settlers of New England compelled the children to study the Westminster Catechism. It was not so at Plymouth ; that catechism was not in existence at the time the Pilgrim Feathers set foot on Plymouth Rock. It was twenty-three years after that before the Westminster Catechism was composed, in the year 1643. Elder Brewster, indeed, taught pupils religion at Plymouth, as he had taught successfully at Leyden ; and that, by the way, was the first free school in America. But there was no persecution nor compulsory wor- ship, Roger Williams found shelter and comfort there when he was driven out of Massachusetts Colony. Let us make a broad distinction between the Pilgrims, whose landing we cele- brate, and the Puritans who settled at Boston eight or ten years later, and from whom I have the honor to trace my own descent. The Pilgrim Fathers never punished Quakers nor hanged witches ; they are free from the stain of intolerance. 62 What has been said in regard to the Puritans I believe is true, every word of it ; but not at all if applied to the Pilgrims. Dr. Storrs, an hour ago, in the magnificent climax to his speech, telling us of the desirable things in America to-day, spoke of the importance of the family ; that what we needed was prosperous families in greater numbers and of greater sanc- tity, ever larger multitudes of Christian homes. It reminds me that the family for the first time, I think, in history, was recognized conspicuously as of transcendent importance at Plymouth in 1620. There were eighteen married men and eighteen wives present ; nineteen families, I think, in the spring of 162 1. They divided the colony into nineteen fami- lies, and assigned to each a separate lot of land ; for every member of the family, a front of a half rod and a depth of three rods ; so that Elder Brewster's family of eight had a front of sixty odd feet, with a depth of about fifty. So this all-important institution, the first established on earth — it was in the Garden of Eden — in the springtime ; at any rate before the fall ; before Adam and Eve commenced rais- ing Cain ! — the family thus rises into conspicuous importance. And so America was in Plymouth as the oak is in the acorn. After those years of persecution when King James was harrying them out of England, as he said he would ; after twelve years of exile in Leyden ; after five months incarcera- tion in the Mayflower — for they embarked on the 22d of July at Delft Haven, and were in the little vessel with brief inter- vals till December 21st — after five months' travail by sea and sickness — they stepped upon Plymouth Rock, and the child America was born. In that cradle lay the promise and the potency of self-gov- ernment, not only in America but throughout the world, "government of the people, by the people, and for the peo- ple." And it shall yet prevail. Hereditary monarchy from that time onward, whether in the Eastern continent or the Western, whether in North or South America, or the islands of the sea, was doomed. 63 ' ' Here into life an infant empire springs, Here falls the iron froin the sotil ; Here Liberty's young accents roll Up to the King of Kings ! To far creation's utmost bound The thrilling summons yet shall sound, Pontiff and prince, your sway Must crumble from that day ! Before the loftier throne of heaven The hand is raised, the pledge is given. One monarch to obey, one creed to own ; That monarch, God ; that creed. His word alone!" For back of all and beneath all were the fundamental pur- pose and paramount desire, by all possible effort, by every practicable means, by most careful study and investigation, to learn the will of God ; and then the determination, no matter at what consequence — come joy or sorrow, come pain or pleas- ure, come sickness or health, come life or death — to do that will. On these two principles they stood, and on them the American Republic must stand. Deeper foundation cannot be laid. We are on primeval granite. "If this fail. The pillared firmament is rottenness, And earth's base built of stubble ! " Will it fail? Has the Pilgrim spirit died out ? We have proofs in Brooklyn just now, and near us in the State election, and from time to time all over the country, and throughout our history, that it is not gone. No ; it has saved us more than once, and it will yet carry this land to the consummation for which we all hope, a consummation more glorious than earth has ever seen ! "The Pilgrim spirit has not fled. It walks in noon's broad light ; And it watches the bed of the glorious dead With the holy stars by night. It watches the bed of the brave who have bled, And shall guard this ice-bound shore Till the waves of the bay, Where the Mayflower lay, Shall foam and freeze no more." 64 The Dinner was brought to a close by the singing of the Doxology. " Praise God, from whom all blessings flow, Praise Him, all creatures here below ; Praise Him above, ye heavenly host, Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost." 65 SPECIAL MEETING. A meeting of members and their families and friends was held in the Art Rooms in Montague street, on the 27th day of April, 1893. There was a large attendance. The President, Robert D. Benedict, delivered the following introductory address. Ladies and Gentlemen /—One great value of New England societies is in that by their keeping alive the memories of the ancient times, they help us more properly to appreciate the present and to estimate the immense progress which has been made in the march of civilization on this continent. I stood a short while ago at the Narrows to see the magnificent spec- tacle of the entrance of the fleet of the war vessels of the mari- time nations, which had come, not in hostility but in friendship, to join our own war ships in the great naval parade which is to be so wonderful a feature in our celebration of the four hundredth anniversary of Columbus' discovery of the New World. And as I looked at that long procession of vessels, as to which it was hard to tell which was the more prominent element, that of their beauty or that of their destructive power, the impression which they made on my mind was deepened by the thought that, perhaps, from the very spot on which I was standing, some Indian, casting his eye over the same channel between Long Island and Staten Island, as we call them, had seen, on some such morning, Hendrick Hudson's ship, the Half Moon, when she made her way, first of all the vessels of the world, into the beautiful waters of New York Bay. Probably the Half Moon was to his untutored mind as wonderful a spec- tacle as that fleet was to mine. But to him the wonder had its origin in ignorance. He knew nothing of the powers which were then presenting themselves to his eye, of their origin or their history. I knew something, and wondered the more because I knew something, of the might as well as the beauty which passed before my eyes, and it was to me more wonderful 66 because I could carry my mind back to that September morn- ing in 1609, and, from the thought of the Httle Half Moon, better appreciate the progress which nearly three hundred years have brought. More knowledge of the early days enables us to make a truer estimate of our own. We are to hear to-night how the authentic story of the Pil- grim Fathers, of their plans and purposes, of their trials and their faith, and of the beginning which they made of national life, was once lost and how it was found again after many years. I need not introduce to you our friend who is to tell us the story. The members of the New England Society of Brooklyn know well what he has done for it for so many years, and remembering that, they will always give a hearty welcome to John Winslow. ADDRESS OF JOHN WINSLOW. Members of the Netv England Society and friends .-—The very interesting story of the loss and recovery of Governor Bradford's history of " Plimoth Plantation " is the subject to which your attention is called. The governor begun his history in 1630 and continued it at intervals until 1650. That such a history was in existence was well known as late as 1767, when and before occasional extracts were made by Morton, a nephew of Governor Bradford, in his memorial in 1669, by Prince in 1736, and by Governor Hutchinson in 1767. From about 1767 to 1855 nothing was seen of the manuscript. The safe inference is that the manuscript was accessible in the Bradford family until about 1767, or elsewhere in this country, when Hutchinson quoted from it. What became of the man- uscript for about lOO years was a mystery. It proved to be when found the most complete history of Plymouth up to 1647, and of the events in England and Holland that led to the set- tlement of that colony in 1620. The importance of this man- uscript was at once appreciated by students of New England history. Soon after its recovery Mr. Benjamin Scott, a Quaker, and the late chamberlain of the city of London, and 67 an earnest and able student of Pilgrim history, said of Bradford's work that he regarded it as the book of Genesis of the American people. A similar tribute was paid by Mr. Justice Winsor, the historian at Harvard University, in a letter from London of January 15, 1891, to the Evening Post,\n which he refers to the manuscript as " the corner-stone of our New England history." Before giving further account of the lost manuscript, let us refer briefly to Governor Bradford, its author. William Bradford was born in Austerfield, in the county of Yorkshire, England, in 1588. He was one of the sufferers from persecution in Yorkshire in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and was one of those imprisoned at Boston, in Lincolnshire, for endeavoring with others to leave the country for Holland. When he finally embarked, with others of the faithful, he joined friends at Amsterdam, and subsequently settled at Leyden. About twelve years later he with a portion of John Robinson's Leyden church removed to Plymouth and was a passenger on the famous Mayflower. That Bradford was a man of strong religious feeling and belief is frequently evident in the pages of his history and in his correspondence. While he was a man of executive capacity, it is evident that he had scholarly inclinations. He made good progress as a linguist, knew well the Dutch tongue, and was proficient in French, Latin and Greek. He seems later to have become deeply interested in Hebrew, because, as he said, he would see with his own eyes the ancient oracles of God in their native beauty. It is stated that he was also well read in his- tory and philosophy, and as for the theology of his time he was so well versed that he was ever ready to expose all heresy and was vigorous in attacking the alleged errors of Anabap- tism, concerning which he wrote much. His contemporaries testified that he loved to walk with God and his life was most exemplary. Bradford became the second governor of the colony in 1621 and served in the office thirty years. This sketch of Bradford, though far from complete, is enough to show that the famous lost manuscript had for its author a man of studious habits, of much research and of high character. 68 That a manuscript of so much value should remain in manu- script for more than two hundred years is indeed remarkable. The volume I now show you is Bradford's history as published by the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1856 under circum- stances soon to be stated. When you come to think of it — how much of human life is interwoven with loss. Men are everywhere struggling to gain something of real or supposed value, such as health, wealth, reputation, fame. The sure out- come of the struggle in a large degree is disappointment and loss. How many good reputations are lost. There comes the premature loss of health and life, the loss of friends, of for- tune, the loss of ships on the ocean, the loss of cities that dis- appear from the face of the earth. The earth itself is con stantly changing and suffering apparent loss, and many suppose is doomed to final destruction. One of the finest performances on the lecture platform by Wendell Phillips was a lecture entitled " The Lost Arts." This lecture was received for several years with great favor and, it is stated, was repeated nearly 2,000 times in this country. The long list of the lost arts is indeed formidable. Thus we encounter at every step in life loss, or the fear or danger of loss, of something we deem of value. Take another instance : All knowledge of the burial places of the Pilgrim Fathers is lost, except, possibly, that of Governor Bradford. The nearest approach to knowledge we have as to the burial place of any of the Pilgrims, with the exception named, is that we know that Governor Winslow was buried at sea, he having died in the service of Cromwell as chief commissioner in an expedition against the West Indies. It would be a grateful satisfaction if we could to-day know the exact burial places of the Mayflower passengers, but we know them not. What was known is lost. In the lecture which I heard on the " Value of Time," first delivered by Charles Sumner in the Federal street theatre before the Boston Lyceum in 1846, his first sentence was, "'I have lost a day, was the exclamation of the virtuous Roman emperor, for on this day I have done no good thing." In the same vein we have the venerable verses, whose author is unknown : 69 ' ' Count that day lost whose slow descending sun Views from thy hand no worthy action done." In view of the wonderful ruins found on the western conti- nent, a learned French archaeologist exclaims, " America is to be again discovered." How vast the loss implied in this state- ment ! Coming now to the place of Bradford's work and life, let us try to imagine what it was and how it looked in his time. We have a description of it as it appeared in 1627 to a Dutch Secretary, who was sent to Plymouth on a diplomatic errand by the Dutch colony at Manhattan. In this report the Secretary, whose name was De Rasieres, describes Plymouth and the style of going to church. This was another case of loss, for only a part of this letter has been preserved. It was found in the royal library of Holland by Mr. Brodhead, the New York State historian. We quote the descriptive part as follows : " New Plymouth lies on the slope of a hill, stretching east toward the sea coast, with a broad street about a cannon shot long, leading down the hill, with a cross street in the middle going southward to the inlet and northward to the land. The houses are constructed of hewn planks, with gardens also enclosed behind, and at the sides with hewn planks, so that their houses and courtyards are arranged in very good order, with a stockade against a sudden attack ; and at the ends of the streets are three wooden gates. In the centre of the cross streets stands the Governor's house, before which is a square erection upon which four patereros are mounted so as to flank along the streets. Upon the hill they have a large square house, with a flat roof made of thick-sawn planks laid with oak beams, upon the top of which they have six cannons with short iron balls of four or five pounds, and commands the surrounding country. The lower part they use for their church, where they preach on Sundays and the usual holy days. They assemble by beat of drum, each with his musket or firelock, in front of the Captain's door ; they have their cloaks on, and place themselves in order, three abreast, and are led by a sergeant without beat of drum. Behind comes the Governor in a long robe ; beside him, on the right hand, comes the preacher 70 with his cloak on, and on the left hand the Captain, with his side arms and cloak on, and with a small cane in his hand ; and so they march in good order and each sets his arms down near him. Thus they are constantly on their guard, night and day.'' In the mildest of Plymouth winters it could be predicated that " Out of the bosom of the air, Out of the cloud folds of her garments shaken, Over the woodlawns brown and bare, Over the harvest fields forsaken, Silent and soft and slow Descends the snow." But in many a hard winter the Pilgrims found that the snow did not descend " soft and slow." These were the things and scenes familiar to Bradford. The old burial hill and the sea coast, and the broad street, and the general outline of nature's landscape remain to-day at Plymouth as the Dutch Secretary saw them. But none of the primitive dwellings remain. There are many new ones and other important buildings there now and a considerable population and busi- ness enterprise, which give the place another aspect. One notable adornment recently completed by a grateful posterity, at a cost of $300,000, is the noble granite monument erected in honor of the Pilgrims. It stands on a hill commanding the harbor where the Mayflower was. It has four figures on wing pedestals in heroic size, representing " Morality," " Edu- cation," " Freedom " and " Law," and presiding over these is a graceful figure pointing heavenward, representing " Faith." These figures suggest the leading ideas necessary to guide and conserve a sound system of government. Bradford's purpose to write a history of the colony is indicated in a note appended to one of his papers in his letter book in 1625, where he says : " It was God's marvelous providence that we were ever able to wade through things, as will better appear if God give me life and opportunity to handle them more particularly in another treatise more at large, as I desire and purpose (if God permit), with many other things, in a better order." This precious manuscript, whose further history will now be stated. 71 was, while in the possession of Rev. Dr. Prince, deposited in the New England Library, in the tower of the Old South Church in Boston. Prince kept his valued books and papers in that tower, and the supposition is that Bradford's manuscript was there when Boston was besieged, and when the old church was made a riding school by the British soldiers in the days of the revolution. Governor Bradford's letter book was there, and was taken to Nova Scotia and partly destroyed. Another case of loss without recovery. What was left of the letter book was found in a bakery in Halifax by James Clark, a cor- responding member of the Massachusetts Historical Society. He found that a part of it had been used for wrapping paper. The general conclusion for about one hundred years was that Bradford's history had suffered a similar fate. But in 1855 the author of the history of Massachusetts, the learned Rev. John S. Barry, called upon Mr. Charles Dean, who was a noted authority in colonial history in Boston and then Secretary of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and said that he was convinced he had made an important discovery, to wit : the locus in quo of Bradford's history. He then called Mr. Dean's attention to a small volume entitled " A History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America," by Samuel, Lord Bishop of Oxford, London, 1846. Mr. Barry referred Mr. Dean to certain passages in the book and to notes which referred to Bradford's manuscript in the Fulham Library. There were other passages, not before printed, which were referred to in the same way. Mr. Dean concurred with Mr. Barry and said that immediate measures ought to be taken for investigation. There was in London the Rev. Joseph Hunter, a corres- pondent of Mr. Dean's and one of the vice-presidents of the Society of Antiquaries of London. This gentleman, well known here, was much interested in Pilgrim history and had writ- ten on the subject. Mr. Dean wrote a letter to Mr. Hunter on the same day, asking him to inquire what this Fulham manuscript was to which the Bishop of Oxford had referred, and to get a copy if it proved what was hoped. As a means of verification an original letter of Bradford's was sent with the 72 letter, which left New York February 21, 1855. A reply dated on the following March 12th was received, in which Mr. Hunter stated he had interested the Bishop of Oxford in the matter, who requested of the Bishop of London permission for Mr. Hunter to have a copy made. Mr. Hunter also addressed a letter to the bishop explaining the deep interest the Massa- chusetts Historical Society took in the question. The bishop cordially gave the permission and offered to bring the manu- script from Fulham to town, which he did, and Mr. Hunter soon had an opportunity of inspecting it at his lordship's house in St. James' Square. His lordship also gave Mr. Hunter permission to take it home and make a copy. Mr. Hunter in his letter expressed the opinion that the manuscript was the handwriting of Governor Bradford. Some further evidence of this is the fact that Samuel, one of the Bradford family, had written on the manuscript in 1705 that it was given by the Governor to his son. Major William Bradford, and by him to his son, Major John Bradford. There is also, in the handwriting of Prince, a memorandum dated June 4, 1728, showing that he obtained it from Major John Bradford. It also appears, says Mr. Hunter, to have been in the New Eng- land Library, which was in the charge of Prince in the Old South Church in Boston. The written pages are 270, as stated by Prince and later by Dr. Young, as the number of pages in the long lost volume. The Massachusetts Historical Society forthwith ordered an exact copy of the manuscript and sent funds for that purpose to Mr. Hunter. The much coveted copy was received in Boston on August 3, 1855, and published the next year, together with a letter from Mr. Hunter, in which he explains how carefully the copy was made, and mentions that the name of Mercy Bradford, the wife of the Governor, appears on the manuscript. There is a list of the passengers of the Mayflower, with some account of their families, at the end of the manuscript. Mr. Hunter adds in a note that every- thing in the volume had been copied except some Hebrew quotations, some Hebrew roots, with English explanations, occupying eight pages. Bradford prefixes a statement of the 73 reasons why in his old age he longed to study the ancient lan- guage, which reasons have been referred to. It will thus be seen that up to 1855 we were chiefly indebted to certain extracts and abridgements that had been made from this manuscript by various writers for our knowl- edge of Plymouth history. Mr. Prince, who is often referred to in connection with this manuscript as its last known custo- dian in this country, was the Rev. Thomas Prince, who was born in Sandwich, Mass., in 1687, and died in 1758. Mr. Prince was educated in Harvard College, was in charge of a church at Combs, Suffolk, England, six years, and then became a colleague of Rev. Joseph Sewal at the Old South Church in Boston, where he remained until his death. He was deeply interested in New England history, and was the author of a work, entitled " Annals of New England," materials for which he had collected with great care while in England. A word as to the Fulham Library. The village of Fulham is a parish of about twenty-three thousand inhabitants, on the banks of the Thames, about four miles from Hyde Park corner, and now within the metropolitan circle. The manor of Fulham belonged to the See of London before the Conquest, and has since been in charge of the bishops of London, except during the interreg- num in the seventeenth century, the manor house or palace being their summer residence. The library, Mr. Hunter writes, is a very valuable one, occupying a handsome room 48 feet in length, and containing portraits of the bishops of London, beginning with Tunstall. Among others, says Thorne, is a portrait of Ridley, the martyr, in episcopal habit, book in hand, and a good and characteristic head. The same authority states that about 1647 Oliver Cromwell was entertained there in right royal fashion. Fulham Palace, in which is the library, is surrounded by beautiful grounds of thirty-seven acres. It is not certainly known who took the original manuscript from the New England Library in Boston to the Fulham Library in England. One view is that it was probably taken by some British officer, when the Old South Church was occupied, as stated, by a riding school connected with the British army. 6 74 Mr. Winsor suggests that it may have been taken by Governor Hutchinson on his reluctant return to England in 1774. It is certain that whereas it was lost, it was found. Its finding might well have caused rejoicing, as it did, among all lovers of historical studies. The value of this manuscript comes from its subject and its authenticity. No man of his time had so good facilities for writing the history as Governor Bradford. He was governor for thirty years and thus gained great famili- arity with everything of interest pertaining to the colony. These facts, together with the literary abilities and high char- acter of the governor, deservedly made this work of first authority. Governor Bradford died in the sixty-ninth year of his age. In the course of his long official life Bradford had seen one after another of his Pilgrim comrades depart for the life beyond. In the year before his death his dear friend Captain Standish died. His reflections in his later days must have been like those of James Russell Lowell, who. on his sixty- ninth birthday, so pathetically said : "As life runs on, the road grows strange With faces new, and near the end The milestones into headstones change, 'Neath every one a friend." In the Plymouth Church records of March 19, 1667, is a record of the death, at Plymouth, which reads thus : " Mary Carpenter, sister of Mrs. Alice Bradford, the wife of Governor Bradford, being newly entered into the 91st year of her age. She was a godly old maid, never married." They might have said, " a godly woman." That she was old is sufficiently hinted in the reference to her 91st year. If she was " never married," she was of course a maiden. With this amendment the inscrip- tion would not accuse her of being "an old maid." There is no time here to read further from the famous history. There are passages in it of thrilling interest relating to the loss by sick- ness of one-half the colony the first winter, to conference with the Indians, to the sad news in 1630 of the death in Holland of their beloved and scholarly pastor, John Robinson, who had 71 hoped to settle in Plymouth ; but it was hope deferred. Also to the machinations of the enemies both in England and America, and too many other topics of momentous importance to the colony. When this history was thus published, some obscure matters were cleared up, and so a better understanding of pilgrim life was attained. It must be conceded that Brad- ford's work related to civic foundations of vast importance in our subsequent national growth. Let us do our part to keep pure and strong the free institutions whose principles found a welcome in pilgrim hearts. [General applause.] Mr. Benedict then said : "You may not know it, but there is one point which connects Mr. Winslow's address with the one on Venezuela, which will be given next. When the Pil- grims were looking about for a place to go when they should leave Holland, they discussed seriously the advisability of making a settlement in South America, and had they done so, we might to-night have been sitting in Venezuela, under a trop- ical sky, listening to some one telling us about New England. It is also interesting to note, at this time, when the Columbian celebration is in progress, that Columbus, on his first visit to this country, found himself sailing through the fresh waters of the Orinoco, the great river of Venezuela, and not knowing that he had left the ocean could not explain its freshness, ex- cept by the conjecture that he must be entering into the waters of one of the four rivers of paradise." He then introduced Mrs. Katharine A. Anderson, who told of "A Midwinter Trip to Venezuela." It was illustrated with excellent stereopticon views and with several Venezuelan songs. PROCEEDINGS Fifteenth Annual Meeting FIFTEENTH ANNUAL FESTIVAL The New England Society IN THE CITY OF BROOKLYN. OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, COUNCIL, MEMBERS, STANDING COMMITTEES, AND BY-LAWS OF THE SOCIETY. BROOKLYN. 1895. Press of Eagle Book Printing Department, Brooklyn, N. Y. CONTENTS PAGE Objects of the Society, ------- 5 Terms of Membership, ------- 5 Past Officers, - - - - - - - - 6 Officers, --------- 7 Directors, -------- - 8 Council, --------- 8 Standing Committees, ------- 9 Report of Fifteenth Annual Meeting, - - - - - 10 Proceedings at the Fifteenth Annual Dinner, - - - - 21 Bill of Fare, --------- 24 Address of President Robert D. Benedict, - - - - 25 " Hon. Frederick T. Greenhalge, - - - - 29 Hon. Chauncey M. Depew, - - - 35 Prof. T. W. Rhys Davids, - - - - - 46 " Rev. Samuel A. Eliot, ----- 50 Hon. Joseph C. Hendrix, ----- 55 Hon. Charles A. Schieren, - - . - 61 Proceedings of Spring Meeting, - - - - - - 64 Address of President Robert D. Benedict, - - - - 64 " Professor Homer B. Sprague, - - - - 67 Certificate of Incorporation, - - - - - - 88 By-Laws, --------- 91 Honorary Members, .------ gy Life Members, -------- 97 Annual Members, ------- q8 Meetings of Society, ------- 104 Form of Bequest, .---.- 104 OBJECTS OF THE SOCIETY. The New England Society in the City of Brooklyn is incorporated and organized to commemorate the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers ; to encourage the study of New England History ; to establish a library, and to promote charity, good fellowship and social intercourse among its mem- bers. TERMS OF MEMBERSHIP. Admission Fee, - - t - - $10.00 Annual Dues, ------ 5.00 Life Membership, besides Admission Fee, - - 50.00 Payable at Election, except Annual Dues, which are payable in [aftuary of each year. Any member of the Society in good standing may become a Life Mem- ber on paying to the Treasurer at one time the sum of fifty dollars ; and thereafter such member shall be exempt from further payment of dues. Any male person of good moral character, who is a native or a descend- ant of a native of any of the New England States, and who is eighteen years old or more, is eligible. If in the judgment of the Board of Directors they are in need of it, the widow or children of any deceased member shall receive from the funds of the Society a sum equal to five times the amount such deceased member has paid to the Society. The friends of a deceased member are requested to give the Historio- grapher early information of the time and place of his birth and death, with brief incidents of his life, for publication in our annual report. Mem- bers who change their addresses should give the Secretary early notice. t^ It is desirable to have all worthy gentlemen of New England descent residing in Brooklyn become members of the Society. Members are re- quested to send appHcation of their friends for membership to the Secretary. Address, JOSEPH A. BURR, Recording Secretary, 45 Broadway, Brooklyn, N. Y. PAST OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY. PRESIDENTS. BENJAMIN D. SILLIMAN 1880 JOHN WINSLOW 1887 CALVIN E. PRATT 1889 WILLARD BARTLETT, 1890 CALVIN E. PRATT. ....... 1891 ROBERT D. BENEDICT, ..... 1894 TREASURERS. WILLIAM B. KENDALL, ...... 1880 CHARLES N. MANCHESTER, .... 1890 WILLIAM G. CREAMER, ...... 1892 RECORDING SECRETARIES. ALBERT E. LAMB, ....... 1880 STEPHEN B. NOYES, ...... 1885 THOMAS S. MOORE, 1894 CORRESPONDING SECRETARIES. Rev. a. V. PUTNAM, D. D., 1880 WILLIAM H. WILLIAMS, ..... 1894 HISTORIOGRAPHERS. ALDEN J. SPOONER, ...... 1880 STEPHEN B. NOYES, ...... 1884 PAUL L. FORD, 1888 LIBRARIANS. DANIEL L. NORTHUP 1874 Rev. W. H. WHITTEMORE, ..... 1880 CHARLES E. WEST, 1886 OFFICERS. ■ 895. President : STEWART L. WOODFORD. Ft'rsi Vice-President : GEORGE M. OLCOTT. Secofid Vice-President : THOMAS S. MOORE. Treasurer : FRANKLIN W. HOOPER. Recording Secretary : JOSEPH A. BURR. Correspondiitg Secretary Rev. S. A. ELIOT. Historiographer : W. A. BARDWELL. Librarian : WILLIAM H. INGERSOLL. DIRECTORS. For One Year : Benjamin D. Silliman, Hiram W. Hunt, George M. Olcott, William H. Williams, George B. Abbott. For Two Years: Thomas S. Moore, Flamen B. Candler, WiLLARD BaRTLETT, JOSEPH A. BURR, Franklin W. Hooper. For Three Years : Calvin E. Pratt, Henry W. Maxwell, John Winslow, Robert D. Benedict, William B. Davenport. For Four Years : Benjamin F. Tracy, Frederic A. Ward, Stewart L. Woodford, William G. Creamer, Nelson G. Carman. COUNCIL A. Augustus Low, A. M. White, S. B. Chittenden, A. F. Cross, H. L. Bridgman, Charles W. Pratt, N. H. Clement, Arthur Mathewson, W. H. Nichols. Francis L. Hine, Seth Low, Isaac H. Cart, James McKeen, W. A. White, Darwin R. James, John Claflin, J. S. T. Stranahan, L. S. Burnham, Henry Earl, Jasper W. Gilbert, M. N. Packard, Edwin F. Knowlton, Augustus Van Wyck, W. D. Wade, Jesse Johnson, STANDING COMMITTEES. Fz'nattce : Henry W. Maxwell, Robert D. Benedict, Nelson G. Carman. Charity : Benjamin F. Tracy, George M. Olcott, Frederic A. Ward. Invitations : The President. John Winslow. Annual Dinner: William B. Davenport, William H. Williams, Joseph A. Burr. Publications : Nelson G. Carman, William G. Creamer, Frederic A. Ward. Annual Receptions : The President and John Winslow. THE FIFTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. The Fifteenth Annual Meeting of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn was held in the Directors' room at the Academy of Music on Wednesday evening, December 5th, 1894. In the absence of the President and both of the Vice-Pres- idents, Mr. John Winslow was elected President pro tern., and called the meeting to order. The minutes of the Fourteenth Annual Meeting, held December 6th, 1893, were read and approved. On motion, the following gentlemen were elected members of the Society : Rev. J. Brewster, 219 High street; Rev. C. B. Brewster, 53 Remsen street, proposed by Mr. A. A. Low; Mr. James Hamblet, 20 Sidney place, proposed by Mr. W. H. Ingersoll. The report of the Treasurer was read and referred to the Committee on Finance for audit. It showed a balance on hand of $24,063.47, deposited as follows: Franklin Trust Company {4 % certificate) $22,000 00 Hamilton Trust Company (4 % certificate) i,307 77 Cash in Nassau National Bank 755 7° Total $24,063 47 The Annual Report of the President was read by the Sec- retary. THE ANNUAL REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT. To the Members of the New Englajid Society in the City of Brooklyn. Gentlemen : — Pursuant to Article 6 of the By- Laws, I make the following Annual Report : There has been no material change in the membership of the Society during the past year. The Treasurer's report shows a still further increase in our funds. The last Annual Dinner and the Spring Festival were both II occasions which were fully up to our standard of excellence. And we have joined with the Brooklyn Institute and the His- torical Society in sharing the expense of a course of lectures upon the lives of the founders of New England, which are to be free to our members, and which I trust many of them will attend, being assured that they will find their knowledge of the history and men of New England largely increased thereby. The plan of hiring rooms for the Society, to be kept open for the use of our members, has been the subject of much con- sideration during the year. If there were to be, as has been suggested, some building in which all the various Societies of our city might be accommodated, our Society would almost, of course, establish in it a permanent headquarters. But there is no immediate prospect of such a building. And, inde- pendent of such a building, the prospect involves an expense whose wisdom as yet would be doubtful. Moreover, the in- creased impetus of the plan of consolidating the cities of New York and Brooklyn has brought some new considerations into the matter. We are the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn. What effect will be produced upon the Society by the cessation of the existence of the city of Brooklyn ? For myself, I do not think that it should produce any serious effect upon this Society, unless it may be that we shall possibly think it wise to change our name. We may, perhaps, become The New England Society in Long Island, for even if legislation should speedily destroy the municipal existence of the city of Brooklyn, I fancy that it will be a long time before the East River will be filled up, or Long Island cease to exist as an island, which with eminent fitness might furnish us a name as well as a " local habitation." Aside from the change of our name, it seems to me that unless the incorporation of Brooklyn as a suburb of New York shall have a deteriorating effect upon the character of our pop- ulation (which only time will show), the influences which led to the formation of our Society will be powerful to maintain its existence and its prosperous growth. 12 But for the present it seems to me that the prospect of consoHdation brings with it an element of uncertainty unfavor- able to any movement in the direction of a permanent estab- lishment, and that it will be wise for us to continue as yet in the path which we have heretofore pursued. R. D. BENEDICT, President of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn. December i, 1894. The biographical sketches of members who have died dur- ing the year, which were prepared by the Historiographer, are annexed to the report, and are as follows : Amzi Benedict Davenport died on the 24th of August, 1894. His native place was New Caanan, Conn., where he was born in 18 17. Mr. Davenport came from New Caanan to Brooklyn when he was nineteen years of age. For sixteen years he was principal of a private academy for boys and young men, afterwards engaging in the real estate business, in which he continued until the time of his death. Mr. Davenport was a warm friend of Henry Ward Beecher and attended Plymouth Church for many years. He was one of the committee of three which took the first action towards the organization of Plymouth Church. He was also an enthusiastic student of genealogy and pubUshed a history of the Davenport family, tracing his ancestry back for eight hundred years. The founder of the family in this country was Rev. John Davenport (1636), who established the New Haven Colony and who was instmmental in estab- lishing both Harvard and Yale Colleges. Mr. Davenport was twice married. Two sons, John I. and Albert B. Davenport, still living, and a daughter who died in infancy, were the issue of the first marriage. His second wife was Jane Joralemon Dimon, and their children living are Henry B. Davenport, real estate lawyer of Wil- loughby street ; James P. Davenport, clerk in the New York Court of Gen- eral Sessions ; William E. Davenport, New York Post Office ; Dr. Charles B. Davenport, professor of Harvard University; Mrs. Charles H. Crandall, and Frances G. Davenport. Three children died in infancy. The funeral was largely attended at 1 1 Garden place, the residence of the deceased. The services were conducted by the Rev. S. B. Halliday, who was formerly associated for many years with the deceased in the affairs of Plymouth Church. Mr. Halliday was assisted by Rev. Mr. Hoyt, of New Caanan, Conn. Camden Crosby Dike was born in Providence, R. I., September 18, 1832. He died on the nth of October, 1894, after a brief illness, at Point Pleasant, N. J. In February, 1849, at the age of sixteen, Mr. Dike came to Brooklyn, 13 residing at first on Clark street on the spot now covered by the Ovington Building. He entered the employ of Wilmerdings, Priest & Mount, auction- eers, and after a time joined with his brothers, Henry A. and James P. Dike, in the wool business, under the firm name of Dike Brothers. Their house had a large foreign and domestic trade as wool commission merchants and importers. Mr. Dike remained in the firm until he was senior partner, retiring after thirty-six years of active work. After two years and a half of travel with his family in Europe and the Holy Land he returned, and becom- ing interested in a number of financial enterprises, maintained an active business Ufa up to the time of his death. He was one of the organizers and a director of the Kings County Bank and of the Hamilton Trust Company. He was a trustee of the South Brooklyn Savings Bank, the Homoeopathic Hospital and the Church of the Pilgrims. He was a member of the New York Chamber of Commerce, the Laurentian Club, and helped to organize the Apollo Club, and at his death was its president. He was also connected with other important business interests both at home and in the West. Mr. Dike was the fourth of five brothers, who have died successively in the order of their ages. The oldest, Oscar E., was a prominent merchant ; Henry A. and James P. were associated with Camden C. as partners in busi- ness ; Frederick V. is a resident of Highland, Kansas. There were also two sisters, Mrs. Helen D. Stearns, of Detroit, Mich., and Mrs. Alice D. Miller, of Aurora, 111. Mr. Dike was married in 1857 to Miss Jeannie D. Scott, of Attica, N. Y., a granddaughter of Gen. Phineas Stanton, who was prominent in the war of 1 8 12. Mr. and Mrs. Dike have always been prominent in social circles on the Heights. In i860 Mr. Dike built the handsome residence at 194 Colum- bia Heights, which is still the home of the family. In all of his business ven- tures he was remarkably successful. At social gatherings he was a prominent figure. An enthusiastic Republican, he always took a lively interest in politi- cal campaigns. A man of singular activity and rigor, he was strong in his attachments and loyal to his friends. He was possessed of marked public spirit and liberality, and personally was most amiable. A son, Mr. Norman S. Dike, now Supervisor of the First Ward, and two daughters, Mrs. Murray Boocock and Miss Jessie S. Dike, with their mother, survive him. John Whipple Frothingham was born in Salem, Mass., September 17, iSiS, and died in Brooklyn, N. Y., January 13, 1894. He was a lineal descendant in the seventh generation of William Froth- ingham, of Yorkshire, England, who settled in Charlestown, Mass., in 1630. One hundred years later Nathaniel Frothingham, of the sixth generation, removed from Charlestown to Salem, with which latter town he was promi- nently identified during the remainder of a long and active life. Nathaniel Frothingham was twice married, the second time in 1806, to Polly, daughter of Capt. John Whipple, of Hamilton. Of their four children (two of whom were Isaac H. and Abraham R. Frothingham, both former members of this Society), John Whipple Frothingham was the youngest. H Mr. Frothingham attended the Grammar and High Schools of his native town. At about the age of 17 he came to Boston and engaged in the ship chandlery business, in the employ of D. W. and S. H. Barnes, with whom he continued for several years. In 1841 he was married to Mary Angeline, daughter of Benjamin Thompson, one of the prominent men of Charles- town. Mrs. Frothingham lived to celebrate with her husband their golden wedding day, and died in 1S92. Their four children, Benjamin Thompson, John Sewell, Mary Thompson (widow of Dr. Chauncey E. Low) and Nath- aniel, survive both of them. At about the time of his marriage Mr. Frothingham removed to Charles- town, where he was for a number of years associated with his father-in-law in the lumber business. In December, 1851, Mr. Frothingham came to Brooklyn, where he thenceforth made his home. For the first few years he lived in Hicks street, near Pierrepont ; he then moved to Remsen street, and in 1864 bought the house No. no Remsen street, in which nearly thirty years later he died. Immediately upon his arrival in Brooklyn he formed a partnership with Benjamin Flanders and Charles S. Baxter, under the firm name of Benjamin Flanders & Company, and engaged in the cotton duck business. The busi- ness was for many years carried on at 80 South street, in New York city, and later at 74 Broad street. After Mr. Flanders' death, in 1856, the finn name became Frothingham & Baylis ; and in 1870, when two of Mr. Froth- ingham's sons were made partners, it became Frothingham, Baylis & Com- pany, which it has since remained. Mr. Frothingham was a director in the Home Life Insurance Company, and in the Seamen's Bank for Savings ; but for the most part he had few interests in New York outside of his business. In Brooklyn, while rather shunning public notice, he always took an active interest in whatever con- cerned the real welfare of the community, and many of the charities will miss his ever-ready encouragement and support. He was an early member of the First Unitarian Society, founded by the Rev. Frederick A. Farley. In various relations he was also connected with many of the social, literary and philanthropic organizations of the city. Mr. Frothingham was a very genuine product of the New England stock whence he came. Simplicity, uprightness, conscientiousness and steadfastness were all Puritan virtues, and they were conspicuously his. But more than for these he is Ukely to be long remembered for his gentle- ness, kindness and generosity, and for a cheerfulness of disposition and a quiet humor that not only endeared him to his friends, but kept him young in spirit even to the ripe old age at which he died.* Benjamin G. Hitchings, who became a member of the New England Society in 18S3, died at his home in Gravesend. L. I., December 9, 1S93, in his eighty-first year. *NoTE— The foregoing sketch was prepared by Mr. Theodore Frothingham, a grand nephew of the deceased. 15 Mr. Hitchings was born at Salem, Mass., October 22, 1S13. His father was a sea captain and died in the Bermuda Islands, leaving him when seven years old to the care of his mother, a woman of energy and force of char- acter. She removed from Bermuda to Charlestown, Mass. , where her son's early education was commenced. From Charlestown they went to Andover, when the son attended Phillips' Academy, whence he graduated in 1S32. From Amherst he went to the Harvard Law School, remaining one year, and then to the New Haven Law School, after graduating from which he came to the city of New York to practice his profession. For more than fifty years he was a member of the bar, practicing in New York and Brook- lyn, and had become widely known in Kings county. About 1S50 Mr. Hitchings married Miss Catharine N. Moon, of Brooklyn, and three years later he purchased a farm and dwelling at Gravesend. where he has since resided. A man of the strictest integrity, of great will power and perseverance, he gained a name in his profession as a formidable antago- nist, an able and trustworthy counsellor, and a staunch friend. By nature he was incapable of insincerity, and was intense in his likes and dislikes. He was especially active in town affairs, and during his early and more vigorous life was always found on the side of the right and working for the best inter- ests of the town. He was equally active against any scheme he considered wi'ong, and never hesitated to spend time and money and his best efforts for its defeat in the courts or in the Legislature But one week before his death he argued a difficult and elaborate appeal in the City Court of Brooklyn with almost his old-time warmth and animation. Mr. Hitchings was always fond of a fine horse, and was accustomed to drive to Brooklj-n and back in the evening. He greatly enjoyed a brush on the road, and took great satisfac- tion in knowing that he was not last in the race. Over six feet tall, spare and straight, and with perfectly white hair, he was a man to attract observa- tion wherever he went. The last but one of his college mates, but few members of the bar who were admitted to practice with him, survive him. Such men as he are always missed when they pass away. Lewis Abraham Parsons was born in 1827 and spent his early years at Ware House Point, Conn. ; he died of heart failure at the Arlington Hotel, Washington, D. C, April 26th, 1S93. He was an old resident of Brooklyn, having come to New York City in 1S63 as a member of the firm of Wheeler, Parsons & Hayes, No. 2 Maiden Lane, manufacturers and dealers (wholesale) in watches, jewelry and gold chains This firm soon acquired a leading position among the dealers in their line, being distinguished alike for the magnitude of their sales and their high character and reliability. Mr. Parsons had been in delicate health for some years, yet attended regularly to his business until 1888, when he retired from the jewelry busi- ness and accepted the presidency of the Brooklyn Watch Case Co., hoping to recuperate by lessening his cares. In the winter of '91 and '92 he had an attack of the Grippe from which he never fully recovered. Early in March, i6 i8g3, he decided on a Southern trip, hoping to secure beneficial results, which were not realized, as he gradually grew weaker and died suddenly at Wash- ington before he could reach his home. Mr. Parsons was a member of the Union League Club of Brooklyn, the Down Town Association and the Chamber of Commerce of New York, and was connected with many of the charitable associations of both cities. For many years he attended Plymouth Church regularly and was greatly attached to Mr. Beecher. Politically he was a Republican, and he lent his personal influence whenever the cause of good government could be advanced. While he was interested in public affairs his tastes were domestic, and his highest happiness was found in promoting the welfare of his employees, by whom he was esteemed as few men are. At the time of his death he was in his 67th year. The funeral services were held at his home, 746 St. Mark's av., Brooklyn, Rev. Dr. Lyman Abbott officiating. The interment followed the next day at Windsor, Conn., in the old cemetery used as a place of burial for more than 250 years, about a mile distant from his beautiful summer resi- dence, where in his lifetime he seemed perfectly happy and most delighted to spend the brief rests that the cares of his business permitted. A widow and two daughters survive him. His only son, associated with him in business, was very sick at the time of his father's death, and died in the following August. General Henry Warner Slocum died at his residence in Clinton avenue, April 14, 1S94. General Slocum was born in Delphi, Onondaga County, N. Y., September 24, 1826. In early life he evinced a desire for a military career, and received an appointment from his Congressional district to the military academy at West Point in 1848. He was graduated at the United States Military Academy in 1852, appointed second lieutenant in the First Artillery, and ordered to Florida the same year. He was made first lieu- tenant in 1855, but resigned in October, 1856, and, returning to New York, engaged in the practice of law at Syractise, and was a member of the Legis- lature in 1859. At the opening of the Civil War he tendered his services, and on May 21, 1861, was appointed colonel of the Twenty-seventh N. Y. Vol- unteers. He commanded this regiment at the Battle of Bull Run, on July 21, when he was severely wounded. On August 9 he was commissioned brigadier-general of volunteers and assigned to the command of a brigade in General William B. Franklin's division of the Army of the Potomac. In the Virginia peninsular campaign of 1862 he was engaged in the siege of Yorktown and the action of West Point, Va., and succeeded to the command of the division on May 15, on Franklin's assignment to the Sixth Corps. At the Battle of Gaines' Mills, June 27, he was sent with his division to re- enforce General Fitz-John Porter, and rendered important service, as he did also at the Battle of Glendale and Malvern Hill, his division occupying the right of the main line in both engagements. He was promoted to the rank of major-general of volunteers. May 4, 1862, engaged in the Second Battle of Bull Run, at South Mountain, and at 17 Antietam, and in October was assigned to the command of the Twelfth Army Corps. In the battles of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg he took an active part. At Gettysburg he commanded the right wing of the army, and contributed largely to the national victory. Having been transferred with his corps to the West, he served in the Department of the Cumberland till April, 1864, when his corps being consolidated with the Fourth, he was assigned to a division and the command of the district of Vicksburg. In August, 1864, he succeeded General Joseph Hooker in the command of the Twentieth Corps, which was the first body of troops to occupy Atlanta, Ga , on Septem- ber 2. In Sherman's march to the sea and invasion of the Carolinas, he held command of the left wing of the army, and participated in all its en- gagements from the departure from Atlanta till the surrender of General Joseph E. Johnston, at Durham Station, N. C. In September, 1S65, Gen. Slocum resigned from the army and resumed the practice of law in Brooklyn, N. Y. In 1866 he declined the appointment of colonel of infantry in the regular army. In 1865 he was the unsuccessful candidate of the Democrats for Secretary of State of New York ; in 1868 he was chosen a presidential elector, and he was elected to Congress the same year, and re-elected in 1870. In 1 8 76 he was elected President of the Board of City Works of Brooklyn, which post he afterwards resigned, and in 1884 he was again elected to Congress. He was one of the Commissioners of the Brooklyn Bridge, and was in favor of making it free to the public. Gen. Slocum was for more than twenty-five years a familiar figure in Brooklyn. Although a West Point graduate, his appearance indicated the volunteer service rather than that of the regular army. He is said to have been one of the best railroad men as well as one of the most important and suc- cessful business men that Brooklyn ever had. He was interested in the Brook- lyn City Railroad, was active in the management of the Coney Island and Brooklyn Railroad, which was the first to introduce electricity as a motive power in this city, the Jewell Milling Company, the Knickerbocker Steam- boat Company, and other important financial enterprises. The funeral services were held in the Church of the Messiah, Brooklyn, on April 17th. Rev. Charles R. Baker officiated, and an eloquent address was made by Rev. Dr. Richard S. Storrs. The occasion was attended by civic and military honors befitting the rank and public services of the deceased. Dr. Harrison A. Tucker died at Cottage City, Martha's Vineyard, Mass., May 14, 1894. The funeral services were held on the i6th inst., and the interment was in the family plot at Foxboro, Mass. Dr. Tucker was bom in Norton. Mass., March 18, 1S32. His ancestors were sturdy New Englanders, and from them he inherited the directness and sagacity likely to be assured from such an ancestry, with more of the gentle- ness of disposition than is usually guaranteed by such heredity. In boyhood he received careful training at home and in the district school, afterwards becoming a student in the medical departments of Harvard University and of the University of Pennsylvania, at which latter he was graduated. He first began professional life in Foxboro, Mass., but soon decided to live in Brook- lyn, establishing at the same time a branch office in Boston. His practice was divided between the two cities, with a residence during the summer at Cottage City. Dr. Tucker's methods of medical practice were taken from various schools — he was what is usuallj'- termed an eclectic, but was pos- sessed of a peculiar gift which, for want of a more precise definition, is called super-sense, being one of the tinclassified powers of the mind. The doctor held the power simply and with I'everence, but with no claim to supernatural power or pretence of mystery or occultness, and it was always at the service of the sick and suffering. Dr. Tucker was for manj^ years a leading member of the Tabernacle Presbyterian Church, now recentlj^ destroyed by fire for the third time. He acted as Treasurer and President of its Board of Trustees and was a member of its Board of Elders. His sympathy with Christian, moral and educational institutions in Brooklyn has been constant. He was a member of the Hamilton, Brooklyn, Oxford and Montauk Clubs, of the New York Yacht Club, the Oak Bluffs Club of Cottage City, being regarded as the fotinder of the latter and acting as its President for a long time. He was likewise a member of the Wamsetta Club, one of the oldest and most representative organizations in Massachusetts. A wnfe and a son. Dr. H. A. Tucker, Jr , and a daughter, Mrs. Alden S. Crane, sur- vive him. Charles H. Wheeler, a life member of the New England Society of Brooklyn since 18S2, died on board the steamer State of California, October g, 1894, while on his way to Glasgow. Mr. Wheeler was born in Boston, Julj' 12, 1S44. At the age of iS he came to New York and found a position as clerk in the office of Tucker, Newton & Co., dry goods commission mer- chants. He was advanced from time to time until, in 1872, he was made a partner in the firm of Mackintosh, Green & Co., which succeeded the old firm of Tucker, Newton & Co.. and was the New York directing partner in the concern until the time of his death. Mr. Wheeler was a member of the Brooklyn Club for many years, and for a long time resided at the Club House, thus becoming well and favorably known to all the members. In 1 89 1 he commenced to travel, and a year later married Miss Cane of Brook- lyn. In April, 1S94, Mr. Wheeler went to San Francisco on a health trip, returning in September much benefited. He then accepted an invitation from a friend. Captain Braes, of the steamship State of California, which sails between this port and Glasgow, to take the trip across and back with him, and it was during this trip that he died. The funeral services were conducted by the Rev. Thomas A. Nelson, pastor of the Memorial Presbyterian Church, at the residence of Mr. Wheeler's half-brother, Mr. William J. McKenny, 208 St. John's place, on October 25th. 19 Hassan Hopkins Wheeler died at his residence, 251 Cumberland street, Brooklyn, February 2, 1894. He was born in Colchester, Conn., December 29, 1S37, but came to Brooklyn with his parents when ten years of age. He attended Prof. Dwight's school on Livingston street, and also a school kept by A. B. Davenport on Willoughby street; later, he attended the Free Acad- emy in New York. The family lived on Jay street. After graduating from school Mr. Wheeler engaged in the dry goods business with his father, who was then at the head of a department in the house of the late A. T. Stewart. Shortly after, he accepted a position with a firm which later became Dunham, Buckley & Co. On the death of his father, Mr. Wheeler succeeded to his place with A. T. Stewart & Co. He next entered the hardware business for himself, but not successfully. For two years he was at the head of the car- pet department in one of the large stores in Chicago. He then returned to Brooklyn, and in 1879 became president of the American District Telegraph Company. Mr. Wheeler was one of the first Bridge Trustees, one of the oldest members of the Brooklyn Club, a member of the Oxford and many other clubs. He was a member of Altair Lodge, F. & A. M., and of several other orders and benevole|^t societies. While never a candidate for office he was always an active political worker. In politics he was an independent Democrat, and was appointed by Mayor Powell one of the Democratic members of the Board of Elections, and for two years acted as treasurer of the Board. Secretary Tracy selected Mr. Wheeler as one of a commission to appraise the Wallabout lands. Every Christmas Mr. Wheeler personally presented each of the em ployees of the District Telegraph Company with a turkey, and made a speech to the boys. The affair was usually attended by many prominent citizens, and was one of the affairs of the season. Mr. Wheeler left a widow — sister of Justice Calvin E. Pratt — and a son, Mr. John N. Wheeler, of the District Attoi-ney's office. As a successful business man and one identified with many movements of importance to the community, his death has been widely regretted. On motion, the report was accepted and directed to be published. On motion, the following directors were elected to serve for the ensuing four years : Benjamin F. Tracy, Frederick A. Ward, William G. Creamer, Nelson G. Carman and Stewart L. Woodford. On motion of Mr. John Winslow, it was resolved that the Society request the Board of Directors to consider the pro- priety of publishing a book which shall contain a history of the Society from its organization. On motion of Mr. Henry W. Maxwell, it was resolved that the Society request the Board of Directors to consider the ad- visability of dispensing with any initiation fee to the Society. 20 On motion of Prof. Franklin W. Hooper, it was resolved that the Society hereby requests that the Board of Directors consider the propriety of procuring permanent headquarters, either in a building of its own or in conjunction with other similar societies or institutions, and report back to the Society its conclusions. There being no further business, the meeting adjourned. Jos. A. Burr, Secretary. PROCEEDINGS AND SPEECHES AT THE Fifteenth Annual Dinner of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, December 21, 1894. To Celebrate the Two Hundred and Seventy -fourth Anniversary of the Landing of the Pilgrims. The Fifteenth Annual Dinner of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, was held in the Assembly Rooms of the Academy of Music, and in the Art Room adjoining, on Friday evening, December 21st, 1894. The reception was held in the Art Room, and at 6 o'clock dinner was served. One hundred and eighty-four gentlemen were seated at the tables. The President, Robert D. BENE- DICT, presided. On his right were seated Hon. FREDERIC T. Greenhalge, Hon. Charles A. Schieren, Rev. Samuel A. Eliot, Gen. Nelson A. Miles, U. S. A.; Col. Loomis L. Langdon, U. S. A. ; the President of the New England Society in the city of New York, and the President of the St. Nicholas Society. On his left were seated Hon. Chauncey M. Depew, Hon. John Winslow, Prof. T. W. Rhys Davids, Rev. Charles H. Hall, D. D., Hon. Joseph C. Hendrix, Rear Admiral D. L. Braine, U. S. N., and the President of the St. Patrick Society. The members of the Society were seated as follows : 22 Table A.— Presided over by Joseph A. Burr. George H. Fisher, W. B. Hurd, Jr., R. L. Scott, G. M. Nichols, E. L. Graef, David B. Sickles, Jesse Johnson, Han-ison B. Moore, J. H. Burtis, T. Perry, L. M. Palmer, C. N. Chadwick, Dr. A. Mathewson, E. N. Loomis, E. P. Loomis, F. E. Crane, A. H. Dailey. J. D. Bell, Dr. J. C, Adams. Table B. — Presided over by Wm. H. Williams and Charles A. Moore Thomas A. Buffum, E. F. Knowlton, E. J. Knowlton, Ernestus Gulick, George W. Kenyon, W. W. Rossiter, H. S. Manning, J. M. Conklin, Leonard Moody, Albert Haley, Dr. A. R. Payne, Wilham H. Hill, Algernon S. Hig- gins, Wm. F. Homan. Table C. — Presided over by Thomas S. Moore and Flamen B. Candler, E. H. R. Lyman, John F. Praeger, John F. Frothingham, Francis L. Hine, Theo. E. Miller, George W. Wingate, B. F. Seaver, George B. Alexander, Henry W. Maxwell, Judge George B. Abbott, Abram G. Jennings, Robert W. Candler, Martin Joost, Joseph E. Brown, George H. Southard, W. H. Male, J. Spencer Turner, Judge C. E. Pratt, J. S. T. Stranahan. Table D. — Presided over by Prof. Franklin W. Hooper. Walter S. Logan, Ed. H. Hall, John W. Scott, B. L. Benedict, Prof. F. W. Osborne, Rev. Charles H. Buck, Marshall S. Driggs, Edward Barr, Daniel G. Harri- man, Alfred F. Britton, WilUam C. Redfield, A. A. Low, O. H. Perry, James O. Cleveland, James S. Brownson, C. C. Skilton, Henry Harteau, Richard Lacey, William Adams, Nelson J. Gates, William Harkness, A. Augustus Healy, J. Ed. Swanstrom. Table E. — Presided over by A. D. Wheelock. Samuel E. Howard, Cyrus E. Staples, E. H. Trecartin, W. H. Taylor, William G. Creamer, John P. Allen, William D. Wade, Russell E. Prentiss, Newton Darling, George H. Prentiss, Col. Samuel E. Winslow, Edward M. Packard, W. Mynderse, William E. Wheelock, F. L. Cross, A. F, Cross, George E. Bartlett, Charles S. Sanxay, E. H. Kellogg, Dr. J. G. Johnson, J. M. Leavitt, C. M. Requa. Table F. — Presided over by N. G. Carman and George P. Merrill. W. L. Vandervoort, William Hester, James H. Race, Ernest Staples, F. H. Lovell, Julian D. Fairchild, Sidney V. Lowell, Isaac H. Cary, Guy Duval, Harry C. Duval, WilUam M. Van Anden, A. M. Cahoone, W. D. Badger, Frank Bailey, William H. Reynolds, Andrew Jacobs, R. Ross Appleton, Cyrus B. Davenport, Samuel Richards, Arthur Gibb, H. Adams, Jr.^ Chauncey Marshall. Table G. — Presided over by Frederick A. Wood and George M. Olcott. Henry K. i^heldon, Simeon B. Chittenden, Sturgis Coffin, James F. Pierce, Albro G. Newton, Samuel S. Utter, Thomas E. Smith, Frederick A. Guild, L S. Coffin, William H. Wallace, Dr. William Jarvie, John T. Sherman, Charles Adams, J. F. Goddard, L. S. Burnham, Judge George G. Reynolds. 23 Table H. — Presided over by Ethan Allen Doty and Charles S. Whitney. Russell Benedict, George H. Roberts, N. P. Collin, Alfred Romer, John V. Jewell, Daniel P. Morse, William H. Nichols, Howard M. Smith, William F. Smith, Abel E. Blackmar, Francis H. Wilson, M. T. Davidson, Francis P. McCoU, William P. Fuller, William M. Gould, M.D., J. B. Elliott, M.D,, William H. Lyon, Samuel A. Wood, Chester B. Lawrence, Irving L. Bragdon. The gentlemen of the Press. Table I— Presided over by William B. Davenport. Brooklyn Standard Union, Brookljm Eagle, Brooklyn Citizen, Brooklyn Times, New York Tri- bune, New York Sun, New York Herald, New York Times, New York World, 24 BILL OF FARE. Small Blue Points. SOUPS. Clear Green Turtle. Consomme Princesse. SIDE DISHES. Cromesqui Renaissance. Olives Radishes. Salted Almonds. FISH. Striped Bass Joinville. Cucumbers. JOINTS. Saddle of Canadian Mutton, Currant Jelly. Fillet of Beef, Fresh Mushrooms. ENTREE. Turban, Italian style. VEGETABLES. Artichokes, HoUandaise Sauce. PLYMOUTH ROCK PUNCH. GAME. Canvas-back Duck. Celery. Parisian Potatoes. Fried Hominy. Fancy Ice Cream. Pistache Cakes. Mottoes. Camembert. Celerv Mavonaise. ENTREMET. Boudins Mathilde. DESSERT. Fancy Cakes Bon Bons. Nougat Pj^ramid Fruits in Season. Candied Fruits. Princesse Cakes. CHEESE. COFFEE. Roquefort. 25 Grace was said by Rev, Charles H. Hall, D. D. ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT, HON. R. D. BENEDICT, LL. D. Members of the New England Society in the City of Brook- lyn and friends all: — It is my privilege to welcome you to the fifteenth of our annual festivals. The first of that long series of dinners by which Forefath- ers' Day has been commemorated was eaten on the 22d of December, 1769, one hundred and twenty-five years ago, less one day, by the Old Colony Club of Plymouth, Mass. The custom thus to celebrate the day had its origin, appropriately, where the forefathers landed. It has spread far and wide since then, wherever the sons of New England have gone, till now the day is celebrated from Maine to California. I am not quite certain of Alaska as yet, but even to that far region I know that the New Englander has gone ; and where he goes there goes the memory of Forefathers' Day, and the desire to honor and keep fresh the memory of the Pilgrims. That first dinner, one hundred and twenty-five years ago, was different in many respects from this dinner of ours. On that day the company sat down at half-past two in the afternoon to what is spoken of as " a decent repast," which occupied them for two hours. Its constituent elements were very different from those which have gratified your palates. I do not suppose that it was by reason of any intention on the part of the diners to commemorate that Indian who met the Pilgrims with his " Welcome, Englishmen," but merely from the habit of the times to give precedence to pudding, that the first course of that first dinner was "a large baked Indian whortleberry pud- ding." That solid foundation was followed for a second course by a dish of succotash. Next came a dish of clams ; then a dish of oysters and codfish ; then a haunch of venison roasted on the first jack brought into the colony ; then a dish of sea fowl ; then a dish of frostfish and eels ; then an apple pie, and lastly a course of cranberry tarts and cheese made in the colony. 26 As to beverages the chronicle is silent. But those were days when punch and flip and sling were not unfamiliar terms, and I do not doubt that there was abundant provision of all that was requisite, according to the times, for the jovial ele- ments of the celebration, which, though taking a recess at sun- set, did not break up until eleven o'clock at night. And it may- be, though the fact is not recorded, that some of those present on that occasion reached that condition, known in earlier years to have been sometimes dangerous to hostile Indians, which Holmes speaks of when, telling of the Pequot war, he says that— "There the Sachem learned the rule He taught to kith and kin : ' Run from the white man when you find He smells of Holland gin.'" Such was the substantial portion of that first dinner. But how as to " the feast of reason and the flow of soul ? " The speeches do not seem to have been reported. But from the tenor of the long list of the toasts that are set forth, twelve in number, we can see that the men of 1769 not only reverenced the memory of the Pilgrims, but held firmly to that love of civil and religious liberty which dwelt in the hearts of the Pil- grims 149 years before. When Lafayette, on his visit to this country in 1824 rode through the streets of Boston, his eye was greeted by a tri- umphal arch on which were these lines : "The fathers shall peacefully sleep Who gathered with thee to the fight Their sons will eternally keep The tablet of memory bright." When we see how easily the mists of time blur and rust the tablet of memory, we may well be thankful for any means which shall maintain a record upon that tablet, in clearness and distinctness, for the eyes of the sons of the fathers. And while we are thankful for the Pilgrim Fathers of 1620 — for what they were and what they did — let us not entirely overlook the men of 1769, whose thought has provided for a yearly brightening of 27 that tablet of memory upon which the virtues and deeds of the Pilgrim Fathers are recorded. That one of their virtues, Avhich stands out prominently in my mind to-night, is their dauntlessness. They were a little body of forty-one men, with sixty-one women and children ; with a wild sea behind them and a wilderness before them. Overhanging them were the certain perils of cold and starva- tion and disease, and other perils greater and more fearful, because they could not be known or estimated aright. " What could they see," says Bradford, " but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men ? " And yet, though these perils were so realized and so wrought their work upon them before the Mayflower sailed away, in the April following, that they had buried half of their number, yet not one of the fifty-two that were alive turned back from the work to which they had put their hands. They were fearless men and fearless women. Bismarck, in one of his great speeches in the legislative halls of Germany, uttered the grand words: "We Germans fear God, and we fear naught beside." He spoke, surrounded by overwhelming power, with all the resources of an immense civilization guarding him round. The lives of the Pilgrim Fathers proclaim the same grand thought more sublimely, because its proclamation comes out of the depths of weakness and poverty and loneliness. They conquered fear because they feared God. They endured because their hearts were filled with a high and noble purpose, in the accomplishment of which they were ready to be, as Bradford says," but even as stepping- stones unto others." That fearlessness, that self-sacrifice, that endurance, have formed prominent elements in what is known as the New England spirit. In the great city across the East River we have recently seen a mighty campaign against wrong-doing, a campaign in which great victories have been gained, and I trust yet greater victories shall be won. When years of dis- couragement almost had brought hopelessness, a banner was raised up against the powers of evil, which were rolling vie- 28 toriously over New York like a flood. We all remember how, as men measured the strong intrenchments and the mighty- forces against which that banner was raised, and thought of the unscrupulousness and power of the men who were assailed, and recalled those who had heretofore been stricken down in similar contests, they marveled at the fearlessness and the self-sacrifice of the man in whose hand that banner was upheld. But that man was filled with the true New England spirit. We are proud to claim Dr. Parkhurst as a son of New Eng- land. He is such not only because he was born upon her soil. He was filled with the spirit of the forefathers of New Eng- land. He feared God and he feared naught beside. His heart burned with flaming zeal for right and against wrong, and he, like the Pilgrim Fathers, was willing to be " but even as a step- ping-stone unto others, for the performing of so great a work." And he has so carried out that work that his name will stand high on the roll of those noble men, to whom the world is debtor, whose lives and services put to shame those who scoff and sneer at the noble title of " Puritan." These New England commemorations, I rejoice to believe, have played no small part in keeping alive that flame of devo- tion, that fearlessness and self-sacrifice in the hearts of the sons of New England and of all our people. And so long as they breathe that spirit, so long may they continue ; and may our sons and our sons' sons gather upon Forefathers' Day to hear the story of the Pilgrim Fathers, and to be roused to an emu- lation of their virtues, so that those virtues may not merely be a memory, but may continue a perennial and amaranthine growth. We have come together to-night as sons of New England. But we are first of all citizens of the United States. In recog- nition of that common citizenship and of the nation in which we hold that citizenship, represented here by the flag whose glory gladdens our eyes, I ask you to rise with me and drink the health of the 29 "PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA." The toast having been duly honored, the Chairman pro- ceeded : Whence could speech in commemoration of Forefathers' Day come more appropriately than from Massachusetts? How could Massachusetts speak more appropriately than by her Chief Magistrate ? I feel it an honor to us all that I am per- mitted now to ofTer you this toast, "THE DAY WE CELEBRATE," and to call upon his Excellency Frederic T. Greenhalge, to respond to it. God save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. ADDRESS OF HON. FREDERIC T. GREENHALGE. Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Ne%v England Society in the City of Brooklyn : — I consider it an honor to be in- vited here to respond to the sentiment assigned to me : "The Day we Celebrate." I thank you for the opportunity of meet- ing such a distinguished representation of New England spirit and character. I thank you also for the opportunity presented to me of coming here and meeting your distinguished chief magistrate, his Honor, Mayor Schieren [Applause.] I recog- nize in him and in his ofifice the progress of municipal reform ; the progress of good government, very dear to the heart of New England. And he has told me, a moment ago, of a re- markable analogy that makes him one with you, right off and forever ; he tells me in coniidence that he has discovered the fact that baked beans warmed over are better than in the ori- ginal preparation ; [laughter] — and (allow me to finish the analogy,) that saiier kraut by a most singular dispensation of Providence is better under the same conditions. [Laughter and applause.] " One touch of nature makes the whole world kin." And I do not know why his Honor, the Mayor, is not entitled to be accepted as a full fledged member of the New England Society. 30 I rejoice, also, at the opportunity of speaking for a moment in the presence of that charming and witty spirit who has con- tributed so much to the gaiety of nations and both hemis- pheres. [Applause.] He probably will tell you that there is no supremacy of New England, that the theory is all a mistake, and he has come here perhaps with an antiquated story about Tromp sweeping the English Channel with a broom at his masthead. Yet one thing I am told, he comes here as an an- nexationist. Now, when Richard Brindley Sheridan spoke in the House of Commons they had a way of treating him which I recommend as the proper way of treating Mr. Depew. After Sheridan had spoken they moved " that the House do now ad- journ ; " for fear that under the electric-hypnotic influence of the orator the House of Commons would do something that they would think ill of in the morning. [Laughter and ap- plause.] It is quite appropriate that a celebration of Fore- fathers' Day should be celebrated in this city of Brooklyn, this City of Churches, this city marked to an unusual degree by New England ideas. New York, and I do not mean this as an argument against annexation, is cosmopolitan and commercial and will in all probability remain so for a long time. A gust of Puritan strength and clearness has just swept through the island from end to end, from the Park to the Battery, but we have not yet New Englandized New York, if the New York S;e?t will permit me to use that term ; and it is fitting that in this municipality the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers should come together in Brooklyn and on Forefathers' Day, 1894, two and three-quarter centuries nearly since the Pil- grim Republic was founded, and take an account of stock, as it were, of the descendants of the Forefathers and of their works in the land of their fathers. And the question presented to you is, does the line bid fair to perpetuate itself and to con- tinue like a parabola into limitless space ? The time was when there was some doubt about the perpetuation of the New England race and stock. A flood of emmigration swept over the shores of New England, and at the same time the number in the New England family grew startlingly small, and the 31 wise-acres, the Malthuses and the scientists began to have grave fears as to the running out of the race. It became a thin line, but the thin line was of remarkable tenuity ; it seemed to persist. It was like the line that they tell about at Waterloo. It was like the guard at the same great battle of which it was said, " The old guard dies, but never surrenders." The vanguard of the human race never dies and never sur- renders. And so it went on in this way, and it is peculiarly appropriate that we should talk about the New England race and its chances in the future in the City of Churches. It is to be noted at the outset that the Forefathers and their children were not mere money getters, not wholly devoted to commerce and wealth ; that their chief products were ideas; their richest wealth was the wealth of the mind and the soul, and their noblest work — their inagmwi opiis — was the establishment of great systems and lofty principles, inspired by a sublime reli- gious faith and an absolute trust in Almighty God. Not a day passed that they did not eagerly seek the " light of his coun- tenance," not a line of their laws were written that was not based upon his Holy Word. I do not put myself before you, my friends, as a professing Christian, because I might not be accepted as such ; but as a lawyer, a magistrate, and as a per- son capable of some little reflection, I want to call your atten- tion to a most important fact. Mr. Benjamin Kidd, in his great work on Social Evolution, recently published, demon- strates that the chief factor in social evolution among nations is religious belief; that there never has been a rational sanction for the condition of national progress, but that nations march on from strength to strength, build cities, overcome enemies, and establish empires under conditions and influences which are not accepted by mere human reason, but which depend upon a super-rational sanction. Disraeli, that glorious little Jew, who never should allow himself to be called Lord Bea- consfield, said that the greatest thing in every man's mind was his religion. No matter what that religion may be, it is the guiding force and potent factor in every man's life [Applause], and so it was that these men, Brewster, and Bradford, and 32 Standish, and Winslow and their companions made their mighty success, because they aimed high. They desired to see with the morning Hght, the Hght of the countenance of God. They communed with him, they regarded him as a reahty. And this is business and science. Every word of their law, whether constitutional or statutory, was based upon His Holy Word. Now, you may talk about practical method and business, you will always find this to be the truth : that only out of the grandest ideals can come the grandest realities. The Sphinx of Egypt lies buried in the sands of centuries; it is silent ; no Gospel calls from its stony lips to guide and bless mankind. Plymouth Rock, too, may be covered by the tides of ocean or hidden beneath the sands, but the rock is not silent. Its message has gone forth ; from that rock, smitten by the rod of the Forefathers, have poured forth and will forever flow streams of living water to develop and fertilize the soil and soul of humanity over not one nation alone, but over all the nations of the earth. We come not so much to stand by the graves of the Pil- grim Fathers ; we come to glory in the great nation of which they were the founders ; we come to learn again in this practi- cal nineteenth century from the wisdom of Bradford, to hear again the prayer of Brewster, to see again the lost sword of Standish flashing from its sheath. The character of the New Englander is as massive, as strong, as unyielding, as lofty to- day as it was in the time of Bradford and Winthrop. In some respects the New Englander is quite as English as they are themselves, if not more so. He has changed less. In other respects he is sui generis. He is passionately attached to law and order, to justice, liberty and equality. He is tenacious of his opinion, conservative and yet liberal and tolerant to others. He readily adapts himself to new places and new associates, but the adaptation is only skin deep. He retains his ideas, his tastes, his peculiarities. How many of the gentlemen here have risen discontented from a banquet like this, from a feast of Lucullus, to explore the two cities for a boiled dinner > How many are there here who have felt keenly one defect of 33 an otherwise perfect wife, viz., that not being a New England woman she could not quite give that last touch of grace to that brightest glory of the morning — buckwheat cakes? And it must be a very dull narrow mind which fails to perceive the intimate and indissoluble connection beween baked beans and fish-balls upon the one hand, and the maintenance of civil and religious liberty on the other. He may change his sky but never his heart. If he cannot remain in New England, he makes it a New England wherever he goes. His institutions, his purposes, his way of life such as he knew on the hill farm, in the country store and the school-house, he is sure are the best in the world ; and he insists upon them whether in the metropolis of New York, in Atlanta in the South, or in a brand new city of Colorado. The home, the family, educa- tion, religion, these are his Lares and Penates, the foundation of all good government and all true happiness. Plato's Republic was a dream, Sir Thomas Moore's Utopia the fancy of a freeman and a scholar writing in the shadow of the scaffold ; Bacon's Atlantis never rose from the Atlantic main. But the Forefathers were not merely saints and heroes, they were eminently practical men ; and when they built their ten rude houses with oil paper windows they laid the foundations of the first true Republic of the world. Its majestic pillars rise now from the Gulf and the Lake ; they beat back the Atlantic surge on the one hand and glitter with the spray of the Pacific on the other ; the vast interior giving forth not the " still, sad music of humanity," but the cheerful chorus of a great people full of heart and hope, and confident that the future holds for them and for their children the highest glory of development and achievement in a state, body, mind and soul yet vouchsafed to the sons of men. I recall a wonderful scene, and if I did not know that you had to listen to so many distinguished speakers I would like to give you half a dozen just such pictures, but I will give you one. There is an old manor house, and I heard some of our friends here talking about it to-night, in a little place in North Cambridge- shire, with a name as savage and uncouth as mine ; they call it 3 34 Scrooby, and many people think it is one of Dickens' comic names. Then you look into it a little more and the historian says that is not so ; for euphony's sake you must give the whole name, and what is it ? Scrooby Curranskill. Whether that helps it or not I leave to the judgment of scholarly Brooklyn, But there in that old stately house, which had been the resi- dence of Bishops, where Cardinal Wolsey had planted a mulberry tree, under the shades of which the boy William Brewster very likely sat or played in his youth, you look into that old manor-house and you see the windows darkened. And there a pale intellectual man with a gleam of celestial fire in his eye is discoursing from an open book to a little knot of men about him. The man who is speaking is Robinson, the great pastor of the Pilgrims. Among the men who listen are William Brewster, the great elder who gave the spiritual fire and leadership to a colony ; and the young boy, scarcely 19 years old, who sits there drinking in those words of inspir- ation, is William Bradford, the future Governor of Plymouth. The government is against these meetings, hostile, and by and by they are compelled to flee the country. And then, after the great period of the sixteenth century with its Reformation and its Inquisition, with its Henry VIII., Defender of the Faith and the apostate, and Francis I., and all those marvel- ous influences, the " Mayflower " takes its way over the Atlantic. They founded the first genuine Republic known to the sons of men. They hang no witches, they cheat no Indians. They were not intolerant, as I told them in Boston last night They allowed Roger Williams to preach in the pulpit of Plymouth after he had been driven out of Boston. Yes, my friends, they were liberal, they wrote down no formal creed ; they said God might shed more light upon His written word. You find greater liberality and greater catholicity even in the present day ? I thank you, my friends, for the opportunity of speaking to you and partaking of the genial and strengthening sympathy and spirit of this occasion. [Great applause.] 35 The Chairman : — The founders of New England were not men who turned their eyes and thoughts only backward ; and we should not be following their examples if we refrained from consideration of the pressing questions of the day. One of these questions is the future of the great cities of the world. And we are all asking the question which forms our next sub- ject, "WHAT OF MUNICIPAL CONSOLIDATION?" I need not take time to introduce to you the gentleman who is to speak on the subject. But in your name I wish to say to him, that we here in Brooklyn take as much pleasure in hearing him as do all the rest of the men of New York, from Montauk Point to Buffalo. More than that I cannot say. Gentlemen, the Hon. Chauncey M. Depew. ADDRESS OF HON. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. Mr. President and Gentlcjnen : — It is a great pleasure to be here with you to-night, and a great pleasure to listen to the Governor of Massachusetts with a Dutch name that his father probably got in Holland [Laughter], and to meet these people about this festive board who have more or less New England blood in their veins. I received a letter from the chairman of your committee, in which he said to me, " Please speak upon the subject of the consolidation of the two great cities of Brooklyn and New York, and for heaven's sake be serious ! " [Laughter.] Knowing the idiosyncracies and peculiarities of the innumerable clubs of the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty- first centuries which exist in Brooklyn I felt the full force of that admonition, so I sent for my stenographer last night and fired at him a serious discussion of this most critical, urgent and acute question. After a day spent with the presidents of trunk lines and of the Western railways in the consideration of questions upon the solution of which depends whether you gentlemen have any income for the current year or not, I reached my home about 7 o'clock to find the type-written copy 36 of the thoughts I had fired at my stenographer. A thought occurred to me : I said, instead of taking the usual course of handing that to the press to be mangled, and going to Brook- lyn and making a speech which arises from the contingencies of the occasion, the exigencies of the hour, and the peculiarities of the case across the bridge, I will imagine I am here as at the Nineteenth Century Club and read them a paper; and so I read you the paper, for the first time in my life, but there are always novelties in Brooklyn, and this is one. [Laughter.] Under ordinary circumstances it would be a hazardous undertaking for a New Yorker to invade Brooklyn in the interest of consolidation. I came here to-night, however, not as a soldier, a conspirator, or a missionary, but a wooer. So experienced a lass as Brooklyn ought to be besieged by the usual processes which reduce a beleaguered city. Her heart should be surrounded with ditches and earthworks, her sup- plies cut off, her avenues of communication intercepted, and finally the citadel stormed in the hope of a surrender at dis- cretion. But Father Knickerbocker, whose ambassador I am, adopts no such militant procedure. He bids me lay his heart,, his fortune and his future at fair Brooklyn's feet. He appre- ciates that he is rather mature, and relies upon the fact, that can be stated with bated breath, that Brooklyn is at least old enoucfh to know her own mind. Ever since the fair Priscilla bade John Alden speak for himself, the Puritan maiden has known well how to bring the bashful, halting or uncertain lover to the altar. Puritan Brooklyn, following the traditions of the Mayflower, has not been backward in coming forward, and I am here to- night on her invitation, and she also invited me to make this proposition. I know that the Rev. Dr. Storrs, than whom there is no higher intellectual, moral or spiritual authority in this community, has declared against the union, and on lesser and narrower lines the local critic has also been heard. These opinions embarrass the situation, but nothing can stop the inevitable. All arguments against Greater New York are based upon 37 the experiences or the lessons of the past, and of the distant past. It is the privilege of our glorious period that it exists because of revolutions and upheavals, which have destroyed the value of the past and its precedents. The ancient, the mediaeval, the feudal and the independent city are pictures which have value like the canvases of the old masters, portray- ing saints and martyrdom, but which teach few lessons to the modern student. The Greek city presented, in larger and fuller measure than we can hope to reach, the elements of the high civilization and the civic pride which justify the ardor of the local patriot who would limit the boundaries of his town. In Athens was a population which did not compare in numbers with one of our great cities. Within its walls was concentrated that splendor of intellectual gifts and development, which in- spired the philosophers of the academy, the orators of the assembly and the Areopagus, the architects of the Parthenon, the painters of its immortal pictures and the dramatists whose works have survived the centuries. But without its walls was brutish ignorance, and more than half its population were slaves. Its wives and daughters had no proper place in the domestic circle ; its superb and cultured intellectuality was confined to a few brilliant men and bad women. The mediae- val city, whether a free town or the seat of royal power, was primarily a fortress. Its industries, its arts and its learnings were subordinate to its castles, its walls, its moats and its drawbridges. It could encourage population only to the point where it could stand a siege and feed the people. Steam, electricity and invention have created conditions in our times where the city assumes new relations to the world. One-third of the population of civilized countries are gathered in these busy communities. The farmer and the miner and the sailor still gather from the fruitful fields, and the bowels of the earth and the depths of the sea their wealth, but the city works up the raw material in its manifold industries and facto- ries, attracts enterprise and becomes the representative of national life. It is true that this beautiful city of Brooklyn has a singu- 38 larly intelligent and homogeneous population ; it is true that it possesses characteristics in its Puritan origin and development which lend to it peculiar grace and strength. It is also true that these qualities could be preserved, and the city become infinitely more a matter of pride to its citizens, by being part of the metropolis of the two American hemispheres. It is seldom that poetry and prose, finance and fiction, sen- timent and sense are in unison for a political idea. But they are all in harmony with the idea of the imperial city which is and shall remain the centre and source of the industrial, the financial and the intellectual life of the American Republic. New York with a million and a half of people and Brooklyn with a million are to be easily surpassed in a decade by Chicago and buffeted by the petty strife of figures and censuses. The Greater New York with three millions of inhabitants is easily the Empress of the New World and a power in the Old. It cannot be claimed that better government is more sure without than with the union with New York. If we had our ring in New York, you have not been free from similar circles ; if we have found it difficult to break ours, you were for years struggling to escape from yours. Both New York and Brook- lyn have furnished the argument against self-government in cities. Both of them have given to the pessimist and the advo- cate of State control the illustrations to enforce their ideas ; both of them have had periods when the most hopeful of us have despaired ; and yet, by the revolution of a twelve-month, pessimist and optimist are united in enthusiasm for popular government in great cities. A trifling accident in each aroused, inquiry, and the results of inquiry demonstrated the ever-pres- ent power of public opinion and public spirit. I called atten- tion three years ago, at a dinner given to me in this city, to the rumors current of municipal corruption. The Mayor, himself a worthy and respectable man, left the table in a rage. In- stantly, not only Brooklyn but the whole country began to inquire, if it was chaff, why not meet it with chaff; if it was a charge, why not answer it by refutation ; if it was false, why not deny it ; if it was true, then the people demanded a remedy. 39 And so a mad Mayor broke the Brooklyn ring. A Presbyter- ian clergyman in New York made charges of which he had no proof, but which he believed from public rumor. He was sum- moned before the Grand Jury, to be jailed as a slanderer or laughed out of town as a scandalmonger. Again the commu- nity wanted to know whether the rumors and the reports and the charges were true or false. The answer has revolutionized the great city and made a hero of Dr. Parkhurst. The forces which produced these reforms were not the Fifth avenue, in New York, nor the Heights, in Brooklyn. They were those whom Abraham Lin- coln loved to call the " plain people " — who live in the cot- tages and tenements, who toil day and night, but who, when they apppreciated the situation, brought to the rescue of the city their intelligent and indomitable courage and civic patriotism. I found the Bowery blooming with peach trees. Two-thirds of the men of Brooklyn sleep here at night, but their business, their capital and their energies are in New York. For them and their affairs the stone piers and basins and docks are builded ; for them the great warehouses are extended and the granite structures rise to enormous heights to house them ; for them the banks and the trust companies and the exchanges multiply. New York from them derives the sources of her wealth, the splendor of her trade, the extent of her commerce, and the taxable resources which enable her to be lavishly extravagant, and still, so far as taxation is con- cerned, apparently economical. It is because there is drawn to New York capital, individual and corporate, and because there is concentrated there such immense wealth that on an assessment 25 per cent, lower than in Brooklyn of real estate values, the tax rate is one per cent. less. New York is jealous of New Jersey across the North River, Brooklyn and Long Island across the East. She does what she can to retain her population within her borders. She does not meet you in your effort to bridge the river on one side, and she scorns the proposals of New Jersey on the other. The crowded tenements of a block are torn down, and upon their 40 sites rise the sky-scraping buildings of twenty-two and twenty- four stories, which would arouse the anger of the gods, if they did not excite their admiration, at the audacity of architect and constructor. The people thus made homeless are crowded into already congested districts, until the density of population surpasses that of any other city in the world. New York frantically seeks to retain its population within its own limits by the panacea of rapid transit, but the difificulties of a trans- portation problem by which twenty miles are to be covered within as many minutes, at a rate of fare founded upon stops, and the filling up and discharge of cars every 2,000 feet, do not tempt the capitalists. The city places its resources in the hands of the individual or corporation who will undertake the task, and yet there is little enthusiasm or confidence in the pro- ject. The individual or corporation who undertakes to pay 4j^ per cent, on the city's loan wants to see for his risk a handsome profit. If, however. New York and Brooklyn and Queens County and Staten Island were one, the energies of a great city would not be concentrated upon north and south lines of transit. Bridges would span the East River at half a dozen points of prominence, tunnels would be dug under it, and the ferries would increase their capacity. It would be then not a matter of policy, but of pride. The congested popula- tion, finding its way under the river, on the river and over the river, would meet the developed resources for transportation and transit on this side to be carried to cheap and healthful homes. The pessimist says this is a real estate view. Suppose it is. The history of our municipal development shows that when real estate is solidly advancing the prosperity of every- body is proportionately accelerated. If there were hundreds of thousands of people a year seeking homes in the suburbs of your city it would mean wealth to the holder of the land, it would also mean that barometer of prosperity— the quick transfer of lots from one to another at enhancing prices. It would mean the employment of a large army of mechanics in the building and equipment of the houses ; it would mean the vast distribution of money in the purchase of materials ; it 41 would mean local industries and internal commerce, all tending to the employment of labor and the distribution of wealth. You have in the beauties of the situation upon your heights, in the healthfulness of the ozone of the sea which pervades your streets and your houses, in the natural facilities for drain- age and the absence of the conditions which poison the atmos- phere, healthful opportunities for a resident population which are offered nowhere in New York. And yet the anxiety to live in New York, to be part of the metropolis, to be a seg- ment, however small, of that imperial power which stands for so much in every department of American life, crowds the avenues of our city so that equivalent situations in New York sell for ten and fifty times as much as in Brooklyn. You go to London and you find its Thames spanned by bridges which are historic, and by new bridges upon new mod- els, and upon new theories, in constant course of construction. I was last winter at Rome to discover that with all the poverty of the country and the city, millions were being expended to unite the older and the newer towns across the turbulent Tiber. The same improvements I discovered in Florence over the Arno, and the same in Vienna over the Danube. It was be- cause one government, one municipality, moved by a common spirit, was earnestly seeking to bring all its sections in har- monious and profitable contact. When the lower towns of Westchester County were an- nexed to New York, the conservatives voted against it, and dreaded the result. They were ideal communities, not only in their civic conditions and in their neighborhood life, but in invaluable historic associations. No sooner, however, were they united to the great city than, without feeling the addi- tional taxation, the city assumed the opening of their streets, the laying out of their avenues, the projecting and building of their parks and their sewer and water systems. None of these things could have been done by the towns without burdens which would have bankrupted them, but which taxes less than those of their own town's life ; they were brought within the full benefit and enjoyment of metropolitan opportunities, de- velopment and progress. 42 The essence of the marvelous development of the nine- teenth century is combination. It is the strength, the force, and the motive power of our age. It crowned the Emperor William at Versailles, and created modern Germany. It made Rome the capital of Italy. It is inspiring the Slav and Scan- dinavian for government and liberty on broader lines. It has made London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and Rome, Europe. It has drawn all the surrounding towns to Chicago, Philadelphia, and St. Louis. The lesson of Puritan ancestry and experience is for union, and in union strength. This day, of all days in the year, is full of inspiration de- rived from Plymouth Rock for Greater New York. The Ply- mouth colony represented the flower and fruitage of the Puritan idea. Persecution had done more than confirm their faith. It gave them a prophetic vision of the future, which developed a broad spirituality, which in its declarations and conduct pro- duced that consummate realization of the hope of man — Ameri- can liberty. Their eleven years in Holland had brought them in contact with the common school and with other sects, under the blessings of toleration and religious liberty in its modern sense. They bore with them as they sailed from Delfthaven the immortal message of Pastor Robinson, that God has not revealed the whole of His truth ; and, therefore, it was right to search, to inquire, to speculate and to doubt. They formu- lated in the cabin of the Mayflower, for the first time in the ages, the doctrine of man's equal rights before the law. Around them in the Massachusetts colony gathered bigots and zealots, who hung witches, banished Baptists and persecuted Quakers ; who would not permit any one to hold ofifice who did not be- long to their congregations, and who formed and exercised a modified sort of church Tammany. There were forty thousand of these outside narrow-minded Puritans of Massachusetts Bay and seven thousand of the enlightened and developed Pilgrims at Plymouth. But the far-sighted Pilgrim was a state-builder. He realized the power, the influence and the supremacy of con- centrated and homogeneous populations, and by mutual consent Plymouth was consolidated with Massachusetts Bay. 43 The Pilgrim leaven leavened the whole lump, and the fruit of the Pilgrim and the Puritan marriage impressed itself upon the Constitution of the United States, upon the Declaration of Independence, upon the Constitution of every new State which has come into the Union, and carried the common school, the church and the blessings of equal liberty to the creation, de- velopment and conditions of the American Republic as we have it to-day. One hundred years ago and Philadelphia was twice as large as New York. Ten years from now and Chicago will be a third larger than New York, as circumscribed by Manhattan Island and the annexed district. When the World's Fair went to Chicago the world knew her not. To-day she is one of the most celebrated and best known of cities, and her population has increased by reason of this knowledge and the prestige that the great fair gave her more rapidly within two years than any other municipality has ever grown. There is a national and international power and prosperity of incalculable value which is accorded to the unquestioned metropolis of a country. As soon as Berlin became the me- tropolis of Germany she drew from the cities and from the rest of the country their best in every department of life, so that she is not only one of the largest towns in Europe, not only advancing with a rapidity in population and in the construction of houses and in the laying out of streets and avenues equal to that of any booming town in the United States, but she is by the very aggregation within her walls of the political, intellect- ual and financial life of Germany a greater safeguard and strength for German unity than the throne or Parliament or army or navy. London with its five millions of inhabitants is the capi- tal of the world. A residence there of three months is a liberal education. Its financial institutions control the government and the policies to a large degree of South America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Syndicates in parlors on Lombard street by the re- sults of an afternoon's consultation affect the destinies of hun- dreds of millions of the human race over all the world. Meetings and conventions stop massacres in Armenia, ameliorate the con- 44 dition of the Jews in Russia, or compel action of infinite moment to the civilization of African tribes or the condition of the peo- ple of India. Through its drawing rooms pass all that is most eminent in statesmanship, in literature, in art and in genius of every land, our own being always well represented. So impressed is the European mind with the representative character of cities that it judges countries by their society, their business and their government. I was in London one year and met there American Governors, United States Sena- tors and Congressmen. Said Mr. Gladstone to me, " I had a conversation last evening with a most interesting countryman of yours." I ran over the list of Governors, United States Senators and Congressmen then in the city, and he said : "No, he held a much more important position than any of those. He was once Mayor of New York." I was very glad that the " Grand Old Man " had met with such a worthy representa- tive of all that is best in New York, as ex-Mayor Abram S. Hewitt. With the Greater New York an accomplished fact, the metropolitan centre of this republic, and of these two hemis- pheres is fixed forever. In the future as in the past, only in a larger degree, the banking houses of the world will have their agencies in New York ; the thrift and the energies of the country will concentrate in New York. New York will con- tinue to be the greatest manufacturing city in the United States. Wall Street will remain the financial heart whose throb-beats are felt by the miner in Colorado, the fruit-grower in California, the sheep-raiser in Texas, and the farmer, manu- facturer, laborer, all over the country. The metropolis will stand, as a metropolis always does for sound currency, for wise finance and for stability of credit. In larger measure than ever before great calamities like the Chicago fire and the Johnstown flood will be relieved by the millions of dollars gathered from New York. In national crises the Government will appeal with confidence to the city which floated the national debt in the Civil War in 1863, and took in an after- noon the fifty millions of bonds required to meet the demands of 45 the Treasury in 1894. Scientists and educators in every depart- ment will make the city the university of the country. The intellectual life of the nation will concentrate here upon magazines, books and publications which make the fame and the name of the century. The artists in stone or metals, or with the brush, or upon the dramatic or lyric stage, will seek reputation in New York. The grandeur of the city, the rapidity of its growth, the majesty of its power, the splendor of its civilization, the prosperity of its people and the intelli- gence of its citizens will compel honest government and pure administration. In twenty years the of^fice next to President of the United States in the eyes of the world will be that of Mayor of Greater New York. The Chairman : — One of the speakers in that admirable course of lectures, which we are enjoying this winter, on the " Founders of New England," is reported as having said that it is a mistake to imagine the Pilgrims as " all of good English stock," because " a goodly proportion were of Dutch extrac- tion." It is quite possible that the speaker was misreported, but if not, he was mistaken. The compact drawn up in the cabin of the Mayflower, recited that they were loyal subjects of James, by the grace of God, King of Great Britain, France and Ireland ; and to this they all set their hands. They were, therefore. Englishmen, and when they thought of the mother country it was no picture of Holland which rose before them, but of England. So when we drink the next toast we, like them, will have no thought of Holland, but of England. The gentleman who will respond to this toast is himself an Englishman. He has devoted himself to that ancient learning of the East in which so many scholars have of late years been delving, seeking to find and bring forth for men of the present day, knowledge so old as to be new. One of the most eminent scholars in that branch of literature, he has come from his pro- fessor's chair in London to bring to this country the fruits of his scholarship. We are glad to hear from him, not only be- cause of his eminence in learning, but because he is himself 46 descended from a long line of Puritan ancestors, whose thought of the mother country, and whose wish for her, was not unlike the thought and wish which dwelt in the heart of the Pilgrims, though they did not cross the sea to aid in setting up here a new England. Gentlemen, I have the pleasure of introduc- ing to you Prof. T. W. Rhys Davids, of University College, London, who will respond to the toast, which I now offer, "TO THE MOTHER COUNTRY OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS." SPEECH OF PROF. T. W. RHYS DAVIDS. Mr. President and Gentlemen : — I must say that it was with a considerable feeling of sorrow that I received the very flattering invitation to be present at your banquet here to- night and to have the great honor of speaking before the New England Society in Brooklyn in behalf of the dear old mother country of the Pilgrim Fathers. I never regretted more in my life that I have been only a recluse and scholar, withdraw- ing from the world, and that I have none of those gifts of elo- quence with which you have just now been so fully charmed ; that I have not the capacity to make one of those charming and graceful, light and airy after-dinner speeches which are the pride and glory of the after-dinner orator. At the same time I feel peculiar pleasure in coming here from the soil of that mother country to which your President has so very kindly alluded, and trust that my remarks may not be inappropriate to the occasion that calls them forth. I am exceedingly proud of the fact that on my mother's side I am descended on one side of her family from those who were driven out by the detestable Act of Uniformity, and were the first Non-Conformists in England, and on the other side of her family from the Huguenots of France; and that my father and his father and his father again were independent ministers descended from the men of independent thought and action in Wales, who laid the foundation of the Calvinistic Episcopal Church. The President has referred to me as an EngHshman. 47 Well, I am an Englishman, but still more I am a Welshman, and I am very proud of it. Out of thirty-three members of Parliament from Wales it sends thirty-two who vote in favor of progress and advance, and only one who votes in favor of reaction. I cannot help thinking that that is due in very great degree to the Puritan spirit which animates the people of that little principality. And I know that when I went out to Cey- lon, and afterward became a magistrate there, and learned to love the people who were resident there, whose disputes I had to settle, I began to study their mission and their history, partly from love of them, but afterwards because I found that the Buddhist religion which they professed, on which they had most reliable documents among them, was really a correspond- ing reform to that of the Puritans in England from whence I came. The Buddhist made a protest against the arrogance of the Brahmin priesthood, and stood up for freedom of thought and liberty of conscience 500 years before the birth of Christ ; and any one who is acquainted at all with the evolution of ideas and the history of institutions in the world will know how difficult it was at that time to stand up for such a cause. They stood up for the complete and equal liberty of thought among every one. The doctrine they preached for a long time held sway in India, and was the source of all that was good and all that leaned toward progress in that great continent. 1 do not intend to detain you to-night with any very lengthy re- marks, but this seems to me to be an appropriate thing to say of our ancestors — I may for the moment claim to be one of you — that the thing which they specially fought for was liberty of conscience ; that each man should be able to think what he thought was right, independent of authority, and not being bound down by laws made b}' any man. Well, it seems to me now that problems have somewhat changed. There is perhaps no spot on the globe where there is not now a very fair measure of liberty of conscience, which is increasing every day. It is only in Muhammadan countries that we find liberty of conscience seriously opposed. The question here is somewhat changed. We in the old country and you here have to deal with a large popu- 48 lation who are deprived by the very exigencies of their lives from the opportunity of intellectual advancement. They may think, indeed, what they like, that is perfectly true, but the conditions of their life are such that they really have no means of adequately forming opinions ; and I do not think, for my own part, that the lower classes, in England at least, for which I can speak, are very much worse off in that respect than the higher. I do not think that a Duke has really very much more opportunity of forming his own opinions than his cab- man. The fact of it is, that the struggle for existence that necessitates constant work, the conditions with which our life is surrounded, are such that very few of us, either rich or poor, have an opportunity of forming a free judgment on the mat- ters most important to his own welfare. Well, Mr. President, I think it is very much to the point that at a meeting of the New England Society in Brooklyn you should have had at least one address which attempts to deal precisely with one method of meeting this very great dis- advantage. The problem we have now before us is to make it possible for the plain men of whom we have heard, for the great masses of people, to be able to love an intellectual and ethical life which shall compare, at least, in its glory with that which was lived by our Puritan forefathers. [Applause.] I have no doubt whatever of the result. I do not know whether a single Englishman coming from England is at all justified in speaking for the whole of that country, or in forming any clear opinion about it, but I certainly have no doubt that the dear old country is still pure and sound because it has inherited the higher ideals of our Puritan ancestors. 1 have no doubt that we shall eventually in England solve these great social questions — on the right solution of which depends, in these days, the intellectual and moral freedom of our people, but I must say also that we look to you, with your greater liberty and greater opportunities, if not for an earlier solution, at least for the help which earlier attempts at solution will give. For these questions are not surrounded in your country with the difificul- ties they are in ours, and it will be the great glory of America 49 to carry out the principles of the Pilgrim Fathers as applied to the problems of to-day, by making possible in some degree the attainment of a finer and truer life for the great masses of our Anglo-Saxon peoples. [Applause.] TJic Cliairman : — Gentlemen, before asking you to join in singing our national hymn, I wish to touch another chord of memory. A year ago to-night we were honored by the pres. ence of one of our members, whose fame as a soldier stood higher than that of any other living man in the land. Since that day General Henry W. Slocum has " gone over to the majority." If those who have passed away are permitted to know what is passing on the earth which they have left, it will give pleasure to our friend if, as we sing " My Country, 'tis of Thee," we shall recall his memory, with a thrill of gratitude to him for the eminent service which he rendered to our country. The company then rose and sang " America." " My country, 'tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty ! Of thee I sing ; Land where my fathers died. Land of the Pilgrims' pride, From every mountain side Let freedom ring ! "Our fathers' God, to Thee, Author of Liberty, To thee we sing ; Long may our land be bright With freedom's holy light ; Protect us by Thy might, Great God, our King ! " After the singing of "America," the Chairman then said : I am not aware that there were any poets among the Pil- grim Fathers. They had something else to do besides versify- ing. But poesy has found many a home among the hills of New England. And many a home, not only in New England, but in old England also, was saddened during the year that is 50 gone to hear that the song of one of the poets of New Eng- land was hushed forever. I give you as the next sentiment, "THE POETS AND POETRY OF NEW ENGLAND," and I call on the Rev. Samuel A. Eliot, of the Church of the Saviour, in this city, to respond. ADDRESS OF REV. SAMUEL A. ELIOT. Mr. President and Gentlemen of the New England Society in Brooklyn : — I have been given to understand, sir, that in these unpuritanic days lovers keep late hours ; and as I listened to the wooing of fair Brooklyn by the eloquent son of New York I thought we might be here till papa turned out the gas. Brooklyn is a New England maiden and a trifle coy, and it may take even more than an hour's pleading and persuasive wooing to win her. [Applause.] You ask me, sir, to turn our thoughts back from these considerations of pressing and immediate problems, from discussion of international and even inter- continental relations, to the beginnings and the causes of our rejoicings here. I am glad to do that, for I love to trace the connections and contrasts of past and present, and to mark the growth and evolution of that New England genius and charac- ter which are illustrated at these tables. The early history of New England seems to many minds as dry and unromantic as it was hard and narrow. No mist of distance softens the harsh outlines, no mirage of tradition lifts events and characters into picturesque beauty. There seems a poverty of sentiment. The transplanting of a people breaks the successions and associations of history. No memories of conqueror and crusader stir for us poetic fancy. Instead of the glitter of chivalry there is but the sombre homespun of Puritan peasants. In place of the " long-drawn aisle and fretted vault " of Gothic cathedral there is but the rude log meeting-house and school-house. Instead of Christmas merriment there is only the noise of axe and hammer or the dreary droning of psalms. It seems a history bleak and barren of poetic inspiration, at once plebian and prosaic. 51 How is it then that out of the hard soil of the Puritan thought and character, out of the sterile rocks of the New England conscience, there have sprung the flowers of poetry which you bid me celebrate to-night ? From those songless be- ginnings have burst in later generations, melodies that charm and uplift our land — now a deep organ peal filling the air with music, now a trumpet blast thrilling the blood of patriotism, now a drum-beat to which duty delights to march, now a joy- ous fantasy of the violin bringing smiles to the lips, now the soft vibrations of the harp that fill the eyes with tears. What is it in the Puritan heritage, externally so bare and cold, that make it intrinsically so poetic and inspiring? There is no poetry in the darkness of the Puritan's creed, nor in the rigid rectitude of his morality. His surly boldness, his tough hold on the real, his austere piety enforce respect, but do not allure affection. The genial graces cannot bear company with ruthless bigotry and Hebraic energy. Nor is there any poetry in the mere struggle for existence, and the mean poverty that marked the outward life. The Pilgrims were often pinched for food ; they suffered in a bitter climate ; they lived in isolation. We think lightly of these things be- cause we cannot help imagining that they knew that they were founding a mighty nation. But that knowledge was denied them. Generations of them sank into nameless graves without any vision of the days when their descendants should rise up and call them blessed. Nor is there any inspiration in the measure of their outward success. Judged by their own ideals the Puritans failed. They would neither recognize nor ap- prove the civilization that has sprung from the seeds of their planting. They tried to establish a theocracy ; they stand in history as the heroes of democracy. Alike in their social and religious aims they ignored ineradicable elements in human nature. They attempted the impossible. How then have their deeds become the source of song and story ? Why all the honor that we pay them ? It is not because in danger, in sacrifice, and in failure, they were stout-hearted. Many a free- booter or soldier of fortune has been that. It is, as one said 52 whose name I bear, " because they were stout-hearted for an ideal — their ideal, not ours, of civil and religious liberty. Wherever and whenever resolute men and women devote themselves, not to material, but to spiritual ends, there the world's heroes are made," and made to be remembered, and to become the inspiration of poem and romance and noble daring. Scratch a New Englander to-day, it is said, and you find the Puritan. That is no less true of the poets than of the warriors and the men of facts and figures. The New England poets derived their nourishment from the deep earth of that wholesome past, into which the roots of all our lives go down. The mystical and mediaeval side of Puritanism finds its em- bodiment in Hawthorne ; its moral ideals shine in Bryant ; its independency is incarnated in Emerson. Emerson is the type of the nineteenth century Puritan, in life pure, in tempera- ment saintly, in spirit detached from the earth, blazing a path for himself through the wilderness of speculation, seeing things from the centre, working for the reconstruction of Christian society and the readjustment of the traditional religion. An enfranchised Puritan is a Puritan still. Of such is Holmes, who shot his flashing arrows at all shams and substitutes for reality, and never failed to hit the mark ; of such is Whittier, " whose swelling and vehement heart strains the strait-breasted drab of the Quaker apart ; " of such is Lowell, to whom be- longs the supreme distinction of having written the greatest poem yet produced on this continent. We who have undergone the shock of material, intellectual and spiritual growth too often fail to recognize our debt to the deserted cause. Our poets remind us that our very free- dom is our inheritance from the system we reject. It was inevitable that our six great poets should have been in litera- ture, idealists ; in politics, abolitionists ; in religion. Unita- rians. It was the progressive independency of a Puritan ancestry declaring itself. Save, perhaps, in Longfellow, no gloss or glamour of Europe obscures their poetry. No hush of servility rests on it. No patronage summoned it, and no indifference silenced it. Our poetry is the genuine utterance of democracy, and betrays in every syllable the fibre of freemen. 53 New England poetry is well nigh as Puritan in its form as in its spirit. There is in it a true Cromwellian temper. Our poets have been patriots, firm and prophetic believers in their country's destiny, loving their country so well that they dared to tell the sometimes unwelcome truth about her. The Biblical strain is in our poetry. If our English Bible were lost to us we could reconstruct almost all of its best verses out of Whittier's poems. The thunders of Sinai still roll in Lowell's fiery denunciations of smug conventionalities and wickedness in high places. The music of the psalmist is in Longfellow's meditations, and all the prophet's vision in Emerson's inspired utterance. The Puritan restraint is on New England poetry. There is no noisy rhetoric, no tossing about of big adjectives and stinging epithets, no abuse of our noble English tongue by cheap exaggerations. Our poets do not need to underscore words or to use heavy headlines and italics. Their invective has been mighty because so restrained and so compressed. There is none of the common cant or the common plausibili- ties. There is no passing off of counterfeits for realities, no *' pouring of the waters of concession into the bottomless buckets of expediency." Thus do our poets declare their inheritance. But they do not stop there. To the indomitable power of the Puritan con- science they have added a wealth of imaginative sympathy. They have made sweetness to be the issue of strength and beauty to be the halo of power. They have seen the vision of the rainbow round the throne. They have touched with divine light the prosaic story of New England, and found the picturesque in what seemed commonplace. They have seen the great in the little, and ennobled the humbler ways of exist- ence with spiritual insight. They have set to music the homely service and simple enjoyments of common life. They have touched the chords that speak to the universal heart. The very provincialism of our poets endears them to us. Their work, as some foreign critic said, has been done in a corner. We do not deny it. But, verily we believe, that New England is the corner lot of our national estate. Our poets have pre- served for us in ballads our homespun legends. They have 54 imaged in verse the beauty of New England's hills and waters. As we read there comes the whiff of fragrance which transports us to the hillside pasture where the sweet fern and sorrel grow, or the salt breeze of the sea blows again on our cheeks, or the rippling Merrimac sings in our ears, or the heights of Katahdin or Wachusett lift our eyes upward. Finally, our poets, in their characters, disprov^e the reproach that a democracy can produce only average men. As they wrote they were. The harp of New England is silent. The master hands sweep the chords no more. But shall we dare to think that the coming generation shall have no songs and no singers? Shall we build the sepulchre of poetry ? Shall we express ourselves only in histories, and criticisms ? Shall man no longer behold God and nature face to face ? " Things are in the saddle to-day," said Emerson ; and indeed it may well depress us to see our greatness as a nation measured by the number of bushels of wheat raised, or the number of hogs packed. " The value of a country," said Lowell, " is weighed in scales more delicate than the balance of trade. On a map of the world you may cover Judea with your thumb, Athens with a finger tip, and neither of them figures in the prices cur- rent, yet they still live in the thought and action of every civilized man. Material success is good but only as the necessary preliminary of better things. The measure of a nation's true success is the amount it has contributed to the thought, the moral energy, the intellectual happiness, the spiritual hope and consolation of mankind." Before we can have a rebirth of poetry, we must have a fresh infusion of the Puritan devotion to ideal ends. We must be baptized again into the spirit of non-conformity, of intellectual and moral honesty, the spirit which does not suffer men to go with the crowd, when reason and conscience and a living God bid them go alone. There never was a time when we needed more the background of Puritanism. We need in our business and our politics a sterner sense of the fear of God, and in our home life a renewed simplicity. If we are to build up to the level of 55 our best opportunities, we must build down to solid founda- tions on the sense of obligation. We have new times, new land and new men. Shall we not have new thought, new work and new worship ? The Chairman :—\ do not remember ever to have heard at any of the New England festivals which I have attended any discussion of the currency questions which plagued the Pil- grims. We cannot doubt that they had such questions, for such questions must arise where there are different currencies. But the attention of our committee this year has naturally been drawn in that direction, and they have selected as the next subject one of the currencies with which the Pilgrims had to deal, "THE WAMPUM OF THE INDIANS." Upon this subject they have invited the Hon. Joseph C. Hen- drix to speak. Doubtless he may draw from that subject lessons that will be of interest and of use for the present day. ADDRESS OF HON. JOSEPH C. HENDRIX. Mr. President and Gentlemen of the New England Society : — While your poetic souls are attuned to the sweet music of the last speech, I must chide the Fates which compel me to so sud- denly precipitate upon you a discussion of a practical nature, especially when at the very outset I must begin to talk about clams. [Laughter.] For when we begin to consider wampum we have to begin to consider the familiar hard shell clam of daily use, which was the basis of wampum. At this stage of the feast, after the confections contained in that eulogium passed upon you by the Governor of Massachusetts, and after that private parlor car, canvas-back duck, cold champagne view of consolidation taken by the great trunk Hne president [laughter], can you endure any thing savoring of the clam ? Would you not prefer to go home and sleep upon what you already have? Yet every loyal son of Long Island ought to be partial to clams. The Mayor, who typifies what a German 56 head can do in a contest with an Irish appetite, should love them because they reside within the city limits, and have ceased to vote in Gravesend. You, Mr. Chairman, as a lawyer, ought to tolerate the clam, for there are two sides to the case, and there's meat inside. Our friend the preacher knows that they are as good every day in the week as they are on Sunday. Dr. Johnson there favors them as part of his internal revenue system. The Mugwumps cannot object to them because they change from side to side so easily. The Democrats ought to like any thing that is always digging a hole for itself, and the Republicans cannot but be patient with what comes on top at the change of the tide. [Laughter.] So, gentlemen, I present to you the clam. Professor Hooper tells me to call it the Venus Mercenaria, but we will have to wait for our free public library before venturing so far. You remember when you were children, looking over the old story-book handed down to you by the Puritan fathers, that one of the conundrums with which the gayety of their times was illustrated was, " Who was the shortest man in the Bible ?" The answer was, " Bildad, the Shuhite ;" but now, in the revised text it is Peter, because Peter said : " Silver and gold have I none," and no one could be shorter than that. The North American Indian was no better off than Peter in his gold reserve or silver supply ; but he managed to get along with the Quahog clam. That was the money substance out of which he made the wampum, and the shell-heaps scattered over the island are mute monuments to an industry which was blasted by the demonetization of the hard-shell clam. Wampum was a good money in the Indian civilization. It was the product of human labor as difficult and tedious as the labor of the gold-miner of to-day. It had intrinsic value, for it was redeemable in anything the Indian had to give, from his skill in the chase to his squaw. It took time, patience, endur- ance and skill to make a thing of beauty out of a clam, even in the eyes of an Indian, but when the squaws and the old men had ground down the tough end of the shell to the size of a wheat straw, and had bored it with a sliver of flint, and 57 strung it upon a thew of deerskin, and tested its smoothness on the noses, they had an article which had as much power over an Indian mind as a grain of gold to day has over us. There were two kinds of wampum. The blue and the white. The Montauks to this day know that there is a difference between the two. The blue came from our clam. The white, which was the product of the periwinkle, did not need so much labor to fit it for use as wampum, and it was cheaper. The blue was the gold ; the white was the silver. One blue bead was worth two white ones. The Indians did not try to keep up any parity of the beads. They let each kind go for just what it was worth. The Puritans used to restring the beads and keep the blue ones. Then the Indians strung their scalps. Why was wampum good money in its time ? The supply was limited. It took a day to make four or five beads. It was in itself a thing of value to the Indian for ornament. It was easily carried about from place to place. It was practically indestructible. It was always alike. It was divisible. The value attached to it did not vary. It was not easily counterfeited. So it was that it became the money of the colonists ; a legal tender in Massachusetts and the tool of the primitive commerce of this continent. The Puritan took it for firewater and gave it back for furs. Long Island was the great mint for this pastoral coinage. It was called the " Mine of the New Netherlands." The Indian walked the beach at Rockaway, dug his toes in the sand, turned up a clam, and after swallowing the contents carried the shells to the mint. Gold and silver at the mouth of a mine obtain their chief value from the labor it takes to get the metals; wampum was the refinement by labor of a money substance free to all. The redemption of wampum was perfect. To the Indians it was a seal to treaties, an amulet in danger, an affidavit, small change, a savings' bank, a wedding ring and a dress suit. To this day the belt of wampum is the storehouse of Indian treasure. In the Six Nations, when a big chief made an asser- tion in council, he laid down a belt of wampum, as though to say, " Money talks." The Iroquois sent a belt of it to the King of England when they asked his protection. William Penn got a strip when he made his treaty. The Indians braided rude pictures into it, which recorded great events. They talked their ideas into it, as we do into a phonograph. They sent messages in it. White beads between a row of dark ones represented a path of peace, as though to say, " Big Chief no longer got Congress on his hands." A string of dark beads was a message of war or of the death of a chief, and a string of white beads rolled in mud was equivalent to saying that there was crape on the door of Tammany Hall. So you see that it was a combined postofifice, telegraph, telephone, phonograph and newspaper. The Iroquois had a keeper of wampum — a sort of secretary of the treasury without the task of keeping nine different kinds of money on a parity. This old Indian financier had simple and correct principles. No one could persuade him to issue birch-bark promises to pay and delude himself with the belief that he could thus create money. He certainly would have called them a debt, and would have paid them off as fast as he could. Nor can we imagine him trying to sustain the value of the white wampum after the Puritans started in to make it out of oyster shells by machinery. Nor would he have bought it, not needing it, and have issued against it his promises to pay in good wampum as fast and as often as they were pre- sented. It was said that wampum was so cunningly made that nei- ther Jew nor Devil could counterfeit it. Nevertheless a Con- necticut Yankee rigged up a machine that so disturbed the market value of the beads that in a short time the Long Island mints were closed to the free coinage of clams. Wampum was demonetized through counterfeit, overproduction and imitation ; but when this occurred the gentle Puritan didn't have enough of it left to supply the museums. The Indian had parted with his lands and his furs, had redeemed all of the outstanding wam- pum with his labor, and when he went to market to get fire- water, he was taught that he must have gold and silver to get 59 it. Then he wanted to ride in blood up to his horse's bridles. Commerce had found a better tool than wampum had become. The buccaneers and the pirates had brought in silver and that defied the Connecticut man's machinery or the Dutchman's imitations. The years pass by and commerce finds that silver^ because of overproduction, becomes uncertain and erratic in value, and with the same instinct it chooses gold as a standard of value. A coin of unsteady value is like a knife of uncertain sharpness. It is thrown aside for one that can do all that is expected of it. Gold is such a tool. It is the standard of all first-class nations. It is to-day and it will remain the standard of this republic. The value of the gold dollar is not in the pictures on it. It is in the grains of gold in it. Smash it and melt it, and it buys one hundred cents' worth the world over. Deface a silver dol- lar and fifty cents of its value goes off yonder among the silent stars. Free coinage means that the silver miner may make fifty cents' worth of silver cancel a dollar's worth of debts. This is a greenback doctrine in a silver capsule. Bimetallism is a diplomatic term for international use. Monometallism with silver as the metal is the dream of the Populist and of the poor deluded Democratic grasshoppers who dance by the moon- shine until they get frostbitten. The free silver heresy is about dead. It has cost this country at to-day's price for silver $170,000,000. The few sad- dened priests of this unhappy fetich who remain active find their disciples all rallying around the standard of currency reform. The report of the Secretary of the Treasury is a confession of national financial sins, and a profession of faith in sound money doctrines. Every business man will watch with keen interest the progress of a plan for the reform in our currency. You all know that the straight road is the retirement of the greenback and the Treasury note, and the withdrawal of the Government from the banking business, and you will naturally distrust any makeshift measures. The greenback is a war debt, and a debt that is now troublesome. We are funding and refunding it in gold daily, and are still paying it out as currency to come back 6o after gold. Any scheme to sequestrate, to hide it under a bushel, or to put it under lock and key, is a shallow device. The way to retire it is to retire it. It has served its full pur- pose and there never was a better time than now to call it in. In twelve years all our Government debt matures. The national banking system based upon it must expire with it unless existing laws are changed. This system has served the nation well. No one has ever lost a dollar by a national bank note. The system is worth preserving, and with a little more liberal treatment it can be made to serve until a currency based upon commercial credits and linked to a safety fund, a system which works so admirably in Canada, can be engrafted upon it. There is a great hurry to create such a system now on a basis of the partial sequestration of the greenback and the Treasury note, but the bottom principle is wrong. The government should discourage a commercial credit currency based upon a public credit currency, which, in turn, rests upon a slender gold deposit, exposed to every holder of a Government demand note. A credit currency is a double-edged tool, and needs to be handled with great care. We have had so much crazy-quilt finance that I am sure that we want no more of it. We have been sorely punished for our financial sins in the past, and now that we are repentant, we want to get everything right before we go ahead with our full native energy. We have suffered from the distrust of the world, and then from our own distrust. In retracing our steps let us be sure that we are on solid ground, and make our " wampum " as good as the best there is in the world. The Chairman : — I have but one more toast to offer, gentle- men. It is with very great pleasure that I, as President of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, propose to you as that final toast, "THE CITY OF BROOKLYN: WHAT OF HER FUTURE?" and call upon the Mayor of the City of Brooklyn to respond. 6i ADDRESS OF HON. CHARLES A. SCHIEREN. Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Nezv England Society : — The old order of things is that we preserve the best wine to the last, but this order has been changed to night. Now, I am not a Yankee, though it was my fortune to come over on a Yankee ship, with a Yankee captain and a Yankee crew, and I am somewhat inclined to believe that a great deal of my Ger- man has been knocked out of me because of so doing. I see Mr. Depew has left the room. I had prepared myself a few of the German jokes, as I supposed he would trot out some Yankee ones. I was disappointed, because for the first time, as he said, he was serious. He said he meant business. The other day a German friend of mine told me this good story, which I give to you. A German actor was just in the act of saying the memorable words of Richard III., "A horse, a horse, my kingdom for ahorse !" Just then a person in the upper gallery shouted out: "Will an ass do?" The actor shouted back: "Yes, yes, come down quick! " Well, I want to come down quick, and get through with this little speech. The agony is short, gentlemen. What of the future of Brooklyn ? This question is fre- quently asked, and especially since the last election it is re- ceiving much attention from all classes of our citizens. The vote upon consolidation being comparatively light, and carried by such a small majority, the people of Brooklyn are quite anxiously concerned as to what the future will bring forth. Very much depends upon our next Legislature. In fact, the whole question seems to lie in their hands, and the people, as well as the administration, should exert their influence upon our representatives at Albany to see that Brooklyn receives proper recognition, and that her interests are well guarded. Many schemes of consolidation have already been sug- gested, but none seems to meet with more favor than the one providing that the Legislature at its next session shall create a commission of nine members, three to be appointed by the Governor from the districts to be annexed outside of New 62 York and Brooklyn, and three resident members to be ap- pointed by the Mayor of New York, and three resident mem- bers by the Mayor of Brooklyn, and the Mayors of both cities to be ex-officio members, thus constituting a commission of eleven as a whole, fairly representative of the entire territory to be consolidated. The commission of nine to receive a proper compensation for their duties, be empowered to engage legal talent, and to draft a charter for the new city, to be submitted first to the Legislature for approval, and then to the people of the entire district for ratification by vote. No doubt the ultimate result would be satisfactory, because every district being represented and the interest of each being guarded and consulted all differences would be harmonized, and out of the many conflicting elements a complete and homogeneous charter would be formed. What of the future of Brooklyn, when annexed ? No one can answer this question, nor predict the result. At best we can only conjecture. No doubt a city of such vast dimensions as the Greater New York will, of necessity, have to be divided into several districts, and governed by departments, all report- ing and being subject to a central executive and legislative head. Brooklyn by her natural situation, so near the financial and commercial centre of New York, will be most favorably placed. Her extensive and valuable water front, reaching beyond the Narrows to the ocean, will be utilized, and prove of great advantage. With her present system of rapid transit, both surface and elevated, perfected, she will offer great inducements for people to make their homes within her limits. Besides, Brooklyn possesses a large area of unimproved property convenient to lower New York at very reasonable prices. These advantages will attract the better middle class to purchase and enjoy their own homes in this city. With the building of additional bridges, with increased rapid transit facilities, we may soon find the greater population 63 of the colossal municipality on this part of the river; and I firmly believe that Brooklyn will be the recipient of most of the benefits derived from consolidation. Brooklyn has always enjoyed the reputation of having higher ideas of municipal government. Such vice and corrup- tion as have just been revealed in New York have never been tolerated nor found foothold over here. After the union of the two cities takes place, Brooklyn will be a sort of good housekeeper to manage domestic affairs for Father Knickerbocker. Brooklyn has always practiced economy in her local affairs and she will insist upon the same policy in the enlarged city ; she will closely watch every public expenditure, and strenu- ously oppose all extravagance. Father Knickerbocker may attend to outside business, and develop the commercial and financial interests of the great metropolis ; but Brooklyn will pay special attention to getting a clean, honest and economical local government, suppressing and cleaning out those old sources of vice and corruption, so that there shall be no more scandals to be exposed. And a city will be created that shall not alone be stupendous in size, magnificent in appearance and the beauty of its architec- ture, but what is more valuable than all, be a model of honesty and virtue in public, as well as in private places, not to be excelled by any city in the world. The Dinner was brought to a close by the singing of the Doxology. " Praise God from whom all blessings flow, Praise Him, all creatures here below ; Praise Him above, ye heavenly host, Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost." SPECIAL MEETING. A meeting of members and their families and friends was held in the Art Rooms in Montague street, on the 3d day of May, 1894. The President of the Society, Robert D. Bene- dict, Esq., delivered the following introductory address. Members of the Nezv England Society and Friends : — We have not come together to-night to celebrate any solemn occa- sion. There are those in whose minds is the feeling that any occasion which should bring up the memories of the early days of New England, the days of the Pilgrim Fathers and of the Puritans of two hundred and seventy-five years ago, ought to be clad with solemnity as the appropriate garment. To them the name of Puritan calls up only the thoughts of long and severe faces, of sad-colored garments and steeple crowned hats, of long prayers snuffled through the nose, and of a perennial hostility to gaiety and brightness and social pleasure. This idea may have in it an element of truth, but it has also an element of exaggeration, the legacy to us of the hot party fights of old England, between Puritan and Cavalier. The Pilgrim Fathers in truth were not light minded men. They were busy men. They had upon their hands a great and absorbing work, to build up a civil government to pros- perity amid the great difificulties and dangers which surrounded them. And they had not much time for the social side of life. But they did not overlook it. What festival of all the year has been more full of social pleasure than Thanksgiving Day for which we are indebted to the New England Pilgrims, and which now, having spread be- yond their narrow boundaries, carries its sweetness and Joy over our whole land ? And there is another kind of festival whose origin we can perhaps trace back to New England. 65 On the 1 2th of June, 1630, the ship Arbella, from England, reached Massachusetts Bay. She brought John Winthrop, the new Governor, and was the first of several vessels which had sailed from England with supplies and accessions for the new Colony. Hubbard, in his history of New England, tells us that the Governor landed that day with some of the gentlemen and gentlewomen, and went with the friends who had come on board to greet them, " to Numkeag, which is by the English called Salem, where they supped with a good venison pasty and good beer, which probably was not their every day's com- mons." And Hubbard adds that "many of the rest of the people went ashore on the other side of the harbor, where they were as well feasted with strawberries (with which in those times the woods were everywhere well furnished) and it is like as merry as the gentlefolks at their venison pasty and strong beer, those fruits affording both meat and drink." I do not wonder that they held a Strawberry Festival on that day. Here in this great commercial centre, where rail and steam bring the tropics and the polar circle together, we lose the full appreciation of the marvel of that wondrous tide, the strawberry flood, which every spring flows up from the far south, reddening the meadows and the hillsides as it passes on till its last waves reach the distant hills of the extreme north, bringing every where the first fruit, the foretaste of the abund- ance and the delights of savor and perfume and sweetness with which kind nature is to fill the days of coming autumn once again. But those New England colonists had wrestled hard with rigorous winter, and had faced want and privation through its long dreary days ; and when the benignant spring had opened about them, when their eyes saw instead of the whitened ground and the bare armed trees, the luxuriance of green and leafy June, and when amid that luxuriance there flowed around them the delightful abundance of the strawberry tide, and when in the midst of it came news from home and the return of friends long parted from them, no wonder if they gathered 66 together with joy and gladness in what we may fairly call a Strawberry Festival. If we can trace back to the Puritans the thought of Straw- berry Festival and of Thanksgiving Day, they can hardly, with justice, be considered as a wholly lugubrious people. They were indeed men who held fast days, if they were in trouble, but were always very ready to turn them into thanksgiving days if the trouble passed away. And a thankful spirit is not a spirit which lends itself to sadness or long-facedness. In Addison's beautiful hymn of thankfulness, beginning: "When all thy mercies, Oh, My ^od. My rising soul surveys," he closes his enumeration with the lines : ' ' Nor is the least a cheerful heart Which tastes those gifts with joy.'" If Addison had not had a cheerful heart he would never have written that hymn. For thankfulness and cheerfulness walk hand-in-hand through the paths of life whether they are rough or smooth. And I am sure from the cheerful faces and pleasant eyes which have met mine everywhere this evening, that you, my friends, are not unworthy descendants of the Pilgrims in this regard. I am sure that you are mindful of and thankful for the many and great blessings which have come to us in these later days out of the work which the Pilgrims with hard toil and great endurance, with earnestness and zeal, and with firm and thankful and cheerful hearts wrought out. I am sure, therefore, that it will be with full hearts that you will rise and join in singing that grand memorial hymn by Dr. Leonard Bacon, one of the worthiest of the successors of the Pilgrim Fathers. And we will sing it to the tune of Federal street, which had its birth in the meeting house in that town of Salem, where Governor Winthrop supped that day — a New England hymn and a New England tune. 67 O God, beneath Thy guiding hand, Our exiled fathers crossed the sea, And when they trod the wintry strand. With prayer and psalm they worshiped Thee. Thou heardst, well pleased, the song, the prayer- Thy blessing came ; and still its power Shall onward through all ages bear The memory of that holy hour. What change ! through pathless wilds no more The fierce and naked savage roams ; Sweet praise, along the cultured shore. Breaks from ten thousand happy homes. Laws, freedom, truth, and faith in God Came with those exiles o'er the waves. And where their pilgrim feet have trod. The God they trusted guards their graves. And here Thy name, O God of love. Their children's children shall adore, Till these eternal hills remove. And spring adorns the earth no more. "THE PILGRIM FATHERS AND THE FOUNDATION OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT." [An address delivered May j, i8q4, at the Annual Spri?ig Meeting of the Neiv England Society, Brooklyn, N. K] BY HOMER B. SPRAGUE, Ph.D. " When I seriously consider of things. I cannot but think that God hath a purpose to give that land as an inheritance to our nation." — Edward WiNSLOw IN 1624. The most significant event in American history was the arrival of the Pilgrim Fathers. That little colony was not simply the seed out of which has grown our magnificent tree of liberty. Its principles contain the prophecy and the power of the highest conceivable political progress. Two and three-quarters centuries ago, in the northeast of Middle England, about one hundred and thirty-five miles from 68 London, in the borders of the counties of Nottingham, Lin- coln and York, in the parishes of Scrooby, Gainsborough, Austerfield and vicinity, lived groups of devout men and women, variously known as Brownists, Separatists, afterwards Independents, and finally, for the most part, as Congregation- alists. Longing to lead the best possible lives in the sight of God, and despairing of the liberty to do this in their old homes, they at last resolved to migrate to Holland, which had long been an asylum for the persecuted of all nations, and where were already congregations of kindred spirits. Opposed, thwarted, harassed, violently scattered by the thick-headed, bad-hearted King James, their departure from England was a flight, begun in 1607, completed in 1608. When they had lived in Amsterdam about a year, they came to Leyden. In Leyden, for nearly twelve years, they toiled in new occupations ; weaving, printing, dyeing and other handicrafts : " providing things honest in the sight of all men." Says Bradford, " Such was the true piety, the humble zeal, and fervent love of this people — toward God and His ways, and the single-heartedness and sincere affection one towards another, that they came as near the primitive pattern of the first churches as any other of these later times have done." From different parts of England many joined them, till they numbered perhaps three or four hundred among the seventy thousand inhabitants of Leyden. By their intelligence and blameless lives they earned the hearty respect of the civil au- thorities. Says Bradford, " The magistrates of the city, about the time of their coming away, or a little before, in the public place of justice, gave this commendable testimony of them : ' These English have lived amongst us now these twelve years, yet we never had any suit or accusation against any of them.' '" But amidst foreign tongues, scenes and customs they were all the while conscious that they were sojourners in a strange land. Little public favor could be shown them without fear of offending the English tyrant, who, it is said, was so fierce in his bigotry that he even wrote to the States General suggesting 69 the propriety of burning at the stake those who disagreed with him in doctrine. Moreover, the twelve-years' truce between the United Provinces and Spain was now drawing to a close, Holland resounded with preparations for a renewal of the great struggle. A desire to escape the strife of war, as well as to be safe from the possibility of anti-Christian bondage, and, more potent still, a tender regard for the welfare of their children, who, they feared, might lapse into error, immorality and irre- ligion, if they continued longer on the Continent, made them think of providing a new home. The Dutch merchants made them handsome offers — free transportation, cattle for each family, peace, plenty and protection — if they would go under their patronage to the country along the Hudson, or to New Zealand ; or they might remain, if they chose, in the Nether- lands. But they loved their unkind mother. She was dear old England still. Who can help loving England ? Her every acre is precious for the blood and ashes and heroic deeds of her children. "The soul to struggle and to dare Is mingled with her northern air ; And dust beneath her soil is lying Of those who died for truth undying! " " But Jerusalem which is above, is free, which is the mother of us all,'' and " These men wished to keep their name and nation"— such is their language. " So they left that goodly and pleasant city, which had been their resting place near twelve years ; but they knew they were pilgrims, and looked not much on these things, but lift up their eyes to the heavens, their dearest country, and quieted their spirits." "They hoped not only to be a means to enlarge the dominions of the English State" — I am quoting their words — "but the Church of Christ also, if the Lord had a people among the nations whither He would bring them.'' They agreed that about one- half, comprising, for the most part, the young and the robust, should go to America, to be followed in good time by all, if Providence should seem to smile upon the enterprise. Fourteeen miles from Leyden is Delft Haven, where they 70 were to embark. Two of their number, who afterwards became Governors of the colony, tell of their parting; and hardly has such a scene been witnessed since the great apostle bade fare- well to the Ephesian elders at Miletus. Says Winslow, " They that stayed at Leyden feasted us that were to go, at our pastor's house ; where we refreshed ourselves with singing of psalms, making joyful melody in our hearts as well as with the voice, there being many of the congregation very expert in music. And indeed it was the sweetest melody that ever mine ears heard. After this they accompanied us to Delft Haven, where we were to embark, and there feasted us again ; and, after prayer performed by our pastor, where a flood of tears was poured out, they accompanied us to the ship, but were not able to speak to one another for the abundance of sorrow to part." Bradford adds, "Truly doleful was the sight and mournful parting, to see what sighs and sobs and prayers did sound amongst them, what tears did gush from every eye, and pithy speeches pierced each heart ; that sundry of the Dutch strangers, that stood on the quay as spectators, could not refrain from tears. Yet comfortable it was to see such lively and true expressions of dear and unfeigned love. But the tide, which stays for no man, calling them away that were thus loath to part, their reverend pastor falling down on his knees, and they all with him, with watery cheeks com- mended them with most fervent prayers to the Lord and His blessing. And then, with mutual embraces and many tears, they took their leaves one of another ; which proved to be the last leave to many of them." It was the twenty-second of July, 1620. They soon arrived at Southampton, England. Twice they set sail ; first on the fifth of August, and again on the twenty-first ; and twice they were obliged to put back. They were in tiny two-masted ves- sels, the Mayflower of one hundred and eighty tons, and the Speedwell of sixty. The master of the Speedwell pretended that his craft was unseaworthy. Leaving her at Plymouth, the Mayflower started alone. This third departure was on the 6th of September. One hundred and one passengers were 71 aboard, eighteen husbands with their wives, thirty other men unmarried or unaccompanied by their wives, twenty-five boys and ten girls. Terrible gales overtook them. " The winds were so fierce and the seas so high they could not bear a sail for days together." The equinoctial storm racks and wrenches the little craft. The mad Atlantic whirls and tosses it like a feather. Half way across the seas one of the great beams bends and cracks and gives way, and an anxious consultation is held to decide whether they shall again return to England or press forward. In mid ocean a sailor dies, and afterwards a passenger; and an infant is born. Month after month passes, sixty-three days of dreary sea and sky, without a glimpse of land. On the morning of the sixty-fourth, being the ninth of November, the white sand of Cape Cod is seen. They had in- tended to strike the coast further south. Accordingly " they tacked about and resolved to stand for the southward, the wind and weather being fair. But after they had sailed that course about half the day, they fell among dangerous shoals and roaring breakers." These, and perhaps the treachery of the master of the ship, forced them to turn north again ; and the next day they got safely into the Cape harbor. Repairs on their rickety shallop, and explorations by land and water, to find the fittest place for a settlement, consume a month. After great dangers and incredible hardships, an exploring party of ten land from their shallop on Clarke's Island, in front of Ply- mouth harbor. It is Saturday, the ninth of December. Sun- day they keep as sacredly as ever the Jewish Sabbath was kept. Next day, December i ith, old style, (the twenty-first of December, new style,) Carver, Bradford, Winslow, Standish, with six others of the principal men, two hired sailors, and six of the ship's crew, step ashore on Plymouth Rock, to be fol- lowed five days later by the whole company. Twelve years had passed since they fled from England, five months since they left Holland, ninety-six days since they last sailed from Plymouth, England. Home at last ! But what a home ! What memories ! What feelings ! What prospects ! 72 " Behold, they come! Those sainted forms! Unshaken through the strife of storms ! Heaven's winter cloud hangs coldly down, And earth puts on her rudest frown ; But colder, ruder was the hand That drove them from their own fair land — Their own fair land, refinement's chosen seat, Art's trophied dwelling, learning's green retreat. By valor guarded, and by victor^' crowned ! For all. but gentle charity, renowned ! With streaming eye, yet steadfast heart, E'en from that land they dared to part. And burst each tender tie. Haunts, where their sunny youth was passed. Homes where they fondly hoped at last In peaceful age to die — Fi lends, kindred, comfort, all they spumed — Their fathers' hallowed graves — And to a world of darkness turned Beyond a world of waves ! Yet, strong in weakness, there they stand On yonder ice-bound rock, Firm and resolved, that faithful band. To meet Fate's rudest shock." Six of them died in that month of December, eight in Jan- uary, seventeen in February, thirteen in March. At one time but seven were well enough to nurse the sick. "Oh, the long and dreary winter! Oh, the cold and cruel winter." Before autumn, seven more had passed away — half their number dead ! The graves were smoothed down, and corn was planted on them, that the Indian savages might not know how few and feeble they had become. Yet on the fifth of April, when twenyt-eigth of the strong men had been buried, and their first governer, John Carver, lay dying, not one of the colonists embarked on the Mayflower, which that day started to return. " It is not with us as with other men whom small things can discourage, or small discon- tentments cause to wish themselves at home again." So wrote their two pastors, Robinson and Brewster. 73 Immigration to New England was very slight from 1620 to 1630. Then came the Puritans, carefully to be distinguished from the Pilgrims. The Puritans were members of the Church of England ; the Pilgrims were Separatists. The Puritans were stronger, abler, more learned ; the Pilgrims milder, sweeter, more tolerant. Both were magnificent specimens of lofty manhood and pure womanhood— surely, among the manli- est men and saintliest women the world ever saw. The Puri- tans in New England like the Puritans in Old England, be- lieved in a union of church and state, and sought to drive out from their midst all who differed with them on what they deemed vital religious doctrine. The Pilgrims, fresh from their twelve years' sojourn in the Netherland Republic, brought with them that full religious liberty which, with brief exception, they had seen exemplified in Holland— Holland, the real source and home of constitutional freedom. In the cabin of the Mayflower, just a month before landing at Plymouth, forty-one of the fifty men, including all who came to stay, signed the following instrument : " In the name of God, Amen ! We whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign Lord, King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, etc., having under- taken for the glory of God, and the advancement of the Chris- tian faith and the honor of our King and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do, by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic for our better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the ends aforesaid ; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute and frame such just and equal laws, ordi- nances, acts, constitutions and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony ; unto which we promise all due submis- sion and obedience." " This," says Bancroft, " was the birth of popular constitu- tional liberty." "It is true," says one of the latest historians, 74 Goldvvin Smith, " that this covenant was not a poHtical mani- festo : it is not less true," he adds, " that it heralded a polity of self-government, and may thus rank among the great docu- ments of history/' This action of the Plymouth Colonists is so often cited as an illustration of the true origin of free government ; con- sequences so vast depend upon sound views of fundamental political principles ; vague or incorrect notions as to the bind- ing obligations of laws and constitutions are so prevalent and so dangerous among the masses, and even among recognized party leaders ; the example of our fathers is so often invoked to justify contempt for governmental authority ; the convic- tion is so widespread and persistent in the Southern States that the Confederates were in the right during our Civil War, that I offer no apology for a brief discussion of the FOUNDA- TION OF Civil Government. There are three principal theories as to the origin of society and consequently of government. One is what we may call the Greek theory. " Man," says Aristotle, " is a political ani- mal." We are " civil-society creatures." As the fish is for water and the bird for air, so man is for society, and vice versa. He is born into society, is irresistibly drawn to it, is moulded by it. Society is the natural whole, of which the individual is a part. " Whoever," says Aristotle, " lives voluntarily out of civil society, must either have a vicious disposition, or be an existence superior to man." Society organized is a state. The government is its right arm. All is a natural GROWTH. The second leading theory of the origin of society and of government is the social-compact theory, set forth by Hooker, Hobbes, Locke, Blackstone and Rousseau. They taught that the natural state of mankind was one of mutual enmity. Says Hooker, " To supply these defects and imperfections, which are in us living single and solely by ourselves, we are naturally in- duced to seek communion and fellowship with others. This was the cause of men uniting themselves at first in politic socie- ties." Since human selfishness would result inevitably in a state of war, and render isolation intolerable, Locke declares that 75 men " agreed together mutually to enter into one community and make one body politic. They surrendered some rights in order to preserve the rest. The rights of government are an aggregate of the rights so surrendered." All is an artificial DEVICE. There is a third theory of the origin of society and gov- ernment, a theory which in some nations and ages has exer- cised a tremendous power. It is that of supernatural divine appointment ; that the organism which we call the state is instituted by the direct action of God Himself, and that the rulers are his immediate vicegerents. The king is " God's anointed." The Basileus is " Jove-descended." Alexander is the son of Ammon. " Divinity doth hedge a king." All is a supernatural ORDER. In each of these three theories there is an element of truth, and in each there is grave liability to dangerous error. The theory of nature, that society and government are accessions to the individual, that he is unconsciously and irre- sistibly drawn to organic union with the brotherhood, stimu- lates, one would suppose, to find out the duties he owes to the body politic of Avhich he is a part, and laws expressing those duties. It magnifies the state. It finds expression in affirma- tions. Through love and law, with adequate enlightenment, it tends to liberty. Without adequate enlightenment it tends to make the individual a part of a mere machine. The theory of instinctive repulsion, unwilling aggregation, and extorted compact stimulates to a jealous reservation of rights, and breeds antagonisms against the government. It finds expression in multiplied negations, vetoes, checks. It divests the magistrate of all sanctity. Minimizing law, and magnifying the individual will, it tends to equality ; but it tends also to lynch law, insurrection, mob rule, anarchy. The theory of supernatural origin and miraculous guidance, however needful or inspiring it may have been in the early ages, tends too often in modern times to bigoted intolerance on the part of rulers, and to slavish superstition on the part of the ruled. Freed from the glamour of supposed divine inter- 76 positions, it is still of vital importance that so much of the theory be accepted as recognizes a Providential purpose per- vading human society and imparting authority and sacredness to government and to law. With possible exceptions, the theory of the natural origin of society and government commends itself to reason, harmonizes with all the known facts of history, and is accepted by the ablest thinkers of the present day. We are social beings, tending instinctively to converse, fellowship, community ; attracted to each other as by gravita- tion ; born into society, and inseparably united with it. Look into your heart : then imagine yourself one of a prehistoric race. Do you not feel that they must have been gregarious, not solitary ; mutually friendly, not repellent ? The parental relation supervenes, "And all the charities Of father, son, and brother;" of mother, daughter, sister, wife — the family, the group of families, the gens, the tribe or clan, the state or nation — this the order of evolution. The Ishmael, the Timon, the Crusoe, the hermit, is felt everywhere to be an exception. And yet, in this reasonable idea, that the State is the natural whole, of which the individual is a part, there lurks a dangerous fallacy, the fallacy which was the keynote of Greek patriotism. In the Greek republics there was a general under- standing that the State is all important and the individual insignificant. The value of a human being, for what he is, in and of himself, never dawned upon the ordinary intellect. In their freest cities two-thirds of the inhabitants were slaves. Their wisest, justest men were banished or poisoned, sometimes with- out pretense of guilt. Personal rights were of no account what- ever ; the State was all, the man nothing. Worthless, feeble, ephemeral himself, he rejoiced that his country was glorious, invincible, immortal. Afloat in the faint light of superstition, drifting helpless if left to himself, on an ocean that afforded no anchorage and no harbor — for it was bottomless, and its shores were but drifting fog-banks of conjecture — here, at least, was 77 something to which he might cling; something majestic and strong ; the ship of State, destined to last forever ! Only by identifying himself with her, had he any assured con- nection with the past or future, any valuable status in the present. Well might he aggrandize her. Thrice happy, might he share her magnificence, her power, her immortality ! Accordingly, in peace he sought to adorn her with the proudest trophies of genius, and when the storm of war was loudest and the waves of battle dashed highest, he joyed to sink in death for the city that he loved. A patriotism splendid but narrow. He fought for what was but an expansion of himself. He little dreamed of the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, the greatness of the soul, its immortal destiny. But when Christianity flashed upon the world the infinite worth of the humblest ; when nation after nation, once deemed everlasting — Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Macedonia, Carthage — had gone; when all the kingdoms of men, the visible heavens, earth itself, seemed destined to pass away ; then vanished of necessity the delusion that man exists for the State ; then began to dawn the truth that the State exists for man ; that, in some just sense, «// things exist for man. Few but Tennyson have risen " to the height of this great argument." He sings as with the voice of inspiration, " For though the Giant Ages heave the hill And break the shore, and evermore Make and break and work their will ; Though world on world in myriad myriads roll Round t:s, each with different powers And other forms of life than ours, What know we greater than the soul?" The brilliancy of so-called patriotism still blinds us. Deeds are sometimes glorious, though their theories may be crude, false, or even damnable. Every policy that would aggrandize our country by injustice to other nations ; every custom that deprives an innocent class or innocent man of equal opportu- nities of progress ; the dangerous dictum, " the greatest hap- piness of the greatest number," instead of the greatest good of 78 all ; the false principle, whether of courts or mobs, that, for any reason, persons of a particular race or color are not entitled to the full protection of law and to equal rights ; the demagogue's juggling maxim, " the voice of the people is the voice of God ; " the blind worship of an ofifice, an institution, a state, a flag, for- getting what it represents, and that " 'Tis mad idolatry To make the service greater than the God ; " the disloyalty to Heaven implied in the perversion of the popular sentiment, " Our Country — may she always be right ! But, right or wrong, our Country ! " or, as Lowell burlesques it, "The side of our country must always be took, And President Polk, you know, he is our country, And the angel, who writes all our sins in his book. Puts the debit to him, and to us the per-contra / " — what are these but phases of a patriotism as false and fatal as Bacon's advice to King James to seize promptly opportuni- ties for making war? as selfish and atheistic as the prayer of " the universal spider "? "Bless me and my wife. Son Charles and his wife, Anne, Joan ; us two ; those four ; no more ! Amen ! " as silly and blasphemous as Kilmer's afifirmation that James II. was divinely inspired to trample on laws and people alike, and that the royal balderdash was " the voice of a God and not of a man ! " One is naturally driven by such extravagances to the other extreme, the quite pardonable attitude of the constable-ridden Hibernian, when, shipwrecked on a strange shore, he asked the first inhabitant he met, " Have you a government here?" " Yes." " Well, I'm agin it ! " Against the government! This antagonism belongs logi- cally to the social-compact theory ; a favorite theory with lovers of liberty, though the philosopher, Hobbes, in 165 i, believed that he found in it the basis of absolute monarchy. Old George Buchanan, in 1579, had laid down the principle that the people are the source of the power of kings. Hooker (1594) had 79 spoken of " defects, imperfections, strifes and troubles," as the cause of men's seeking communion and fellowship, giving their common consent, " all to be ordered by persons agreed upon." Grotius (1630), in his De Jure Belli et Pads, had more than hinted at an implied contract between rulers and ruled. Mil- ton, in his Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1649), had laid down the doctrine of free choice as the only rightful basis of authority or jurisdiction of one over another among free per- sons." Hobbes (1651) went further. He held that men spring up like mushrooms {fiingorum more)\ that a state of nature is a state of war, war of all against all {belliun ominuvi in omnes) ; that " a parley was made ; " they entered into a compact, and government is "the result of an agreement to keep the peace." Algernon Sidney (beheaded 1683) stoutly argued that govern- ments are founded on contract. The English Parliament (Feb- ruary, 1689) solemnly voted that James II. had broken "the original contract between King and people." Locke (1690) went further still, affirming that "the consent of the people is the only title of all lawful government," and that William III. had that consent " more fully and clearly than any prince in Christendom." " The father of modern Democracy," as Lowell styles him, Jean Jacques Rousseau, in his Discours sur V Inegal- ite {lyi^l), and again in his Le Contrat Social {i 762), studying how to eliminate the idea of God, construct a binding govern- ment without moral or religious sanctions, and make a fabric that should be a strictly human contrivance — would combine the wills of individuals, and from the combination derive the author- ity of government, the governor being a mere representative, agent, deputy, commissioner, or trustee ; a servant rather than a ruler; accountable to men, not to God. Blackstone, in his Commentaries (1765- 1769), asserts that every man, when he enters society, gives up, in order to gain its advantages, a portion of the rights " which belong to persons merely in a state of nature or to individuals in a single uncon- nected state," surrenders a part of his natural liberty "as the price of so valuable a purchase." Jefferson embodied the doc- trine in our Declaration of Independence, affirming it "a self- 8o evident truth," that, " to secure these inalienable rights, gov- ernments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." Even so sturdy an advo- cate of a strong central, not to say monarchical, government, as Hamilton, declared : " The fabric of American empire ought to rest upon the solid basis of the consent of the people. The streams of national power ought to flow immediately from that pure original fountain of all legitimate authority." In some of our State Constitutions this doctrine reappears. Thus, in Massachusetts, the Bill of Rights declares, "The body politic is a social compact, in which the whole community covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole community." Calhoun, Alexander H. Stephens, and all Americans who favor- ed the Southern Confederacy, continually insisted upon this doctrine. Our Civil War never would have occurred but for the wide-spread belief in its soundness. Yet there is very little truth in it. States may sometimes consciously originate or modify government by compact; indi- viduals, never. The union of Utrecht in 1579 grew into the Dutch Repub- lic. The three towns, Hartford, Windsor and Wethersfield, in 1639 united in an embryo State. In 1643 the colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut and New Haven formed a confederation. These recall to our minds the old Amphicty- onic Council, the Confederacy of Delos, the Achaean League ; and, in modern times, the Hanseatic League, the Helvetic Confederation, the federation of the thirteen colonies that gave rise to our present American nation ; and last, the Confederate States of America. But these were combinations of bodies politic already existing. They do not go back to the origin of government ; still less, of society. Perhaps the nearest approach to such artificial origin was the compact on the Mayflower; but even this did not originate either. The Pilgrims were a body politic long before, as their pastor, Robinson, told them in his letter of July 20, 1620. " You are now," he wrote, " become a body politic, using among yourselves civil government." Accordingly they had chosen a Governor and two assistants before they left England. 8i Our United States nation is sometimes said to have been created by the constitution. The statement is incorrect. Both nation and name existed long before. That document created no powers. The people by means of it indicated the distribu- tion of the powers they possessed. It is not a compact. We may concede that an implied contract does exist. Locke declared that the occupation of land, nay, mere resi- dence within the jurisdiction, constitutes tacit consent, from which a contract may be fairly inferred. Yes ; but this shad- owy compact is subsequent, not precedent ; an effect, not a cause ; a superstructure, not a foundation. We may concede, also, that the idea of an agreement among equals to form a community and establish civil authority is justly conciliatory of lovers of liberty. It puts all upon the same level. It seems to exalt men. It almost deifies com- mon sense. It sharply antagonizes superstition. It affords in a manner analogous to the fictions of the English common law convenient formulae for expressing political facts ; as in the case already cited, where Parliament, in 1689, following the doctrine of Buchanan, proclaimed that James II. had broken the compact between him and the people, and therefore his throne was vacant. It is true that a plebiscitum or agreement may occasionally originate a law or measure of public policy. It is true, too, that all men are created equal in their right to opportunities of development, each being a soul immortal. But in the main we are forced to believe the social-compact "^eory to be untenable. It has proved a cancerous growth. It cannot be too carefully eradicated from the American mind. There never was a precedent condition of mutual hostility. Civil society is not a matter of choice. Government is not a concession. Its rights are not residuary. It is not a necessary evil, and therefore to be reduced to a minimum. Written con- stitutions are not creative. The first object of any government is order ; the second sometimes may well be the largest liberty compatible with order. But the laissez-faire, let-alone policy is not its normal attitude. The test of its validity is fitness, not consent. 6 82 I have said that the Mayflower government existed before the forty-one signed the covenant. Its authority was equally binding before signature. It was equally binding upon the nine men who did not sign. It was equally binding upon the fifty-two women and children who never thought of signing. The thirteen colonies solemnly declared that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. What next? Did they proceed to organize governments based on consent? Not at all. A defensive league already existed, and they set about making it more effective. By and by they made " a more perfect union," expressing its nature and oper- ations in the Constitution. Who adopted the Constitution ? A majority of those who voted yes or no on the question of its adoption. Who were allowed to vote ? As a rule, only free, white, adult, male land-owners. Who were not allowed ? About five-sixths of the people, including all slaves, nearly all colored persons, all women, all minors, all aliens, all Indians, and to these we must add all posterity ! But the government was over them all, and rightfully over them all, unless we adopt the Anarchist's or Nihilist's plea — a valid plea, if the doctrine of consent is true : " I am not a party to your government ; I never consented to be one of your civil society. I protest against both, disobey them, defy them." Government by consent ! Has a father no right to govern his children without their consent ? a teacher, pupils? a gen- eral, soldiers? It is a favorite saying of the Rousseau school, that man, entering society, surrenders a portion of his natural rights, and that the rights of government are merely an aggregate of the rights so surrendered. But how can I give up what I never had? Havel a right by nature to take away the life or lib- erty of a criminal? to regulate commerce? grant divorces? punish polygamy? enforce contracts? settle land-titles? dis- charge insolvents ? punish counterfeiting, or treason ? force my neighbor to pay taxes ? quarantine an infected ship, house, or person? make war? establish naturalization laws, legal tender, or foreign alliances? Few or none of these rights were ever 83 invested in an individual by nature. Yet government has them all. It has them for the very reason that individuals have them not. This is an intensely practical matter. Strict construction is a corollary of this contract theory. Its stoutest champion was Jefferson. But when he became President, his principle had to be abandoned. He bought Louisiana, though admitting that there was no authority for it in the Constitution. He said it was a " necessity ; " and that word " necessity" uprooted the principle of close-construction. Warranted by necessity, nay, by mere expediency, our nation simply because it was a nation, adopted the Monroe Doctrine, now stretched to cover the Hawaiian Islands, made greenbacks legal tender, split Virginia into two commonwealths, annihi- lated slavery, warned Louis Napoleon to get out of Mexico, bought Alaska, established provisional governments in the re- volted States, prescribed the terms on which those States might resume their functions in the Union ; and for years " traveled outside of the Constitution."* What comes of blunders on these vital questions? In the New York Tribune, just before the war, Horace Greeley declared, " If the Declaration of Independence justified the secession from the British Empire of three million colonists in 1776, we cannot see why it would not justify the secession of five million Southrons in i86i."f Calhoun insisted to the last that our Union is but a league, and that " governments must derive their right from the assent of the governed, and be subject to such limitations as they impose." Vice-Presi- dent Stephens, the ablest Southern statesman after Calhoun, declares, in his essay on Government in Johnson's Cyclopedia, printed some fifteen years ago, " It is an essential principle that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." " The United States," he adds, " is not a * The favorite phrase of Thaddeus Stevens. t Wendell PhilHps said, "Here are a series of States, girding the Gulf, who think that their peculiar institutions require a separate government. They have a right to settle that question without appealing to you or me." 84 nation of individjiah * * * * but a nation * * * * of States united under a federal compact." President John- ston, of Tulane University, one of the best thinkers in the South to-day, insisting on the rightfulness of secession, aflfirms* over and over, that the Southern people " had learned from the patriots of 1776 the inherent right of every people to select their own form of government and maintain their independ- ence by revolution." All through the South to-day the belief prevails that they were in the right, but that they were simply overpowered. It was the poisonous seed of this doctrine of consent, scattered broadcast over the South through many years, that, like the fabled dragon's teeth, sprang up to a har- vest of arms and death. It was the natural outcome. " No country," said Jefferson, " should belong without a revolution." This disintegrating leaven loosened all the ties that bound the citizens together and to the Government, the States to one another and to the nation, and all to God. Our Southern brethren thought they had a right to withdraw their consent, and to constitute a new nation ; and they did both. Abraham Lincoln himself had deliberately declared that " Any people, anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better.""! The South took him at his word. They said, " We will not have this man to reign over us." They were perfectly sincere, practically unanimous, and terribly in earnest. With solemn oaths ; with all the forms and machinery of government ; with persistent, magnificent bravery ; with heroic self-sacrifice hardly ever surpassed on earth, pouring out blood and treasure like water, till two hundred thousand of their bravest had sunk into untimely graves, and five billion dollars had been swept into annihilation ; * Life of General Albert Sidney Johnston, 1S7S, pp. 25S, 259, etc. tGoldwin Smith's The United States, an Outline of Political History, p. 248. Lincoln added, "This is a most valuable, a most sacred right, a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolution- ize and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit." 85 they, for four years, emphasized their refusal to Hve longer under the government of the Union. One thing they forgot, tJie sacredness of law. Lincoln said to them, " You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy this government, while I have the most solemn one to preserve, protect, and defend it." And so the North, with fire and sword,with bayonets and bombs and torpedoes, with gunpowder and lead and iron, with cavalry and infantry and artillery, with gunboats and ships of war, with two million soldiers, re- established the repudiated government over the unwilling people, trampled the doctrine of consent in the dust, ground it to powder beneath the iron heel. And they were in the right, and the South was in the wrong. It had resisted the ordinance of God without cause ; it had dishonored, broken, defied, dethroned the great law of the Constitution, and it required the blood of half a million men to re-enthrone, re-hallow, re- sanctify. It is not a question of choice among supposed utilities ; it lies far deeper. Nor does the binding authority come from ten or ten thousand or ten million concurrent wills. What right have any number of human wills to bind my will? No. Man's law is sacred unless it commands a violation of the higher law. " The Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men." " God standeth in the congregation of the mighty : He judgeth among the gods." Law and magistrates and governments are not mere Jiuinan contrivances. Is law bottomed on right ? God is its foundation and summit. Is law enforced by conscience? That impulse is divine. Does the will of the lawmaker formulate the law ? His will is bound by it equally with the humblest. Does any one break the law, saying, " I will pay the penalty, which man has prescribed, and so square the account?" No good citizen's conscience is satisfied with such expiation. Have there been no legitimate governments but democra- cies or republics ? We know better. The ruler, whether des- ignated by majority vote, by age, by birth, by bequest, by 86 superior strength or skill, by lot issuing from a shaken helmet, by visible anointing at the hands of a prophet, or otherwise, is indeed the agent, trustee, deputy, commissioner, repre- sentative, servant of the people : but he is a great deal more ; he is a magistrate, the right hand of the State ; he is more still ; he is rt minister of God ! ." The powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power resisted the ordinance of God, * * * * * * Yox he is the minister of God to thee for good." Said John Robinson to the Plymouth Pilgrims before they left England : " Let your wisdom and godliness appear not only in choosing such persons as do entirely love and will promote the common good, but also in yielding to them all due honor and obedience, not beholding in them the ordinariness of their persons, but God's ordinance for your good. You know that the image of the Lord's power and authority which the magistrate beareth, is honorable, in how mean persons soever." In this conclusion the great leaders of human thought in past ages concur. Hooker's stately and oft-quoted declaration is not mere sounding rhetoric : " Of law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of God." The first sentence of Plato's Book of Laws is : " Strangers, tell me, is God or man the author of your laws?" And the instantaneous answer is : " God " ! In these days of lynching and incipient anarchy," Young America " can learn no political lesson more important than this, that every human law has divine sanctions, is, in fact, a part of God's law, and there can be no escape from the penalty for its violation. And for the doctrine of that higher law, young and old may well listen to the luminous and lofty thoughts of Cicero, in that passage to whose magnificent diction no translation can do justice, and whose sublime spirit never found more eloquent illustration than in the lives of the Pilgrims of Plymouth : " There is a true law, a right reason, congruous to nature, per- vading all minds, constant, eternal; which calls to duty by its commands, and repels from wrong-doing by its prohibitions ; and to the good does not command or prohibit in vain, while 87 the wicked are unmoved by its exhortations or its warnings. This law cannot be annulled, superseded, nor overruled. No senate, no people can loose us from it ; no jurist, no interpreter can explain it away. It is not one law at Rome, another at Athens ; one at present, another at some furure time ; but one law, eternal and unchangeable, it presides over all nations and times, the universal sovereign. Of this law the author and giver is God. Whoever disobeys this law flies from himself, and by the wrong done to his own nature, though he escape all other punishment, incurs the heaviest penalty." PROCEEDINGS Sixteenth Annual Meeting SIXTEENTH ANNUAL FESTIVAL The New England Society IN THE CITY OF BROOKLYN. OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, COUNCIL, MEMBERS, STANDING COMMITTEES, AND BY-LAWS OF THE SOCIETY. BROOKLYN. 1896. PRESS OF EAGLE BOOK PRINTING DEPARTMENT, BROOKLYN, N. Y. CONTENTS PAGE Objects of the Society, ------.5 Terms of Membership, ----... g Past Officers, -.--....5 Officers, ---.--.-. ^ Directors, --.--.-. .3 Council, -------.. 8 Standing Committees, ------- g Report of Sixteenth Annual Meeting, . . . . jq Proceedings at the Sixteenth Annual Dinner, - - - - 28 BillofFare, 30 Address of President Stewart L. Woodford, - - - .31 Hon. St. Clair McKelway, .... 35 " Hon. Charles Emory Smith, - - - - 44 *' Rev. David Gregg, - - . . - 51 " Prof. Homer B. Sprague, - - - - -58 " Hon. Charles A. Schieren, .... 66 Hon. Frederick W. Wurster, - - - - 69 Proceedings of Spring Meeting, . . . . . jj Letter of President Timothy Dwight, ----- 73 Address of Hon. John Winslow, - . . . . y^ " Rev. Richard S. Storrs, D.D., - - . . yg " Frederic A. Ward, ..... 83 Tribute to the late William H. WiUiams, - - - - 91 Certificate of Incorporation, -..-.. g^ By-Laws, ---------96 Honorary Members, - - - . . - . 102 Life Members, ..-.-... J02 Annual Members, -.-.... 103 Meetings of Society, - - - - - ' . - 109 Form of Bequest, - - - - - - - 109 OBJECTS OF THE SOCIETY. The New England Society in the City of Brooklyn is incorporated and organized to commemorate the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers ; to encourage the study of New England history ; to establish a library, and to promote charity, good fellowship and social intercourse among its mem- bers. TERMS OF MEMBERSHIP. Admission Fee, . . . - - fio.oo Annual Dues, ------ 5.00 Life Membership, besides Admissioti Fee, - 50.00 Payable at election, except Annual Dues, which are payable in January of each year. Any member of the Society in good standing may become a Life Mem- ber on paying to the Treasurer at one time the sum of fifty dollars ; and thereafter such member shall be exempt from further payment of dues. Any male person of good moral character, who is a native or a descend- ant of a native of any of the New England States, and who is eighteen years old or more, is eligible. If in the judgment of the Board of Directors they are in need of it, the widow or children of any deceased member shall receive from the funds of the Society a sum equal to five times the amount such deceased member has paid to the Society. The friends of a deceased member are requested to give the Historio- grapher early information of the time and place of his birth and death, with brief incidents of his life, for publication in our annual report. Members who change their addresses should give the Secretary early notice. I^° It is desirable to have all worthy gentlemen of New England descent residing in Brooklyn become members of the Society. Members are re- quested to send application of their friends for membership to the Secretary. Address, JOSEPH A. BURR, Recording Secretary, 45 Broadway, Brooklyn, N. Y. PAST OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY. PRESIDENTS. BENJAMIN D. SILLIMAN, 1880 JOHN WINSLOW, 1887 CALVIN E. PRATT, 18S9 WILLARD BARTLETT, 1S90 CALVIN E. PRATT. 1891 ROBERT D. BENEDICT, 1S93 TREASURERS. WILLIAM B. KENDALL, 1880 CHARLES N. MANCHESTER, .... 1890 WILLIAM G. CREAMER 1S92 RECORDING SECRETARIES. ALBERT E. LAMB, 1880 STEPHEN B. NOYES, 18S5 THOMAS S. MOORE, 1891 CORRESPONDING SECRETARIES. Rkv. A. V. PUTNAM. D. D., 1S80 WILLIAM H. WILLIAMS 1S91 HISTORIOGRAPHERS. ALDEN J. SPOONER, 1S80 STEPHEN B. NOYES, 1884 PAUL L. FORD 1888 LIBRARIANS. DANIEL L. NORTHUP, 1874 Rev. W. H. WHITTEMORE, 1880 CHARLES E. WEST, 18S6 OFFICERS. 1896. President : STEWART L. WOODFORD. First Vice-President: Second Vice-President : THOMAS S. MOORE. WILLIAM B. DAVENPORT, Treasurer : FRANKLIN W. HOOPER. Recording Secretary: Corresponding Secretary: JOSEPH A. BURR. Rev. S. A. ELIOT. Historiographer : W. A. BARDWELL. Librarian : WILLIAM H. INGERSOLL. DIRECTORS. Thomas S. Moore, WiLLARD BARTLETT, For One Year: Flamen B. Candler, Joseph A. Burr, Franklin W. Hooper. Calvin E. Pratt, John Winslow, For Two Years: Henry W. Maxwell, Robert D. Benedict, William B. Davenport. Benjamin F. Tracy, Stewart L. Woodford, For Three Years: Frederic A. Ward, William G. Creamer, Nelson G. Carman. Benjamin D. Silliman, David A. Boody, For Four Years : A. Augustus Low, Charles A. Moore, George B. Abbott. COUNCIL. A. M. White, S. B. Chittenden, A. F. Cross, H. L. Bridgman, Charles W. Pratt, N. H. Clement, Arthur Mathewson, W. H. Nichols, Francis L. Hine, Seth Low, Isaac H. Gary, James McKeen, W. A. White, Darwin R. James, John Claflin, J. S. T. Stranahan, George H. Southard. l. s. burnham, Henry Earl, Jasper W. Gilbert, M. N. Packard, Edwin F. Knowlton, Augustus Van Wyck, W. D. Wade, Jesse Johnson, STANDING COMMITTEES. Finance : Henry W. Maxwell, Robert D. Benedict, Nelson G. Carman. Charity : A. A. Low, Frederic A. Ward, David A. Boody. Invitations : The President, John Winslow, Benjamin D. Silliman. Atimial Dinjier : William B. Davenport, C. A. Moore, Joseph A. Burr. Publications : Nelson G. Carman, William G. Creamer, Frederic A. Ward. Annual Receptions : The President and John Winslow. THE SIXTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. The Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, was held in the Directors' Room of the Art Building, on Wednesday evening, December 4, 1895. In the absence of the President and both Vice-Presidents, Mr. John Winslow was elected President pro tern., and called the meeting to order. The Minutes of the Fifteenth Annual Meeting, held De- cember 5, 1894, were read and approved. The Committee on Invitations for the approaching Annual Dinner of the Society reported progress. The report of the Treasurer was read and referred to the Committee on Finance for audit. It showed a balance on hand of $24,838.56, deposited as follows: Franklin Trust Company (4 ;; certificate) .$22,000 00 Hamilton Trust Company (4 % certificate) 2,095 00 Cash in the Nassau National Bank 743 56 Total $24,838 56 The Annual Report of the President was read by the Sec- retary, and was as follows : THE ANNUAL REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT. To the Members of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, Gentlemen : — Pursuant to Article 6 of the By. Laws, I make the following Annual Report : Our membership has slightly decreased. There have been many deaths, and our young New England men are not com- ing into the Society with the old enthusiasm. This matter of membership needs our careful and efficient attention. Our funds, are steadily increasing. Under the careful and conservative management of our successive Treasurers and II Committees on Finance, we have never made any loss, and now our accumulations reach the goodly sum of about $25,000. The lectures on early New England, which have been under- taken by our Society in connection with the Brooklyn Insti- tute, and the Historical Society, have been well attended, and have done much to keep alive an intelligent interest in New England history. With this Report I submit sixteen sketches of our deceased members, which have been prepared by our faithful and able Historiographer, Mr. W. A. Bardwell, of the Brooklyn Library. Death has taken from us during the year some of our best, most widely known, and most highly honored members ; men who illustrated their New England ancestry ; who served Brooklyn faithfully while living, and whose names are our heri- tage of honor now that they are gone. STEWART L. WOODFORD, President. The biographical sketches of members who have died dur- ing the year, which were prepared by the Historiographer, are annexed to the report, and are as follows: Edward Annan, who was elected a member of the New England Society in 18S0, died at his residence, 201 Cumberland street, November 13, 1895. He was bom in Greenwich, Conn., May i, 1830. Mr. Annan came to Brooklyn forty years ago, having previously spent some years in California. His ancestors were Scotch people and originally settled in New Jersey. Mr. Annan received a common school education up to the age of fifteen years, when he decided to go out into the world for himself. Through the influence of some friends he secured a situation in a New York diy goods store, remaining there until the California gold fever broke out. He returned to New York in 1852 with only a small capital. Here he secured an appointment on the Board of Grain Measurers, retaining his position as deputy grain measurer for two years and learning the business. From 1855 to 1 86 1 Mr. Annan was in partnership with others in the grain business, and in 1862 he organized the International Grain Elevating Company, which continued under that name till i8gi, when the elevator companies consol- idated as the International Elevating Company, of which Mr. Annan was vice-president. In^ addition to this he operated the Erie and Pennsylvania Railroads' grain elevators in Jersey City, and was, until recently, general manager of the Trunk Line Association of the grain pool. He also for a long time operated the Dow's and Columbia stores in Brooklyn. 12 Mr. Annan did much to improve Brooklyn's mercantile conditions, having been the builder of the grain elevators near the Atlantic Dock. He was one of the fathers of the grain trade in the United States, having been engaged in it for forty-five years. He saw it come up from the early and primitive days before elevators had been invented. For many years Mr. Annan was a member of the Oxford Club, and of the New York Produce Exchange. He was also a member of the Union League Club of New York, and of the Brooklyn, the Crescent, and the Riding and Driving Clubs of this city. He also served for a time as Bridge Trustee. Mr. Annan was a kindly, genial man. While he had business rivals they were his warm, personal friends— he had no enemies. Mr. Annan married, in 1851, Miss Charlotte G. Harmon, of Brooklyn, who died in i88g. A son. Major Edward Annan, Jr., died in 1895. Two daughters, one a widow, Mrs. Charlotte S. Richardson, the other Mrs. Wm- N. Dykman, of Brooklyn, survive him. James Stanton Bailey was bom at Lebanon, Conn., December 9, 1817, and died at his home. No. 176 Harrison street, Brooklyn January 6, 1895. Mr. Bailey was descended from a family, which came from Yorkshire, England, in 1638 to Newburyport, Mass., and a branch of which settled in Lebanon early in 1700. His antecedents on his mother's side were the Stan- ton and Sherman families of Rhode Island, who for Hberty of conscience had followed the fortunes of Roger Williams in his banishment from Boston. Besides the usual New England district school education, he attended a private academy for a year, and in 1836 at the age of nineteen went to New Haven, Conn., where he served as clerk and afterwards as partner in the grocery business for several years. In 1847 he came to New York, and the following year entered upon the business with which he has ever since been identified. With Mr. Charles F. Tuttle he established the house of Tuttle & Bailey, manufacturers of furnace registers and ventilators, located in Beekman street. New York, with exten- sive factories and foundries in Brooklyn, E. D. Upon the death of Mr. Charles F. Tuttle in 1859, Mr. Bailey became senior partner of the firm. The business developed until it led the country in its line, sending its goods to many European ports, and becoming more and more influential in its bearings upon kindred trades, and in building up other manufacturing interests in the country. Since 1866 the firm has been a stock company of which Mr. Bailey was President until his death, and in which position he earned, in a marked degree, the confidence and regard of the entire business community. Mr. Bailey was for thirty-one years a trustee of the South Brooklyn Sav- ings Institution. He was Chairman of its Finance Committee for a number of years, and served on other important committees. Special resolutions were adopted by the bank trustees in honor of the memory of "their esteemed friend and colleague," " that succeeding generations may participate in our regard for the man whose first impulse was to do his duty in every position of life to which he was called. To us he has been a wase and sagacious coun- sellor and a faithful friend to all the best interests of this Institution." Mr. 13 Bailey was throughout his hfe a member and trustee in Christian churches of the Congregational denomination, and active in both Church and Sunday- school work. He was first associated with the North Church, New Haven, and afterward with the Centre Church in the same city, and since 1857 with the South Congregational Church of Brooklyn, N. Y. For nearly thirty-eight years Mr. Bailey was connected with this church and society, filling with marked ability and devotion various positions of trust and responsibility in its several departments. He was at the time of his death, and had been for many years, President of its Board of Trustees. In his family and personal relations Mr. Bailey was an example of kindly dignity and loving companionship. He was distinguished also for his fidelity to details and a habit of at once taking a clear, practical and large view of interests entrusted to his care. Possessed of a vigorous constitution, he retained as years advanced, and even to the end, the enterprise and elas- ticity of middle life. He enjoyed life and society, and while pre-eminently a practical man of business, he was ^also keenly appreciative of what was good in music and art, and in literature was especially fond of history, of which he was a constant reader, as well as of works on the advancement of science. During the latter part of his life he traveled extensively in his own country, in whose institutions and public monuments he took an intelligent and patriotic interest. He was a sagacious observer of public affairs. His first Presidential vote was for General Harrison, in 1840, and he was a RepubHcan in principles and politics throughout his Hfe, believing emphat- ically in the system of protection as best calculated to bring out the resources and serve the best interests of the whole country. Mr. Bailey was a member of the Long Island Historical Society from its early days, in the Hamilton building, in Court street, and a life member of the Brooklyn Library from its inception in the Athenaeum building. He was for many years an appreciative subscriber to the Brooklyn Art Association and to the Philharmonic Society. He was an annual member of the New England Society of Brooklyn from the first year of its incorporation, and was in warm sympathy with its spirit and the principles for which it stands. Mr. Bailey was indeed a thoroughly representative and typical New England man, with an even rounded balance of business ability and integrity, personal kindliness and Christian faith. The ancient spirit of the New England homes— from which he came and whose traditions he loved— a spirit robust, enterprising, prudent, honorable in purpose, sagacious in counsel, genial in friendship, and, beneath all, profoundly rooted in moral principle and re- • ligious faith, this spirit of New England found in him an accurate and ample embodiment. Mr. Bailey was married in 1S43 to Augusta Caroline Trowbridge, daughter of Captain Roswell Trowbridge, of New Haven, Conn. Six children were bom to them, of whom five are living. Their golden wedding was celebrated in Pittsfield, Mass., in the summer of 1893, with their children and grandchildren about them. The residence on Harrison street was his home for thirty-one years. H The funeral services were conducted on January 9, 1895, by bis pastor, the Rev. Albert J. Lyman, D.D., who spoke in feeling and appreciative terms of the man who was his friend and staunch supporter in his work for the South Congregational Church. Erastus Flavel Beadle was born in Pierstown, Otsego County, N. Y., September 11, 1821. He died at Cooperstown, N. Y., December 18, 1894. Mr. Beadle came of New England Revolutionary ancestry, his grandfather, Benjamin Beadle, having served under General John Sullivan and Brigadier- General George Clinton. Four generations preceding Benjamin were born in and permanently identified with Salem, Mass. The first of the name in this country of whom there is any definite information was Samuel Beadle, who died in Salem about 1663, from whom has descended a long line, many of whom have been prominent citizens in their respective communities in vari. ous waj^s. Individual members of the family were conspicuous as patriots and soldiers in the French and Indian wars as well as in the War of the Revolution. Benjamin Beadle, of Revolutionary fame, was married three times, and was the father of twenty-three children, eighteen of whom grew to mature years. It was of his second wife that Flavel Beadle, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born, in Colchester, Conn. When eight years of age his parents removed to Otsego County, N. Y. Here he grew to man- hood and was married to Miss Polly TuUer, of Stockbridge, Mass., of whom Erastus was born in 1S21. In 1833 the family removed to Portland, Chautauqua County, N. Y., where Erastus was brought up on a farm, developing strength and the self- reliance which afterwards characterized him. While yet in his "teens " he engaged himself to a miller of Chautauqua County. Here his inventive genius and skill in the use of tools attracted attention. He developed unusual adroitness in making letters, or cutting them out of wood for the purpose of marking bags. From his ability and skill in this direction he soon found plenty of this kind of work to do. With a younger brother he traveled through the country earning money by marking bags and lap-robes. Arrived in Cooperstown his work attracted the attention of Mr. Elihu Phinney, then the leading publisher in this part of the State, who employed him in his establishment. With this firm he learned the trades of typesetting, stereo- typing, printing and binding, also becoming familiar with engraving and the art of "making up" matter in the most attractive form. In 1S47 Mr. Beadle went to Buffalo and established a stereotype foundry, adding to this in the course of a year, a printing office. In the spring of 1852 he issued the first number of his first publication, "The Youth's Casket." Four years later he started a magazine called "The Home Monthly." His brother, Irwin P. Beadle, then in the news business in Buffalo, had such success in the sale of ballads or single page songs that, in order to supply the demand for them, a number of the most popular of these lyrics were printed in a little volume called " The Dime Song Book." The idea immediately became very popular, and from the New York office quickly followed additional issues which became a marked feature of the trade. This was the beginning of the 15 dime novel business, and the firm of Beadle & Adams was then formed, composed of Erastus F. Beadle and Robert Adams. To the song books were added in rapid succession, "The Household Manual," "The Letter Writer." "The Book of Etiquette, Speeches, Dialogues," etc., and in the summer of iS6o the Dime Novels were started as an experiment, not with a view to giv- ing " a dollar book for a dime," but to make the dime novel consist of the best work of the most popular authors of American fiction. The busmess grew to vast proportions and became of great literary importance. The best works of popular writers were given to the public in this series, and the Dime Novels became household words in all sections of the country as well as the soldier's solace in campaign and in camp. Notwithstanding the fact that because of the success of this series numerous imitations, more or less worthless, were called into existence, yet the original series never lost caste or lowered its style of excellence. In the course of years, with the changing demands of the trade, the popular " Libraries" were introduced and became great favorites, giving, like the Dime Novels, a purely American story by American authors, no foreign re-prints being used. Mr. Beadle retired from the firm in 1889, after a busy life of fifty years in the various branches of publishing and book-making. After his retirement from business Mr. Beadle made Cooperstown his permanent home, occupying a fine mansion, " Glimmerview, " at the edge of the village, and on the shore of the lake. In politics Mr. Beadle, though at first a Democrat and an early aboli- tionist, became a Republican when the party was first organized, with John C. Fremont as its standard bearer, and was thereafter a staunch Republican. In the fall of 1 892 he accepted the nomination for Congress in the Twenty- first District, but was not elected. Mr. Beadle was married on April 22, 1846, to Miss Mary Ann Pennington, at Cooperstown. Her death occurred May 13, 1889. Mr. Beadle was a whole-souled man and very popular. For about twenty-five years he was a resident of Brooklyn, living for a long time in a little, old-fashioned house at the comer of Pineapple and Willow streets. He left a daughter, Mrs. E. L. Raymond, of Denver, Col., and one son, Irwin L. Beadle, who resides in Brooklyn. *The Rev. Joseph Brewster died on the 20th of November, 1895, at the rectory of St. Michael's Church in this city. He was the seventh in Uneal descent from Elder W . Chain Brewster, eminent in the colony which landed at Plymouth in 1620, and a son of the late James Brewster, who was among the foremost citizens of New Haven, Conn. The subject of this sketch was born at New Haven, February' 16, 1822, and was graduated from Yale College in 1842. While teaching in Virginia he entered the Episcopal Church. Having received holy orders, he was settled at Windham and at Wallingford, Conn. Later he was for thirty years rector of Christ Church, New Haven, where he was an eminent cham- pion of the free church principle, and where he laid the foundations of one *NOTE — This sketch was prepared by the Rev. Chauncey B. Brewster, a son of the deceased. i6 of the most promising parishes of that city. Resigning on account of im- paired health, he ministered during several years in different parishes in the State of Connecticut and in the cities of Baltimore and Brooklyn. In 1894 he became the rector of St. Michael's Church, High street, in this city. Here he continued in the active discharge of his duties until within forty- eight hours of his death. He was a devoted pastor, with enthusiasm for humanity, and happiest when ministering to his fellow men. As a preacher he was brilliant and forceful. Historical studies he prosecuted throughout his life with keen interest, and was diligent and painstaking in genealogical research, giving particular attention to tracing the annals of colonial families prior to their departure from England. He never failed to cherish a loyal pride in his birthright as a son of New England. William Hetherington Dike, who became a member of the New Eng- land Society in 1S80, died at his residence, 48 Livingston street, May 4, 1895. Mr. Dike was born in Providence, R. I., April 15, 1835. He attended school in his native place and was also a student in Brown University, though not a graduate. Coming to New York in 1853, when eighteen years of age, he entered the grocery business as clerk with Charles Stanton & Co. After- wards he engaged in the wholesale wool trade. From i860 to iSSi Mr. Dike was a member of the New York Stock Exchange and conducted a stock brokerage business under the firm name of Wolff & Dike, which latter be- came Dike & Gifford. For some years before his death he had retired from active business. In politics Mr. Dike was a Republican, and at one time he took an active interest in the reform movement in Brooklyn politics, but never sought public office. He resided at his home in Livingston street for thirty years. Mr. Dike was a member of the consistory of the Reformed Dutch Church at Joralemon and Court streets for many years and was actively identified with that society when its edifice was razed to make room for other public build- ings. He was superintendent of its Sunday School ten years. Mr. Dike was owner of a farm in Columbia County, N. Y., where he spent his summers, taking a lively interest in fine stock and in agricultural matters pertaining to his place. He was a life member of the Brooklyn Library, where his genial presence and kindly greeting will long be remembered by those accustomed to meet him in his visits to the reading rooms or book delivery desk. Mr. Dike married in i860 Miss Amelia Fillmore, of Brooklyn, who sur vives him with two daughters, one of whom, Mrs. William E. Overton, is married. Benjamin W. Downing died at Tampa, Florida, December 2, 1894. Mr. Downing was born at Glen Head, L. I., April 1, 1835. His ances- tors were Quakers. He was educated at the Academy, Macedon, N. Y., where he was graduated at the head of his class. He was for many years a teacher in various schools on Long Island. While Principal of the Locust Valley school in the spring of 1856, he was elected Superintendent of Schools in the Eastern District of Queens County, and later to the office of School Commissioner, in which he served nearly seven years. While School Com- missioner Mr. Downing studied law in the office of Elias J. Beach, who was then County Judge of Queens County. He subsequently entered the Law School at Poughkeepsie, N. Y., from which he was graduated with high honors. After being admitted to the bar Mr. Downing practiced his profession in Flushing, L. I., where he kept an office up to the time of his death. In 1864 he was elected District Attorney of Queens County on the Democratic ticket, which office he held continuously until 1883. He received the nomination for County Judge in 18S5, and also in 1891, but was not elected. After the last candidacy he retired from politics, devoting his time to religious and philanthropic work. He became prominent in church work, and was noted as a speaker in religious conventions. Several years ago Mr. Downing estab- lished at Bayville a home for working girls, where they could spend a vaca- tion free of expense, and gave entertainments there for their benefit twice a year. Mr. Downing left one daughter, the wife of a Brooklyn physician, and a widow who resides at 856 Lafayette avenue. The funeral services were held in the Sumner Avenue Methodist Church on December 6. The remains were interred in Locust Valley, Long Island. Rev. Dr. Charles Henry Hall, rector of Holy Trinity Protestant Episcopal Church of Brooklyn, died September 12, 1895, at his home, 157 Montague street. Dr. Hall was bom in Augusta, Ga., November 7, 1820, his father hav- ing removed from Boston to this place a few years before. His father, though of Episcopalian descent, was himself for some time a Unitarian. He and his wife and children all followed the eldest son (Dr. Hall) into the Episcopal Church about 1840. Dr. Hall's life in New England began when he was but four and a half years of age. He was taken at that age to West Newton, Mass., on account of delicate health, and placed at school under the famous Seth Davis. It was in Newton that he formed his life-long friendship with Governor Rice, of Massachusetts. Between the age of seven and twelve, for about four or five years, he was again in Augusta, attending the various schools in the place. At twelve his father took him back to Newton, and from thence, after a summer visit, drove him across the country to Andover. His affection for New England was strong through life from having spent so many of his earlier years among its hills. He was prepared for college at Phillips Acad- emy, Andover, Mass., entered Yale College at eighteen, and was graduated in the Class of 1842. While attending college he adopted the Protestant Episcopal faith, and soon after graduation entered the General Theological Seminary in New York. In 1844 he was ordained a deacon at Tivoli, on the Hudson. In 1845 he was ordained to the ministry at Fair Haven, Conn., i8 but remained in this place only a short time. He next served as assistant at St. Peter's Church, New York, for six weeks, going thence to Highland Falls, near West Point, where he was rector of the Church of the Holy Innocents. After two years at Highland Falls, he went to St. John's Church, on John's Island, S. C, remaining there until 1856, when he was called to the Church of the Epiphany, in Washington, D. C. In the course of his pastorate in the National Capital, he frequently preached to Jefferson Davis, and to Secretary Stanton, who, after Mr. Davis' departure from Washington, occupied the Davis pew in this church. While always a Democrat in his politics, he was an outspoken Unionist, and in sympathy with the Northern cause. He remained in Washington thirteen years. On March i, 1869, Dr. Hall succeeded Bishop Littlejohn as rector of Holy Trinity, in Brooklyn. He became the leading rector of the diocese, ranking next to the Bishop, and was Chancellor of the Cathedral at Garden City. In Brooklyn he took a prominent part among clergymen. He was an intimate friend of Henry Ward Beecher, and delivered the oration at his funeral. He was afterward chairman of the memorial committee for the erection of a statue to Mr. Beecher in City Hall Park. His staunch friend- ship was an unspeakable comfort to Mr. Beecher during the time of his per- secution. Dr. Hall was a graceful and forcible writer, and the author of several hooks on religious topics. The degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred upon him by St. James', Hobart, and Columbia colleges. He also received the degree of D. C. L. from Trinity College, and, what he prized most of all, LL. D. from Yale, in 1892, the fiftieth anniversary of his graduation. He always took a keen interest in all things that serve to promote good citizenship, and was fearless in his advocacy from the pulpit of any reform about which he held strong convictions. He was a Civil Service Commis- sioner for five years, during both of Mayor Chapin's administrations, and part of Mayor Boody's term. He was for a time Chaplain of the Twent}'- third Regiment. He belonged to the Aurora Grata Lodge of Free Masons, and to Clinton Commandery, Knights Templars. Dr. Hall was a man of strong personality, and of rugged speech and manner, but one of his strongest characteristics was his friendliness. All who knew him intimately felt the spell of his kindly manner, and he was everywhere regarded by his fellow-townsmen with feelings of affection and respect. Dr. Hall was married during his rectorship at West Point, to Miss Annie Cumming, of Augusta, Ga., his native city. Her death occurred in 1855. In 1857 he married Miss Elizabeth M. Ames, of Washington, D. C. He had seven children, one by the first, and six by the second marriage. The funeral services were held in Trinity Church, Sunday afternoon, September 15, and were attended by citizens in all conditions and walks of life. The burial service was conducted by the Rev. George Williamson Smith, President of Trinity College, Hartford, Conn., assisted by Bishop Littlejohn and others. Masonic services were held in the church in the 19 evening, conducted by E. W. Mascord. The remains were interred in the family plot in the Moravian Cemetery, at New Dorp, Staten Island. Henry Harteau, who first became connected with the New England Society in 1880, died at his home, 554 Washington avenue, September 12. 1895. Mr. Harteau was bom in the town of South Lee, Mass., in 1819, and was educated there and in the neighboring town of Stockbridge. At the age of eighteen he came to Brooklyn, and for several years was employed as clerk in a grocery store. After five years' service as clerk, being industrious and frugal, he was able, in 1842, to start in business on his own account. He found, however, that the life was too confining for him, and after a few years was obliged to retire. During the construction of the great stone dry dock at the Navy Yard Mr. Harteau was private secretary to Wm. J. Mc Alpine, the engineer in charge. When this work was completed, he engaged in the business of building material supplies for himself with great success, and in 1871 was able to sell out his business and retire. In 1852 Mr. Harteau was elected Alderman on the Democratic ticket, and served during the terms of Mayors Brush and Lambert. In this capacity he added to his reputation as a good citizen, and retired to private life with the increased confidence of his constituents. It was admitted even by those opposed to him in politics that his record was of the highest. He was a con- sistent advocate of desirable improvements, but at the same time an uncom- promising opponent of schemes and jobbery. In addition to this he was sufficiently shrewd to prevent himself from being hoodwinked by the profes- sional pohticians, as is so often the case with good men in politics. After leaving the Board of Aldermen, Mr. Harteau never ran for office again, but he was appointed a member of the Board of Education, and in 1886 Mayor Whitney selected him as a Park Commissioner, which office he filled with intelligence and zeal. During the later years of his life Mr. Harteau was prominent in many successful business enterprises. He organized the Mechanics and Traders' Exchange, and served as its first President. In 1S74, in company with Gen. Alfred C. Barnes and others, Mr. Harteau organized the Metropolitan Plate Glass Insurance Company. At the first meeting he was unanimously elected President, to which office he was re-elected year after year up to the time of his death. The records of the Company show that during his twenty-one years as President Mr. Harteau never missed a board or committee meeting, but was always at hand ready to take part in the deliberations of his colleagues. In addition to his membership in the New England Society, Mr. Harteau belonged to the Society of Old Brooklynites and to the Long Island Histor- ical Society. He attended the Church of the Messiah, at Greene and Cler- mont avenues. He left a widow, but no living children. JosiAH Orne Low, a life member of the New England Society since its incorporation, in 1880, died at his summer residence, " Broadlawns," New- port, R. I., September 16, 1895. 20 He was the son of Seth and Mary Porter Low. He was born in Salem, Mass. , March 15, 1821. In 1829 Seth Low removed with his family to Brooklyn. It was ever afterward the home of Josiah O. Low. He received his educa- tion at an English and classical school, under the care of Messrs. Eames and Putnam, kept in Washington street, near Concord. His father was much interested in education and was very influential in establishing this and other schools, which were the best of that period in the city. His business career was commenced in the employ of the Staten Island Dye House. In 1S45 he became a partner with his brother, Abiel Abbot Low, who was engaged in the China trade. The firm of A. A. Low and Bros, had the reputation of being one of the largest in that trade in this country. They built a number of clipper ships which conveyed their cargoes to and fro. The firm remained in business for more than forty years. He maiTied Martha Smith Mills, daughter of Thomas Helme and Martha S. Mills, in February, 1845. Four children were born to him. His eldest son, Ethelbert Mills Low, died in 1881. The youngest, Chauncey E. Low, M. D., died in 1890. Two daughters, Mrs. Maximilian E. Sand and Mrs. Samuel E. Huntington and eleven grandchildren survive him. Mr. Low was a very prominent and useful citizen. He was a trustee of the Polytechnic Collegiate Institute from its foundation. He was a director of the original Board of the Children's Aid Society, a director in the Brook- lyn Trust Co. from the time of its establishment, and a member of the Brooklyn Library and Long Island Historical Society. He belonged to the Unitarian denomination. He was a trustee in the Church of the Saviour and superintendent of its Sunday-school, under the pastorate of the Rev. F. A. Farley. He belonged to the party recently called Republican, under whatever name it rallied. He was intensely interested in the cause of the Union and a liberal contributor to its support. He was never actively interested in the Anti-Slavery warfare. He gave generously to all charities without regard to denomination or place. He was a frequent and most extensive traveler in many lands. His excellent memory of all that he gathered in that way proved a great source of entertainment to others. He had a large library and gave much time to reading in his later years. He had a most attractive personality, and in character, more virtues and fewer faults than most men. He was loved and admired by a very numerous circle of friends. His funeral services were conducted by the Rev. A. P. Putnam, at his city home, 36 Remsen street, September 19, 1895. George Lorin Pease, who died February 25, 1895, was bom at Paines- ville, Ohio, June 26, 1835. When he was nine years of age his father removed to Detroit, Mich., where the son was placed in school for a while, and continued his education later at Lodi, in the same State. At the age of seventeen years he became a teacher for a brief time in the northern part of New York State. He then engaged in civil engineering, commencing in this pursuit his business career. 21 Returning to Detroit he was employed as clerk with his father in the stationery business. He was soon admitted to partnership, and later on he bought out the interest of his father, changing the name of the firm to the Detroit Paper Company, George L. Pease, proprietor. This enterprise was quite successful. In November, iS68, Mr. Pease came to New York, and formed an asso- ciation with William B. Boorum, under the style of Boorum & Pease, to engage in the blank book and stationery business, and in June, 1869, the firm commenced active work. Mr. Pease, under the name of Pease & Smith, continued in Detroit for two years after this, when he disposed of his interest in that city, giving his attention exclusively to the business in New York, in which he was engaged till his death. The house of Boorum & Pease has been well and widely known as one of the largest houses in the blank book and stationery trade. The character and integrity of its members won the esteem and confidence of every one who had dealings with the firm. In iSgo Mr. Pease determined to withdraw gradually from active parti- cipation in the business, and the firm was converted into a stock corporation, of which he became president, transferring the active management largely to Mr. Boorum and his associates, Mr. Pease was a director in a number of the business and financial insti- tutions in both New York and Brooklyn. He was a director in the Washing- ton Trust Company and in the Shoe and Leather National Bank of New York, the People's Trust Company and the Wallabout Bank, of Brooklyn, and the Keith Paper Company, of Turner's Falls, Mass. He was President of the Stationers' Board of Trade, Vice-President of the Board of Trade and Transportation, of New York, and Treasurer of the Society for the Preven- tion of Cruelty to Children, of Brooklyn. His benefactions were liberal, and he was the friend of every good cause. Mr. Pease was of New England ancestry and inherited the characteris- tic thrift, industry and business sagacity of his ancestors. He possessed a keen insight into the character and motives of men, and had excellent judg- ment in regard to business matters. In the city of his home few men had more personal friends than he. Popular with both old and young, he had always a kind word and a hearty greeting, and usually a bit of humor for the friends he met. He was for many years a trustee in the Lafayette avenue Presbyterian Church, of which he was a member. He presented the church with a beautiful stained glass window (a reproduction of Hoffman's cele- brated painting of Christ in the temple), which was not completed till after his death. His domestic life was most happy, and his home was well known for its warm hospitahty. A wife and one daughter, Mrs. Allan MacNaughton, sur- vive him. The funeral services were conducted at the home in Clinton avenue by Rev. Drs. David Gregg and Theodore L. Cuyler, with a touching eulogy by Dr. Cuyler on the hfe and character of the deceased. 22 William Peet, for eight years a member of the New England Society, died June 17, 1895. He was born at 165 William street, New York city, December 4, 1822. In 1S28 his parents removed to Brooklyn and pur- chased and occupied the old homestead of David Codwise at 184 Columbia Heights. At the age of twenty-one Mr. Peet began to prepare for college. He studied at Yale college, where he was graduated in 1847. He was secre- tary of his class almost from that date. He spent the first year after his graduation at the Yale Law School, going from thence to Utica, where he entered the office of Mattson and Doolittle, the latter of whom became after- ward a justice of the Supreme Court. Among Mr. Peet's associates at Utica was Roscoe Conkling. Mr. Peet was admitted to the bar on November 2, 1848, being a member of the first class subsequent to the adoption of the code of practice. On April 19, 1849, he opened his first law office on the corner of Wall and Pearl streets. New York. About a year later he removed to the corner of Broadway and John street, forming a partnership with Livingston K. Walton and Charles Nichols. Mr. Nichols subsequently removed to Rhode Island, and his place in the firm was filled by William T. Opdyke. In 1851 he man-ied Miss Martha Isabella Homans, of Brooklyn, and removed to the Hill. In 1869 he removed to Rockland County, but returned in 1874 to the homestead on Columbia Heights, which he occupied until his death. Mr. Peet was one of the organizers of the Atlantic Yacht Club, his name being first on the list. He also assisted in organizing the Hamilton Club and the Lawyers' Club of New York. A widow, three sons and a daughter survive him. The youngest son, Robert, recently graduated from Yale college. Frederick T. Peet, another son, is a resident of Tacoma, and William Peet, the remaining son, is in Minneapolis, Minn. The daughter lives at the homestead. Mr. Peet was prominent in his profession, and was a life-long and very intimate friend of Benjamin D. Silliman. He was also prominent socially and in the Protestant Episcopal Church, of which he was a member. He became successively a vestryman of the Church of the Messiah and of St. Peter's and of Christ Church, Sparkill, N. Y.,and more recently of St. Ann's Church, Brooklyn Heights. The funeral services were conducted by the Rev. Dr. Reese Alsop, rector of St. Ann's Church, and resolutions of sympa- thy were adopted by the vestrymen with whom Mr. Peet was associated at the time of his death. Jerome Shepard Plummer died at his residence, No. 1276 Pacific street, October 5, 1S95. Mr. Plummer was born in Thompson, Conn., April 4, 1S26, and lived for many years in Webster, Mass. He came to Brooklyn in 1849, and has since resided here, most of the time in Pacific street. When Mr. Plummer first came to New York he was employed in the house of William Knowlton, where he proved himself a successful salesman, and in many ways gave evidence of sterling qualities of character and busi- ness ability. He established, in 1863, the firm of J. S. Plummer & Co., im- porters of straw goods, now at 159 Mercer street. New York. This house is one of the few that have survived with unimpaired credit and integrity all the financial difficulties of the straw trade, and enjoyed a career of almost continued prosperity. Mr. Plummer's reputation was always, throughout his long business career, that of a man of sound judgment and of the strictest fidelity and trustworthiness. He will be gratefully remembered by many business men whom he took pleasure in helping in times of adversity. In religious circles he was unostentatious and consistent, helping the various charitable organ- izations with wholesome generosity. In his departure the Central Congre- gational Church has lost a valued adherent. Mr. Plummer was a man of strong domestic ties, preferring his home to political preferment or club con- nections of any kind. Five children, two married and two unmarried daughters and a son, Mr. Jerome H. Plummer, survive him. These are the children of Mrs. Anna Hale Plummer, his first wife, who died in 1886. The second wife, Mrs. Cornelia DeWitt Plummer, died July 13, 1895. The funeral service was conducted at his residence by the Rev. Dr. A. J. F. Behrends, of the Central Congregational Church, of which Mr. Plummer had been for many years a pew holder and an attendant. Captain Ambrose Snow, a member of the Board of Pilot Commissioners, and widely known in Brooklyn and New York, died at his home No. 129 Bainbridge Street, June 28, 1895. Although eighty-three years of age he had experienced none of the ills which old age usually entails, but retained the active use of his faculties of mind and body almost to the day of his death. Captain Snow was born in Thomaston, Maine, on the 28th of January, 1813. He came from an old New England family, his maternal grandfather having served as a private under Washington. He was trained to the sea from boyhood, and at an early age became master of a ship. During the palmy days of the merchant marine he commanded in succession the ships "John Holland," "Leopard," " Leonidas," "John Hancock," " Carack," "Telamon," and "Southampton." When he was forty years of age he established a shipping firm in New York under the firm name of Snow & Burgess. He was elected President of the Marine Society in 1869, was re- elected several times, and was President of the Board of Pilot Commissioners for many terms. Upon the occasion of his twelfth successive election as President of the New York Board of Trade and Transportation in 1890, he was presented with a magnificent chronometer and diamond compass. Captain Snow was President of the Board of Trustees of the Sailors' Snug Harbor for seventeen years. He was coxswain of a barge manned by a crew of shipmasters from the Marine Society that rowed President Harrison ashore at the Washington Centennial celebration. A crew from the same society rowed General Washington from Elizabethport to New York at the time of his inauguration as the first President of the United States. The funeral services were held at his son's house and were as simple as possible in accordance with the frequently expressed desire of the deceased. The interment was at Thomaston, Maine, where he was bom and where his 24 wife is buried. Captain Snow was married on March i6, 1836, to Mary Robinson, of Thomaston, Maine. He left two sons, Alfred D. Snow, of Brooklyn, and Louis T. Snow, of San Francisco. *JoEL Wilder Stearns, a member of the New England Society from its beginning in 1S80, died May 20, 1895. He was born in Leominster, Mass., April 4, 1827. He was a son of Otis Stearns, a woolen manufacturer of the old school, whose failure in business was caused by the introduction of the steam loom. He removed to Boston in 1840. The deceased, then a boy of thirteen, was preparing for Harvard college, but was now thrown on his own resources. His father, broken in fortune, health and pride, could do but little, and the familj^ being reduced to straightened circumstances the son, Joel, entered a book store and with his brother aided in restoring the family fortunes. The boy grew to manhood amidst the anti-slavery mutterings and riots of the forties and early fifties. He became an ardent friend and follower of Charles Sumner, William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips, and soon went as a Boston delegate to the first Massachusetts Free Soil Convention, which was presided over by Charles Sumner, and took an active and honor- able part in that movement out of which the Republican party practically took its inception. Mr. Stearns' health was never strong, but his nervous energy seemed to defy actual illness. He was ever a patriot, or, as he expressed it, "an Ameri- can all through the marrow of his backbone." He was never at ease as a public speaker, but no man ever worked harder for an honest cause than he. In the early fifties he came to New York by the invitation of Mr. John C. Beale, the foremost stationer of that day, to take charge of Mr. Beale's busi- ness. He formed a partnership later as senior member with his employer's cousin under the style of Stearns & Beale, and the house is such to-day after nearly forty years of unbroken success, cash payments being the rule of the firm. Mr. Steams was always a lover of books and of home, and belonged to few clubs. He was also a great traveler, few corners of Europe or North America remaining unvisited. The Rembrandt Club, the quintessence of Brooklyn art connoisseurs, claimed him as an enthusiast and he was its treasurer from its foundation in his library imtil his death. The "Union for Christian Work" was his favorite charity, and its splendid record was a great satisfaction to him. He was also a member of the Hamilton Club and of the New England Societies of New York and Brooklyn (1S80) and throughout his life he preserved his love for his ancestry and his birthright. Mr. Stearns had five sons by his deceased wife, Elizabeth Beale Steams, three of whom survive. Two, Thomas Beale and Joel Wilder, reside in Denver, Colorado, the other, Arthur Kendall, in Brooklyn. He left hosts of friends both in ' 'the little church on the corner," whose former pastor, Samuel Longfellow, * Note — This sketch was prepared by Mr. Arthur Kendall Steams, a son of the deceased. 25 married him, and whose present pastor, the accompHshed John W. Chad- wick, he knew intimately. His club and business friends, his everyday ac- quaintances and his chums of former years, all mourn him as a happy, kindly thoughtful man, pure and honest, loyally cherishing one and all. The world is better that he Uved in it, for, though he left no gi-eat and indelible mark, his wants were simple and his charities, like his friends, were never counted. His nature was pure, and his boast that he was an American citizen. George A. Thayer became a life member of the New England Society of Brooklyn in 1880. He died May 3, 1895, at the age of seventy-four years, having been born in Taunton, Mass., in 1821. His father, Seth Thayer, removed from Taunton to Providence, R. I., where the son passed most of his childhood. He received his schooling in the public school on Transit street, and at a private school in the Providence Arcade, supplemented by a period passed in a boarding school at South Kingston, R. I. His business career also began in Providence, where he was employed as clerk and where he formed the habits of diligence and industry for which he was noted throughout his life. Enterprise led him to Boston in search of business open- ings, but very soon he became convinced that New York presented a larger field. Coming to New York, he formed a partnership with the late George W. Campbell, and the firm of Campbell & Thayer, one of the pioneer houses in the linseed oil trade, was established more than fifty years ago with offices in Maiden Lane, New York, and works in Brooklyn. Mr. Thayer's New England birth endowed him with the usual character- istics of tenacity of purpose, tact and good judgment regarding business mat- ters and strict adherence to duty. He entered heart and soul into all things which his judgment approved. While reticent regarding his business affairs, he was genial and generous, and possessed a keen and quiet sense of humor. His cheerful disposition and readiness to oblige his associates led him to be regarded with affection by all with whom he came in contact. He was espe- cially sympathetic with the young, and had a dread of growing old in the sense of losing the power to be alert and useful. Whatever vacations he took were spent in the recreation of yachting and on his farm in the interest of crops and domestic animals. He was one of the founders of the Atlantic Yacht Club, and a patron and permanent member of the Brooklyn Library. His residence at Roslyn, L. I., was formerly the William Cullen Byrant property, and is one of the finest places on Long Island. Mr. Thayer's marriage occurred in 1850, and seven children, three sons and four daughters, with their mother survive him. He was domestic in his tastes, and thoroughly enjoyed his home and family. His death, in the midst of a happy life and unabated business ardor, was due to an accident. He was thrown from his carriage while driving at Roslj'n, surviving only a week thereafter. Mr. Thayer was a resident of Brooklyn for over forty years. The funeral services were conducted by Dr. R. S. Storrs, of the Church of the Pilgrims, 26 at the residence, 103 Pierrepont street. The interment was in Greenwood Cemetery. William Hilton Williams, a member of the New England Society since 1S80, died at his home in Woodstock, Conn., August 14, 1895. Mr. WiUiams was born in Schoharie County, N. Y., in 1847, and was a lineal descendent of Roger Williams, of Rhode Island. At fourteen years of age he was employed in the store of Brooks Brothers, New York. Five years later found him a clerk in the hardware establishment of J. Russell & Co., 83 Beekman street. In 1871 he formed the partnership with his brother- in-law, C. Y. Van Wagoner, which continued till the time of his death. He was one of the founders of the New York Hardware Club and was its presi- dent from its organization until his death. Wr. Williams was a director of the New England Society for many years. He was a director of the Long Island Safe Deposit Company, a trustee of the City Savings Bank, and of the Berkeley Institute of Brooklyn. He was an associate member of Grant Post, No. 329, G. A. R. He was a member of the Hamilton Club, and, for a time, vice-president of the Union League Club. His connection with the Young Men's Republican Club dated from its inception, and he was chairman of the advisory board of the club at the time of the mugwump revolt in 1884. He successfully brought the club to the support of James G. Blaine against con- siderable opposition. He was at that time elected president of the organiza- tion, and was subsequently re-elected four times. At the election of Harrison to the presidency he resigned from the leadership of the club, but reiuained a member of the Executive Board until the beginning of 1S95, when he became one of the Republican Committee of Kings County and was appointed presi- dent of the Board of Elections, which position he held until his death. Mr. Williams was practically tendered the Mayoralty nomination by the leaders of his party, several times, but uniformly declined to be a candidate for pub- lic office. Mr. Williams was a man who held the respect and admiration of all who met him. Politically, financially and socially, he was successful and remark- ably popular. He gained his fluency of speech in debate or in conversation by his enthusiastic participation in the discussions of the Franklin Literary Society, of which he was a member from boyhood. He was as earnest in the discussion of the questions that came before this little circle as he was in later years in the momentous debates of his political life. Mr. Williams lived with his wife and three children at 858 Carroll street. His widow is a daughter of the late Edward E. Bowen, and sister of Mrs. C. S. Van Wagoner. Personally, Mr. Williams was athletic and youthful, direct of speech and energetic in everything he undertook. He was a member of Plymouth Church. The funeral services were largely attended, in Woodstock, at the country seat of the Bowens, on August 17th. Many prominent people of Brooklyn and elsewhere, including his associates of the Board of Elections, were present. V On motion, the report was accepted and directed to be published in the next pamphlet issued by the Society. Mr. William H. Ingersoll, the Librarian, presented his re- port. On motion of Judge Bartlett it was resolved that the report be accepted and referred to the Board of Directors for such action as they may advise. On motion, the following directors were elected to serve for the ensuing four years : Benjamin D. Silliman, David A. Boody, A. Augustus Low, Charles A. Moore and George B. Abbott. There being no further business, the meeting adjourned. JOS. A. BURR, Secretary. PROCEEDINGS AND SPEECHES AT THE Sixteenth Annual Dinner of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn. December 21, 1895. To Celebrate the Two Humired and Seventy-fifth Ayiniversaty of the Landing of the Pilgrims. The Sixteenth Annual Dinner of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, was held in the Assembly Rooms of the Academy of Music, and in the Art Room adjoining, on Saturday evening, December 21, 1895. The reception was held in the Art Room, and at 6 o'clock dinner was served. One hundred and sixty-five gentlemen were seated at the tables. The President, Stewart L. WOOD- FORD, presided. On his right were seated Hon. CHARLES EMORY Smith, Hon. St. Clair McKelway, Hon. John Winslow, Rev. David Gregg, D. D., Prof. Homer B. Sprague, the Presi- dent of the St. Nicholas Society, and the President of the St. Patrick Society. On his left were seated the President of the New England Society in the city of New York, Hon. Charles A. Schieren, Hon. Frederick W. Wurster, Rev. J. Coleman Adams, D. D., Col. LooMis L. Langdon, U. S. A., Commodore Mont- gomery SiCARD, U. S. N. The members of the Society were seated as follows : Table A. — Presided over by Joseph A. Burr. Geo. H. Fisher, Hon. W. B. Kurd, F. E. Crane, F. L. Noble, L. M. Palmer, Dr. E. A. Lewis, Hon. N. H. Clement, Jesse Johnson, Hon. Aug. Van Wyck, Horace E. Dresser, E. P. Loomis, E. N. Loomis, James D. Bell, Hon. A. H. Dailey, Rufus L. Scott. 29 Table B. — Presided over by Charles A. Moore and Henry W. Maxwell. Hon. Frank Squier, Hon. C. B. Lawrence, George B. Kenyon, Leonard T. Moody, N. Townsend Thayer, William W. Henshaw, Dr. J. E. Richardson, Frank Enos, George B. Alexander, Charles H. Otis, Hon. George B. Abbott, Col. WilHs L. Ogden, Charles W. West, E. F. Knowlton, Thomas A. Buffum, Algernon S. Higgins, William H. Hill, E. J. Knowlton, H. B. Moore, Wm. Berri, William W. Goodrich, Timothy L. Woodruff. Table C. — Presided over by Thomas S. Moore and Franklin W. Hooper. J. Spencer Turner, William Adams, Nelson J. Gates, Robert D. Benedict, Harrington Putnam, George Foster Peabody, J. Ed. Swanstrom, William H. Maxwell, James Weir, Jr., Charles E. Teale, Henry B. Haigh, Hon. C. E. Pratt. Table D. — Presided over by Flamen B. Candler and A. A. Low. Robert W. Candler, Henry A. Cozzens, Bowen Bancroft Smith, Rev. R. F. Alsop, D, D., Edward Barr, Charles C. Skilton, Dr. W. B. Brinsmade, Alfred F. Britton, WiUiam C. Redfield, Hon. Frank D. Pavey, Hon. George W. Brush, William A. Shortt, George E. Moulton, Commander Barry, U. S. N. ; Oliver Hazard Perry, Rev. S. G. Losee, James S. Brownson, Lea Mcllvaine Luqueer, Daniel G. Haniman, George F. Crane. Table E. — Presided over by General John B. Woodward. Charles H. Requa, Charles A. Silver, Marshall Driggs, Fred L. Cross, William D.Wade, Col. R. J. Kimball, F. E. Dodge, Carll DeSilver, Cyrus B. Davenport, George H. Southard, John S. James, Michael Snow, George M. Coit, Charles A. Hull, Rev. A. J. Lyman, George H. Prentiss, E. H. Kellogg, Charles S. Sanxay, George E. Bartlett, Dr. J. G. Johnson, William G. Creamer. Table F. — Presided over by Nelson G. Carman. William Ford, Walter S. Badger, John T. Sherman, Charles Adams, William Hester, George P. Merrill, J. D. Fairchild, H. F. Gunnison, WiUiam M. Van Anden, Herbert T. Ketcham, WilUam H. Cary, Isaac H. Cary, David Bamett, George H. Ran- dall, John Hanan, Louis Schott, Frank Bailey, Edward M. Grout, A. M. Cahoone. Table G. — Presided over by James McKeen and Ethan Allen Doty. Henry K. Sheldon, John E. Leech, N. P. Collin, George H. Roberts, Dr. J. B. EUiott, Hon. William H. Lyon, George H. Cook, George N. Robinson, Daniel P. Morse, E. H. Barnes, Howard S. Randall, Henry P. Hatch, Dr. Mortimer Lloyd, Ambrose G. Newton. Table H. — Presided over by Hon. David A. Boody. Charles D. Marvin, Thomas F. Goodrich, Nathan J. Sprague, Herbert B. Ogden, Jack- son Wallace, Rev. T. A. Nelson, D.D.; Clarence W. Seaman, Charles H. Russell, Remsen Rushmore, Henry C. Fames, Josiah P. Howell. The gentlemen of the Press : Table I. — Presided over by William B. Davenport. United Press, Brooklyn Standard Union, Brooklyn Eagle, Brooklyn Times, Brooklyn Citizen, New York Recorder, New York Sun, New York Times, New York Herald, New York World, Associated Press, New York Tribune. 30 BILL OF FARE. Small Blue Points. SOUPS. Clear Green Turtle. Consomme Princesse. SIDE DISHES. Olives. Radishes. Salted Almonds. Celery. FISH. Striped Bass, Joinville. Cucumbers. JOINTS. Saddle of Canadian Mutton, Currant Jelly. Filet of Beef, Fresh Mushrooms. Parisian Potatoes. ENTREE. Turban, Italian Style. VEGETABLES. Artichokes, Hollandaise Sauce. MAYFLOWER PUNCH. GAME. Canvas-back Duck. Fried Hominy. Celery Mayonnaise. Cutlets of Foie-gras, Strasburg Style. ENTREMET. Boudins Mathilde. DESSERT. Fancy Ice Cream. Fancy Cakes. Candied Fruits. Pistache Cakes. Bon Bons. Princesse Cakes. Mottoes. Nougat Pyramid. Fruits in Season. CHEESE. Camembert. Roquefort. COFFEE. Grace was said by Rev. J. Coleman Adams, D. D. ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT, HON. STEWART L. WOODFORD. Gentlemen of the New England Society : — The hour of nine has arrived, the hour at which Miles Standish and Parson Rob- ertson always directed that the punch bowl should be put aside, the barber shop closed and the side doors opened, so that all regulations instituted for keeping the Sabbath accord- ing to the Puritan and the Brooklyn fashion might be faith- fully observed. [Laughter.] It is pleasant amid the excite- ments of Wall Street and of the past week, to meet together in this pleasant and neighborly way on Saturday night and keep Forefathers' Day according to the old fashion. [Applause.] Two hundred and seventy-five years have come and gone since the forefathers left Holland and Delfthaven and settled in New England. Within these less than three centuries the seed of the Mayflower has grown and borne fruit until to-night more than seventy millions of people, speaking the language of the old Mother Land, from one ocean to the other, keep alive the memory of Old England and are proud of the achieve- ment of New England. [Applause.] To-day these seventy millions should stand with resolute purpose for all that is best in progress and human development. We may justly be very proud in our great strength. But this very pride and very strength should compel us with united voice to pray that our flag may go to its highest victory in peace and in fraternity with all the world. [Applause.] The traditions of the New England Society in Brooklyn are that your President shall inflict upon the audience a speech sufficiently long to enable the entire audience soberly to appre- ciate the speeches that are to follow. [Laughter.] Your Puritanic condition compels me, to your credit, but much to my regret, to make a very brief speech to-night, for, if there be anything that delights a lawyer's heart, it is to hear his own voice, whether encouraged by a fee or a feed. [Laughter.] 32 Some thought of a serious suggestion ought to precede the festive utterance of such an occasion as ours, and I have been asking myself what are the things for which the Puritan and the Pilgrim essentially stood ; for which the Puritan and the Pilgrim essentially stand in the development of the land to- day ? And I fancy that these things crystallize about three simple ideas. The Puritan stood for religious liberty. He did not always practice it ; we do not always practice what we most preach. But the Puritan endured separation from home, from old ties and from all that made life tenderest and dearest that he might establish himself in a new land where he could worship God as he thought best. This at last inevitably developed and grew into the fixed and final purpose that all men, Protestant and Catholic, Orthodox and Infidel— that all men, standing each before the bar of his own conscience, should worship God according to their own judgment and on their own responsi- bility. [Applause.] And this is the essential idea of the Puri- tan faith, of the Puritan creed and the Puritan effort. [Ap- plause.] The man may be right in his religion. He may be wrong in his religion. But he has the legal privilege of being right or wrong at his own risk, and the State has no just power to coerce his conscience or dictate his creed. [Applause.] And so, by very natural evolution the old Congregational Meet- ing house at the foot of Burial Hill, close beside Plymouth Rock, has become a Unitarian Church [laughter], and New England Societies contribute to its Memorial Tower to honor it as a cradle of New England worship, without accepting or endorsing its present form of faith. [Applause.] The second thing for which the Puritans stood was obedi- ence to law. [Applause.] You and I take it as a natural thing, and as a matter of course that men should obey law. But the great secret, and I think the final test of the fitness of every race in the world for ultimate self-government has lain in this. This is the secret of discipline. It is the essence of strength — whether with one man or many. Disobedience to law is never justifiable, except it be compelled by obedience to the 33 higher law — the law of conscience and of God. [Applause.] Am I wrong? The State is strong or weak, just in propor- tion as we are willing to obey the law while it is law, whether we like the law or not. Obedience to law is essentially the cor- ner-stone upon which all state development, all national devel- opment must be built ; and states have endured just in propor- tion as they have been true to this idea, and they have fallen and died just in proportion as they have been false to it. [Ap- plause.] If the Puritan, with his wide-brimmed hat and sober visage and snuff-colored garment, had left nothing else that should make us reverence his memory, he left this, which is the Puritan idea forever, that Puritanism stands for obedience to law, and that obedience to law is the essential condition of the life of every people. [Long Applause.] He left another thought ; a thought that we accept as mod- ern in our time, but that is strangely rooted beside Plymouth Rock. The Puritans stood for local self-government — (Mr. McKelway here entered the room, and the Chair continued) : I am glad that our friend Mr. McKelway has come and, marvelous in an editor, that he is within a minute and a half of the time that he promised. I am glad that he has come for now the reporters, who doubted his coming, will say that a lawyer has for once told them the truth. How happy we lawyers would be, if we could ever with exactness reply that for once they had told the truth about us. [Laughter and Applause.] The third thing for which the Puritan stood and which we accept as modern in our time, but which is as old as the New England hills and as sturdy as the New England pines, is the idea of absolute local self-government. [Applause.] The Puri- tan founded the town meeting, and the town meeting meant that local affairs should be determined by neighbors when they were thus gathered together. [Applause.] We have grown, it may be in some ways, but I believe in the old New England idea as reverently now as in my childhood. I believe that we shall never get for the largest aggregation of people that can come within the largest American city better government and higher conscience and more absolute obedience to law than the 34 great cities will show whenever the politicians at the State Capitals shall let them alone, and leave the people in the local- ity, in town or city to do what they think best and govern them- selves. [Great Applause.] And now, gentlemen, I give you a toast to which all will rise, which all will drink, for to-night there are no parties and but one land ; and whether he be right or wrong, we drink to the President of the United States. [Applause.] I do not give his name, for it was the old fashion of soldiers in the old army days not to speak the name of him who held the office, but always and simply to name him as the President of the United States. [Applause.] The entire company rose in response to the toast. General Woodford continued : Our next toast is : "THE DAY WE CELEBRATE." This was to have been answered by the Hon. Hoke Smith, Secretary of the Interior. We should have been doubly glad to welcome him here to-night, for he is not only a Cabinet officer, but he is from the city to which some of you, who had sufficient cash, went recently, and from which those of us who had not the cash were forced to remain behind. He is from Atlanta, and you would have been glad to have returned with right royal welcome the greeting that his people gave you there. [Applause.] But I have from him this letter which, in its simple affection, will touch your hearts as it has touched mine: " December 20, 1895. My Dear Sir : — The illness of my child, who I cannot hope will recover so fully within the next few days as to justify me in leaving home, renders it necessary for me, with great regret, to tell you that I cannot attend your banquet to-morrow night. Sincerely yours, HOKE SMITH." But if we cannot have a cabinet officer, you will be ad- dressed by that last estate that makes cabinets and administra- 35 tions and is always ready to direct them [laughter], and I am sure that you will be glad on this festival night to let the eagle scream, even if its notes shall prove not warlike, but soft and birdlike ; and so let me present, not introduce, our neighbor and friend, Mr. McKelway, editor of the Brooklyn " Eagle " and custodian and trainer of the American eagle, who will speak to you on the Monroe Doctrine. [Laughter and applause.] ADDRESS OF THE HON. ST. CLAIR McKELWAY. My Friends .-—The Chairman has intimated that to-night I am expected to speak for the federal administration on the matters in controversy between the Old England and the New — or between Great Britain and the United States. Time was when I both spoke and wrote for administrations, from federal down to local, or from local down to federal, as you prefer. Of late years, however — and they are the happiest, most prosper- ous and freest years of my life — I have formed a habit of speak- ing for myself, which has become so inveterate that I shall make no effort to change it. That enables me to speak, not to what administrations will, but to what they ought to do. To speak for the administration to-night would devolve upon me a complicated embarrassment, and upon the administration a direful responsibility, which should not be added to its present difficulties — and shall not be. As in last solution the rights of the individual and the rights of the government are the same^ so in final analysis the benefit of the one cannot be the bane of the other. Not that I would have you consider that I am at variance with the administration, or perhaps, what is of more importance, that it is at variance with me. We are both inde- pendently disinterested. My term is longer, even if my juris- diction is less, and I am confronting no succession from within or from without that I know of. Neither do I believe that the question either of succession or of success has place or purpose with the administration. No unworthy man has ever held the presidency of the United States. No unworthy man holds that office to-day. No man, 36 I think, has ever held it who was not large enough in himself, or at least, in whom the office did not work that moral enlarge- ment to put country before party and right before both, I do not make this extreme assertion without the reservation that it is applicable only to extreme situations in the history of our nation — and it properly should be. There is a time and there is a propriety for partisanship in government in every nation which is governed by parties — and they are the best nations in the world. To this proposition presidencies or administrations are no exception, and American presidencies and American ad- ministrations peculiarly fall under the idea. The time for par- tisanship in government is that occupied by its usual and formal duties. The propriety of partisanship in those duties is unquestionable, because it creates intelligibility, accounta- bility, responsibility and the capability of rewards and punish- ments which keep government in the hands of the people, and which make officials, not their masters, but their servants. The occasions for the sinking or submergence of partisanship in gov- ernment are relatively few in the history of happy nations. They have been few in the history of this republic, but the obligations which they have laid upon the people have been .adequately and grandly met by them. I believe this is one of those occasions. I believe that it will witness, as it has wit- nessed already, the sinking or the submergence of partisanship by the people, and that the reciprocal responsibility which it lays upon the President of disassociating political intentions and political consequences from his own actions is thoroughly and patriotically realized by him. It is hard to be patient with those who exhibit an alacrity for belittling imputations in a crisis of American history. That alacrity was not wanting among an unfragrant few in the period of the revolution, in that of the formation of our government, in the period of the inconclusive contention of 1812-15, in the period of the con- striction of nullification, twenty years afterward, and in the period from i860 to 1865 which showed that our Union was as indissoluble as our States are indestructible. Only, however, to the names of the illustrious chief magistrates who were thus 37 maligned do their maligners owe their unenviable immortality of fame and of fire. I would neither challenge the divided estimates of this company nor offend the established standards of completed history by even suggesting a comparison between any of the deathless dead and any of the illustrious living; but I would say, that whatever be the place of any President, or any ex-President, in the opinions of those who come after him, this nation will rally as one man around any executive who stands for its rights, and as the custodian of its powers when those rights are questioned, or threatened from abroad. If I may be permitted to draw one lesson from the substantial unity of the American people now, a unity rather emphasized than impaired by the bitterness of exceptional dissent, the lesson would be this : The excess of opposition and the excess of adu- lation toward the mere men who come and who go as our rulers, in the swiftly moving comedy, tragedy and melodrama of our American life, work equal confusion and inconsistency for those who indulge them when events compel an ameliora- tion or a reversal of impression. The sanity of justice, rather than the acrimony of detraction, and the candor of manliness, rather than the sickening sugar of sycophancy, are a better pabulum than a great deal of our politics and a very little of our journalism have in the past dealt out. Those who did not hate, and those who did not worship, have no rancor to re- nounce, and no wasted effusion to deplore. This is one of my self-satisfactory reasons for speaking for myself rather than for any one else on this occasion. Thus, by easy stages I have reached my subject : The sub- ject is the Old England and the New. I shall consider neither, but shall occupy a middle position by talking about something between them. The something between them is the Monroe doctrine. It has been between them from 1823 to 1895. That is seventy-two years. Between Old England and New England, or between Great Britain and the United States, for that time has also been peace — and for more than seventy-two years to come, and for many years beyond that between them, I hope, maybe peace. The condition of peace, not merely for seventy- 38 two years but for eighty years and more, between the two countries has been justice. The condition of peace between the two countries for the future will also be justice. During seventy-two years the Monroe doctrine has at least been com- patible with peace — if not very helpfully the cause of it. Responsibility for impaired or imperilled friendship cannot, therefore, be laid upon that doctrine. It must be due, if at all, to the denial of the doctrine or to its misconception or its misapplication. It is an American doctrine. It is a doctrine of, by and for Americans — and for America and for all in America, whether Americans or not. By it Americans stand and will stand. For it all the Americans on this hemisphere, whether they wisely or unskillfully exercise the rights of self- government, are and will be a unit. It is the touchstone or the coefficient of unity among and between all the American Republics. Nor is it without significance that all the self- governed countries on this hemisphere are republican in their form of rule. The Monroe doctrine is, as Goldwin Smith has well said : " The charter of independence for this continent, and a declaration that the new world shall be allowed to work out its own destinies, free from any interference on the part of the powers of the old world." It is not a doctrine of aggran- dizement by or for the United States, or by or for European monarchial powers on this continent. It recognizes and respects the mainland and the insular possessions of Euro- pean monarchies upon this hemisphere, but it defines their limits by their boundaries, and on those boundaries it writes : "Thus far shalt thou come but no farther, and here shall thy imperial waves be stayed." The reason for this was found in the true meaning of the often abused term, " Manifest destiny." In the early years of the government French and Spanish ownership, occupation and rule of parts of what are now the United States were a barrier and a burden. The barrier was removed and the bur- den was lifted by peaceful acquisition. By it the Father of Waters went unvexed to the sea. By it our Southern coast- line was made conterminous both to gulf and ocean. On 39 account of it and of the relief which it wrought, the embarrass- ment by European control of countries to the south of us was made acute. When by their own efforts the people of Central and of South America threw off European domination, the time for the Monroe doctrine to be born had come, and it had its birth. Truly, it had its inspiration from high English sources, but it had its formulation where it had its pertinence and where it must have its protection, in the United States. It has been neither dead nor sleeping in all these years. It is alert, alive, immortal and indomitable to-day. The reason for this should be plain. Whether government be a good or an evil thing, it is contagious. We believe republican govern- ment to be a good thing, for we made it and love it as our own. We believe kingly government to be a form of rule not so good, for we threw it off. We are willing that a compari- son between the effects of the two forms of government upon the development of mankind on the same hemisphere or con- tinent for over a hundred years shall be drawn and, while we would not boast, we will not fear the report. But, as said, we recognize that forms of government, whether good or better are contagious. They have a disposition to beget their kind and to disturb, deplete or displace other than their kind. The assured parity of freedom here with government around the world counseled the predominance of self-government on this hemisphere, the predominance of independent states on this hemisphere and the preponderance of republican forms of rule among those states. That required a prohibition upon the extension or further intrusion of European control upon this hemisphere. To that this republic committed itself, for on that, it felt, turned the security of its future. That was and is and accounts for and defines and necessitates and vindicates the Monroe doctrine. Not England herself disputes this. Not Lord Salisbury questions it. Indeed, he afffrms it and in the affirmation, as well as in the safely-guarded though bold output of our Presi- dent's thoughts, is the reasonable hope of the amicable adjust- ment of this regrettable dispute. In last solution the ques- 40 tion is one of fact. The immediate requirement of the ques- tion is, therefore, now one of investigation for fact. The best method to settle questions of disputed evidence is by arbitra- tion, for it binds both disputants to its findings. The next best method is independent investigation, for it can acquaint the investigators with all the attainable facts, and through them the world. Arbitration of this subject in controversy between Venezuela and Great Britain, the lesser country has pathetically asked of the former over a period of more than eighty years. Arbitration of it as a country in undeniable interest, the United States have repeatedly and respectfully asked of Great Britain. The request was lately refused with the statement that it would never be granted. Never is an adverb without a proper place in diplomacy. As arbitration could well have displaced independent investigation, so can independent investigation well precede another and another, and if need be, yet another reasonable, respectful and increas- ingly earnest demand for arbitration should such investigation show colorable cause for it. No man can resist in the open the pressure of the moral opinion of his city or community. No State in the open can resist the pressure of the moral opinion of the sister States of the Republic. No republic and no monarchy can resist in the open the pressure of the moral opinion of the world for arbitration when war is what arbitra- tion could avert, and when mere pride or prestige, or punctilio is all that would prevent arbitration or would produce war. Fellow citizens, let not our faith in the moral causes which govern nations, and which govern men, or our faith in the God who restrains the wrath of both, be faint or be lost. I am sure that the American people and their President cannot regard recourse to investigation or the results of investigation as a finality in any sense. I am sure when the report of our inves- tigators shall have been rendered that it will be made, if can be, a force and a factor for yet longer and stronger appeals for peace through justice, and for justice through peace. I am sure that the greatest republic on the earth and the greatest empire on the globe, not so long ago one in autonomy and 41 undeniably one in derivation, and properly one in development and in destiny, cannot and will not, indeed, you will bear with me when I say they must not abandon arbitration because one of them has said " Never," and because the other has resorted to the only remaining alternative of independent inquiry. I claim offhand no incontrovertible position for the Monroe doctrine in international law. I claim, however, for it a per- petual place and a perpetual potency for the United States in the relations between all the independent states on this hemis- phere, and the powers of Europe. If it be not a part of inter- national law, it is assuredly the ultimatum of America to the world, touching interests and territory purely American. For seventy-two years the rest of the world has respected it as such American ultimatum. The time has not come for it to be disrespected. I assert this to be the true statement and extent of the Monroe doctrine : It prevents no country to the south or north of us from setting up what systems their own people prefer. It denies to none of them the costly luxury of periodical rev- olutions. It protects none of them from the consequences of their own wrong dealings with us or with foreign powers. It limits their freedom only by the consideration that they shall not seek cession to any European powers. It protects them from no punishment for wrong doing, except from the punish- ment of conquest by European powers, or from absorption by such powers under any fact, or force, or fiction of consent. It does not treat a question of really disputed boundary between conterminous jurisdictions as a cause for forcible interventions, but it does and will regard as an act of hostility any pretext of disputed boundary which is made the cause or the occasion or the opportunity for European imperial aggrandizement of the territory really belonging to a free American state. Neither the club of conquest nor the hypodermic injection of finesse can be employed against the Monroe doctrine without the re- sistance and the resentment of the people of the United States, Bearing in mind what the doctrine is and is not, does and does not, let us have confidence in our own capability of preserving 42 it within its proper limits and functions, and of seeing that no others wrest it from them. I profoundly believe that the very intensity of feeling, the equal unity of resolution in the United States and in Great Britain will be an eventual assurance not of war but of peace. We should not, however, in the tranquil or in the stormy pro- gress of this controversy to settlement lose sight of the fact of our national needs. One, and a shamefully neglected one, is the need of adequate coast defenses. Another, and I am glad that both political parties share the honor of meeting it, is the pro- gressive increase of our navy to a strength commensurate with our rights and our size among the nations of the world. Still another, is such a reasonable increase of our standing army as will make not even a removable and a fallacious apprehension of foreign war the mirror in which to see reflected our martial Aveakness, whether against the internal foes or the external dangers to our domestic peace. Still another, is the bringing up of our state military organizations to an efficiency in keep- ing with our national requirements. These needs will be met. Slow to realize them, the people at last do realize them, and the people hold all the ground that they gain in the study of their national needs. Would I could draw from the present splendid unity of the American nation for American honor a certain augury of their equal unity for sanity in currency and for honesty in money, as well as for the Republic, one and in- divisible, at the water's edge. The President opportunely urged this on Congress Friday night. Such a unity for the eighth commandment in values we Northern and Eastern men maintain. Only, however, with it throughout our whole country can we, with unimpeachable consistency, solidly combine for the cause of that country against the world. Only with such a unity for integrity in standards can we justify, or, at most, honorably illuminate our unity for purposes of any national sort. We cannot hold in one hand an honest demand for arbitration, or, failing that, an honest sword of aggression or defence, and in the other hand a dishonest dollar. We must be all around honest and united 43 for all around honesty if we would be efificiently united at all. This is my hope and this is my word of hope and of prayer. The deterioration of our repute for values may have wrought a degraded estimate of our repute for the valor which must rest on virtue in all things to be entirely respectable or entirely respected. One for the right of America for Americans and one for the righteousness of honesty in money, we can face the world without a fear because without a flaw. Let us prefer peace so much that we will have it at any cost save that of right and honor and manhood. Let us abhor war so much that we will repel it and avert it, should it come to us merely on the demand of prestige or pride or vain glory or lustful ambition. If we but nationally purify ourselves within, no foes without can form or stand against us. But my last word — and I crave your patience and thank you for it — shall be a word of peace. Standing in this presence I would but extend the sentiment which the greatest of the Americans of this century uttered on the threshold of his duties to those who misunderstood him then, but who have not misunderstood him since, and, I would say, if possible, under the holy baptism of his spirit, both to Englishmen and to Americans : " We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic cords of memory stretching from every battlefield to every living heart and hearthstone all over our broad land (and yours) will yet swell the chorus of our brotherhood, when again touched, as they surely will be, by the better angels of our nature." The Chairman : — My friends, I am sure that every citizen thanks Mr. McKelway for his words, so thoughtful and elo- quent, and so enduring. [Applause.] My memory goes back to-night to a dark, sad day when there was passion and excitement in New York ; and in the midst of gathering crowds, and swelling and increasing excite- ment, there passed up Broadway an open landau. Over its back was flung an American flag, and within the landau two 44 men were seated — the Russian Minister and his private secre- tary. In that hour of intense anxiety there came strength and thought of peace to every American, when he felt that there was a hand of friendship outstretched across a continent and over the sea, and that the land that had been so long loyal and friendly to us, was loyal and friendly still. That Minister was the Minister of Russia. [Applause.] To-night we are fortu- nate in having with us a great editor of Pennsylvania, that most pacific of the Atlantic States — pacific in character, if not in location — who afterwards was Minister from the United States to the Empire of Russia, who has come back from that exalted station to be again an editor in Philadelphia, and who will speak to you to-night for "THE QUAKER AND THE YANKEE;" my old boyhood friend, Charles Emory Smith, Minister to Russia, now editor of the Philadelphia Press. [Applause.] ADDRESS OF HON. CHARLES EMORY SMITH. Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the New England Society in Brooklyn : — I am greatly indebted to your respected Presi- dent, and to my cherished friend, for the very kind and alto- gether too flattering terms in which he has done me the honor to present me to this brilliant assembly. And if there is any phase of the brief career abroad to which he has referred which I cherish with any degree of pride and satisfaction, it is the fact that I was the Minister of my country at that post at a time when the American people, through the providence of God, were enabled to show some small return for the great ser- vice which Russia rendered to the United States during our great struggle : that I was not merely the Minister of my country, but that I held the still higher and more cherished position of being the Minister of my countrymen's contribution to the afflicted people of Russia during their great famine. That act upon the part of the people of the United States, of sending five great ships laden with food for the famishing peas- 45 ants, were received there as a gracious return for the inestimable service of Russia which, during our war, when we were threat- ened with the intervention of other powers, sent Russian men- of-war, with flying flags and shotted guns, to cast their anchors under the shadow of Trinity spire, as testimony of her friend- ship for our nation. And I am glad to avail myself of the sug- gestion, so timely and so pertinent, of your honored President, to bring to you, as I may, the assurance of friendship upon the part of the Russian people and government, a friendship which I trust will be continued and cherished through the coming years. [Applause.] When I came yesterday — and it is about on the day be- fore that one begins to think seriously of such an occasion as this — to consider seriously the requirements of this evening it suddenly dawned upon me that while your President had been so courteous and complete in his suggestion upon every other point, he had not given me the slightest intimation of the theme upon v/hich I was to speak to-night. I was some- what at a loss to determine whether that was your usual prac- tice, or whether it was due to the assumption that I might require the whole range of the universe. To-night for the first time, I learn that I am to speak to the sentiment which you have suggested, " The Quaker and the Yankee ;" and I assure you, gentlemen, that I shall keep as closely to the sub- ject as if I had known it two months ago [laughter]. " I am told that you are a raconteur," said a charming young lady to an aspiring statesman of the lesser New York. " That is not so, I am an Irishman." If any one were to tell me that I am a brave man I should be compelled to answer, " That is not so, I am a Quaker." But it must be confessed that it requires some degree of presumption, if not of courage, for even an adopted Quaker to invade the sanctuary of New Englanders in Brook- lyn. But looking over this splendid feast to-night, in which you have literally turned the loaded and bountiful tables upon your frugal fathers, I am sure you will agree that I am not afflicted like the dyspeptic lady who consulted her physician and reported his conclusion. "The doctor," she said, " told 46 me that my real difficulty was that I hadn't sufficient gall to justify my victuals." [Laughter.] " The Quaker and the Yankee " Sydney Smith, a celebrated member of my own family, like that other whose absence we deplore to-night, once said that he had one great, irresist- ible weakness: he wanted to roast a Quaker. His friend said to him, ''Good Lord, Mr. Smith, have you thought of the torture?" " I have thought of everything; it would undoubt- edly be sad for the Quaker, but it is a weakness which I have found myself absolutely unable to escape from. One would satisfy me, just one." There has been suspicion that your New England Forefathers had a propensity and a weak- ness not unlike that which Sydney Smith confessed, and, I sup- pose, perhaps it is because of that desire to roast a Quaker that I was brought here from Philadelphia to-night. But your good president is altogether responsible. I know him well. He is a most accomplished and versatile gentleman. If I may quote again from Sydney Smith, he is what Sydney Smith said of Lord John Russell, ready at a moment's notice to take command of the channel fleet, to perform an opera- tion for cataract, or to go up in a balloon. [Laughter.] I remember that he was once president of the New York Soci- ety. He was in the habit of dining in Brooklyn on the 2ist, and of demonstrating with his brilliant eloquence and by the most incontestable historical evidence that the 2ist furnished " the only greatest show on earth." And then as early the next day as circumstances and his condition would permit, he went over to New York, and there, with the same power of epigram and with the same oratorical skill he proved that the one absolutely right way of celebrating Plymouth Rock was to fast on the 2ist in order that you might feast on the 22d. The way you have of managing this thing over here between New York and Brooklyn excites my profoundest admiration, and I have been thinking, as I have observed it, whether we could not over in Philadelphia manage in the same way, to cross the river and find our New York in Camden. It sug- gests that other occasion celebrated in English story : 47 "Those dine then, who've seldom dined before, And those who've always dined, then dine the more. " For many years it has been my practice to follow your president and not with the doubt or hesitation of the ques- tioning spouse who, when charged by her departing husband to place upon his monument " Prepare to follow me, " obeyed the charge, but, remembering his dubious past and his some- what uncertain future, added a little on her own account to this effect : "To follow thee I'm not content. Until I know which way thee went."' I have had no such hesitation in following your president, for I have known that whatever way he went was sure to be right. I was ready to follow him, and did follow him as an editor in Albany, when he carried the highest standard of civic virtue and purity and of public conscience into the Lieutenant-Gov- ernor's chair at the Capitol. I was ready to follow him when, gallantly and heroically, he bore the flag of honest money against timorous friends and open foes in Ohio. I was ready to follow him when, with patriotic and chivalrous spirit, true in instinct, sure in methods, courageous in conscious right, he lifted the banner of national unity in the very heart of Mississippi. Ready to follow, but impossible to keep the pace ; for, with his dash and daring, it was another case of " Eclipse first and the rest nowhere." We are met to-night to celebrate our fathers and to glorify ourselves. When Marshal Junot was raised to the peerage by Napoleon, one of the old hereditary lords asked him as to his ancestry. " My faith," answered the bluff soldier, " I know nothing about it ; I am my own ancestor." We are more cer- tain than Junot. We know that we had a noble ancestry, for we are sure that our ancestors have a noble posterity. Josh Billings, who was a good deal of a philosopher, said: " My idea of first rate poetry is the kind of poetry I would have writ." And our idea of first rate posterity is the kind of posterity we are. After devoutly praying for all classes and conditions of men, the good colored preacher closed up with the solemn in- 48 vocation: "And, finally, O Lord, bless the people of the unin- habited portions of the globe." On all other days of the year we are as broad and comprehensive in our good will and our prayers as the good colored brother ; but on this anniversary we direct our thoughts to that more limited portion of mankind which bequeathed the noble Puritan strain and immortalized the lofty Puritan principle. Five years ago, at an extraordinary public meeting in the little American chapel of the splendid and far distant capital of the Russian empire, the British ambassador, turning to the American minister, who happened to be presiding, impress- ively said that the sailing of the Mayflower was the greatest event in history since the dawn of the Christian era. The declaration was the more remarkable, since the meeting was not on Forefathers' Day, though near it, and the occasion had no connection with its commemoration. History is em- blazoned with crucial and momentous turning points which make epochs and determine destiny. Its glittering pages un- fold a few transcendant heroes and a few great decisive cur- rents. Looking back through its stately corridors, over the march of conquerors and the creation of empires, what event surpasses in its broad sway over the human intellect and human fate that humble but heroic voyage which signalized the birth of civil and religious liberty and opened the new era of individual freedom and aspirations ? What was the majestic scene when the intrepid Augustine monk, facing the great Diet, with his immortal truth, solemnly proclaimed : " Here I stand ; I cannot otherwise," if the sundered shackles of hierarchy were only to be exchanged for the firmer fetters of state upon the individual conscience? What was the ventur- ous voyage of the Santa Maria and the material discovery of a new continent, unless by the higher and nobler mission of the Mayflower the new world was to be made the sacred temple of freedom and the enduring home of individual right and opportunity? We are not alone in our filial tribute. The world's testi- mony has sustained the eulogy. "The stern and unbending 49 Puritans," says the British historian Hallam, " were the depos- itories of the sacred fire of liberty." The little Mayflower and its immortal company guarded the precious spark and kindled it anew among the wilds of the New England coast, and from that feeble, but vital spark, has sprung the enduring and pene- trating flame whose benificent rays have lighted the pathway of the greatest of all republics, and have furnished a beacon of progress for all mankind. The Puritan essence was duty ; the Puritan creed was God and conscience ; the Puritan principle was individual freedom within the muniments of the common- wealth ; the Puritan chart was organized liberty, sanctioned, protected and regulated by law. That influence, the might- iest and most pervasive among modern forces, has stamped its impress on all our history. Thank God the Puritan still lives. He has brightened his garb, and silvered his speech ; he has grown with the march of the age ; he has adapted himself to advancing conditions, as Bradford and Winthrop and Winslow would do were they with us now; but in his fidelity to principle, and his devotion to duty, he lives to-day as truly as he lived in the days of the Puritan revolution and the Puritan pilgrimage. He carried his chart in the creation of Western commonwealths. He fought for liberty at the bloody angle of Gettysburg, and above the clouds on Lookout, as he fought at Lexington and Bunker Hill. He stands in support of law, in maintenance of order, and in de- fense of those observances which recognize God and His ordi- nances as still holding sway in the moral and material world. The common speech of men pays homage to the universal and eternal significance of the term. If you uphold that law should be upheld and obeyed, you are called a Puritan. If you insist that the Sabbath should be respected and observed you are described as a Puritan. If you urge that the code of absolute honor and honesty should rule in the city, the state and the nation, you are pictured as a Puritan. Sometimes flung at us as a term of reproach, let us glory in the name as the highest panegyric, and cherish the principles and the duties it covers as the highest obligation. Our fathers resolved to be governed 50 by what they understood to be the laws of God. There are those whose self-appreciation leads them to consent reluctantly to recognize the laws of God until they can make better. We prefer to believe that the laws of God and the laws of man can, and ought to harmonize with each other, and with the truest liberty and the best interests of the State. The true Puritan spirit does not permit indifference in individual life or in pub- lic action. It makes good manhood and good citizenship. The man whose heart beats responsive to the Puritan con- science that smote Plymouth Rock and opened the fountain of moral and intellectual forces that have flooded and beautified the continent, is sure to be for purity and honesty and reform at the city hall. He is for good government and wholesome legislation in the State. He is for maintaining the credit and honor of the nation untarnished before the world, and against every insidious measure that would debase the standard or sully its integrity. And he is so devoted to this great and free Republic, founded upon civil and religious liberty, as the model and example for mankind, that he would exalt the prin- ciples of Washington, and Monroe, and Lincoln, and would, without distinction of party or section, unfalteringly resist any European encroachment upon our rights and dignity as, in God's Providence, the undisputed primate, and the just arbiter of the American continent. We live, my friends, in days which call for high civic virtue and for patriotic duty. We are confronted with great problems of municipal government, which demand the best intelligence, the best integrity, the best conscience of the people. We are facing a great national destiny and development which command the broadest, the widest, the wisest statesmanship of our land, and the highest patriotism of its people. We are not called to face the wintry blasts of Plymouth Bay, or to stand actually upon Plymouth Rock, but we are called to carry forward the principles be- queathed to us by the Winthrops and the Winslows of that early day. And just as Douglas bore the heart of Robert Bruce in the golden casket upon his breast, so we are called in these ereat issues around us and before us to bear the heart of 51 our Puritan fathers, and to stand true to the principles and the conscience which they faithfully followed. [Applause.] The Chairman: — And now, gentlemen, in accordance with the honored observance of the New England Society, let us all rise and sing " America." The audience then rose and sang: " My country, 'tis of thee, Sweet land of Liberty ! Of thee I sing ; Land where my fathers died, Land of the Pilgrims' pride, From every mountain side Let freedom ring. Our father's God, to Thee, Author of Liberty, To Thee we sing ; Long may our land be bright With freedom's holy light. Protect us by Thy might. Great God, Our King." The Chairman : — And now, gentlemen, the next toast, one that may surprise you, "THE SCOTCH AS ALLIES OF THE PILGRIMS," will be responded to by the Rev. David Gregg, D. D. ADDRESS OF REV. DAVID GREGG, D. D. The courage of John Knox was never more tried than it is to-night. If he were less of a hero than he is he would never presume to face an audience of Yankees and tell his tale of American heroism. " No one ever did anything for the American republic except the Pilgrims and their descendants." That is what I was taught to believe when I lived and preached in Boston, and while I was a citizen of that city, allowing my Scotch canniness to rule me, I never denied it, and I was never known to look incredulous. To-night, however, I will venture 52 to put a cautious interrogation point opposite the statement by telling the story of the Scotch pilgrims and puritans. It will do no good, I know ; for when I have finished, if I have made any showing for John Knox, some New Englander will rise and in some unexpected way take the credit of everything good for his Yankee forefathers. The better the story told for John Knox, the greater his danger of being absorbed by some Yankee claimant. We all know the Yankee's proclivity for talk — talk and self-appropriation. The dialogue between the Old Englander and the New Englander sets this forth. It is Yankee through and through. The New Englander had just told of a wonderful swimming feat which he performed ; it was a twenty-mile swim at a stretch. The Old Englander laughed at that feat as a mere trifle and then told his story. His story was this : When he left Liverpool on the steamship, he looked behind and saw a man swimming after the ship with the evi- dent intention of following it across the ocean. And he did it. The man and the sliip struck the Cunard wharf at New York at the same tick of the clock. Nothing abashed the Yankee asked the Englishman if he would forever stick to that story, and if he would swear to it. When the Englishman replied in the affirmative, with the old time spirit of appropria- tion, the Yankee said : " I am mighty glad, stranger, to have such a credible witness as you to that swimming feat, for that fellow you saw and have told us about was me. I am yours truly, sir." That is the spirit of the Yankees up to date. Men of New England, I look upon our country as God's great loom for the interweaving of the peoples of the earth. The noble men and women from the different races of the old world are the threads of silk and of silver and of gold, and the fabric woven is the American Republic, beautiful with its holy freedom, its constitutional liberties and its mag- nificent and elevating institutions, civil and religious. The fabric of our national civilization, which is distinctively Ameri- can, is complex, and the credit for its beauty and strength should be as manifold as its constituents are multifold. Let 53 there be honest recognition and praise all around. To-night, while you emphasize the contribution of the Pilgrim, I v/ish to emphasize the contribution of the Scot. I wish to do for the Scotch what the famous poet and novelist. Sir Walter Scott, has done for the physical beauties of the landscape of Scotia, viz : make them known. Scott has not added one particle of beauty to a single sprig of heather, he has not put a single additional touch of color upon a single bluebell, he has not created a glint of light on his beloved lakes, he has not changed a particle of the country concerning which he so beautifully wrote. He has simply looked at Midlothian and Loch Lomond and the Trossachs with his own eyes, has seen for himself the beauties of nature's handiwork, and has told in prose and poetry just what he saw. What Scott has done for the physical beauties of Scotia, I would like to do for the noble actions of the Scotch, viz : Take them in and tell them out. John Knox four full centuries ago began his great revolution in Scotland, with this utterance of liberty: "If princes exceed their bounds, they may be resisted by force. " In that magnificent sentiment, uttered with magnificent fear- lessness, " I hear the far off drum beat of the American revolution. " Froude says : " It is the creed of republics in its first hard form. " Knox was the man who believed that one man with God is a majority, and that this always means victory for the right. With this belief he pushed his reformation until he freed his country from the fetters of religious tyranny. From the open book he taught his fellow countrymen their rights as Christians and as citizens. He gave his land a free-thoughted church, free schools, and the civil creed of the right of choice and the principle of representation. Thus he laid the foundation of future Scotland, which was destined to mould the character of the men about to cross the ocean and become the makers of America. How did these men whom Knox made reach America ? At this point the history of the Scotch-Americans somewhat resembles that of the New England Pilgrims. The New England Pilgrims came to America by way of Holland; the Scotch-Americans came to America by the way of the province of Ulster, Ireland. 54 In the early days of James I., a rebellion of two of the great provinces in the North of Ireland furnished an excuse to con- fiscate their vast domain. To hold these domains, James offered special inducements to the Scotch to make Ulster their home. The inducements were such, and the charter promised so favor- able, that large numbers responded. Of these James took his pick. This colony received its charter April i6, 1605, two years before the landing of the colony at Jamestown, Va. The Scotch in their new home were joined by many of God's noble- men, who were one with them in religious thinking and in holy life, who came from the English Puritans and from the French Huguenots. This mixture modified and improved somewhat the Scotch Puritan stock. But the colonists of Ulster were oppressed, just as the American colonists were. First, Eng- land, by the passage of oppressive measures, took away from Ulster its woolen trade. This was like a stroke of paralysis. It caused the first exodus of Scotch colonists to America. A second and larger exodus was caused by a scandalous advance- ment of the rents, and by a taxation of the improvements caused by the industry of the people. The first outrage was an attack on commerce and manufacture ; the second outrage was an attack on the agriculture of the colony. For fifty long years, from 1720 to 1770, the people poured in streams of 12,000 a year into America. So great was the inpour that when we come to the times of the American revolution, the Scotch formed no less than one-third of the entire population of the American colonies. And they brought with them the things which John Knox gave them — the kirk, the school, the creed of civil rights, and the belief in the inherent dignity of man. They came singing the words of Burns : " A man's a man for a' that." When these Scotch hosts came here, what did they do? They certainly did not form colonies. Where did they go ? They scattered through all the colonies. Twenty thousand threaded their way through New England, from the Charles river to the Kennebec, and gave the country General Stark and the Green Mountain boys, and Matthew Thornton, a signer of the Declaration, and Henry Knox, the first secre- 55 tary of war; and in later days, Horace Greeley, the father of American journalism. They poured west and south and made great states. The Scotch elements were too good and too strong to be massed in a colony ; they were of a kind fitted to be scattered as a leavening influence among the diverse peoples of the land. Thus scattered, they worked mightily for Ameri- can liberty ; more mightily than if they had been solidified into a single colony. Take one point as an illustration : Being Pres- byterian, every year they met together in their general assem- bly, and there they discussed everything pertaining to church and state. Going home to all the colonies from these meetings, all on fire by their discussions, they spread their advanced principles concerning rights and duties among all classes. The result of this was the issue of the Mechlenberg Declaration of Independence, which antedated the Philadelphia Declaration two full years. Here is one sentence from that declaration : " We hereby absolve ourselves from all allegiance to the British crown ; we hereby declare ourselves a free and independent people." Bancroft says of this declaration : " The first public voice for dissolving all connection with Great Britain came, not from the Puritans of New England, nor from the Dutch of New York, nor from the planters of Virginia, but from the Scotch Presbyterians." Their yearly general assembly, with its union of thought and purpose, suggested a like federal union for the state. It demonstrated that such a union was possible, which proved to be the case. Passing over a great company of noble men who have a right to a large place in history, I shall speak only of two men whose names will always be connected with the American Declaration of Independence and with the great revolution. The first is the name of the man who first sounded the tocsin of war by that great sentence of his, and made the tocsin rever- berate from mountain to mountain and from lake to lake, un- til the thirteen colonies heard the echo and resolved to be free- men or die. I refer to Patrick Henry, of Virginia, whose mother was a Presbyterian. Of him, Jefferson says: " He was before us all in maintaining the spirit of the revolution." The 56 second is the name of that Presbyterian minister whose voice it was that brought the congress finally and irrevocably to sign the great instrument, the declaration. I refer to the venerable Dr. Witherspoon, president of the Princeton college, who was at that time a member of the continental congress. We are told that the congress was hesitating. The country was look- ing on. Three million hearts were throbbing in intense anxiety waiting for the old bell in Independence hall to ring. " It was an hour that marked the grandest epoch in human history." What a scene was there ! On the table in the presence of that able body of statesmen lay the charter of human freedom, in clear cut utterances, flinging defiance in the face of oppression. It was an hour in which strong men trembled. There was a painful silence. In the midst of that silence Dr. Witherspoon, a Scotchman and a lineal descendant of John Knox, rose and uttered these thrilling words. " To hesitate at this moment is to consent to our own slavery. That noble instrument upon your table, which insures immortality to its author, should be subscribed this very morning by every pen in this house. He that will not respond to its accent and strain every nerve to carry into effect its provisions is unworthy the name of free- man. Whatever I have of property, of reputation, is staked on the issue of this contest, and although these gray hairs must soon descend into the sepulcher I would infinitely rather that they descend hither by the hand of the executioner than desert at this crisis the sacred cause of my country." That was the voice of John Knox in Independence hall. And that voice prevailed. The declaration was signed ; the foundation of the American government was securely laid and the old liberty bell on Independence hall rang out the fact in the hearing of the wide, wide world. From the signing of the Declaration of Independence American history grandly enlarges and the sons of the Scotch race are seen in nearly every high place. Their generals led in the great battles : Wayne at Stony Point, Campbell at King's Mountain and Mongomery at Quebec. When the great American constitution was framed their wisdom prevailed 57 there. Madison, who Bancroft tells was educated under Dr. Witherspoon, and who is claimed by the Scotch-Irish congress as a scion of this race, exercised his intellect here. He is known as the father of the American constitution. Not only is Madison claimed, but Lincoln, the author of the emancipa- tion, is claimed also, and his lineage traced back to the Scotch who settled in Kentucky. It is certain that, during his whole life in Washington, Lincoln attended one of the churches of John Knox, and thus identified himself with the principles of John Knox. Seven governors of the original thirteen states were Scotch. The first governor of this Empire State was a scion of this race, Governor. Clinton. Then come their Presidents of the United States — Jefferson, Jackson, Monroe, Polk, Madison, Taylor, Buchanan, Lincoln, Johnson, Grant, Playes, Arthur, Harrison and Cleveland. Gentlemen of New England, as I give the history of this magnificent Scotch race to-night I am glad that it is my lot to speak of their heroes and measures and not to speak of the Pilgrims, or the Puritans, of the Hollanders or the Huguenots ; for, when the Scotch claim the first battle of the revolution, and the first bloodshed for our liberty, and the first Declara- tion of Independence, and the privilege of naming Bunker Hill, and Patrick Henry, the resistless orator of the revolution, and the peerless Poe, and Commodore Perry, the illustrious naval officer, and Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of In- dependence, and Witherspoon, who charmed America into accepting it, and Madison, the father of the American constitu- tion, which Gladstone pronounced the greatest instrument ever penned in a given time ; and Abraham Lincoln with his eman- cipation proclamation, America's greatest glory ; and Ulysses S. Grant, the man who carried the civil war to its grand and proper close ; and Robert Fulton, the father of steamboat navigation, which has so wonderfully enlarged American com- merce ; and the phenomenal Morse, who with his telegraph, has linked all parts of the world in instantaneous touch and helped on the brotherhood of man ; and McCormack, the inventor of 58 the American reaper, which has indefinitely multiphed Ameri- can agriculture; and Andrew Jackson, the hero of the war of 1812 ; and Winfield Scott, the hero of the Mexican war — when the Scotch claim all these measures and men, as they do claim them, what is left of any particular value for the other makers of America to claim and exult over? What, except ? Gentlemen of New England, I congratulate you upon your noble allies in the great cause of liberty and of country. In closing let me assure you that as the sons of John Knox were one with your fathers in the work of purchasing and founding this great republic, so their sons will stand by you to-day in fostering and in guarding the republic. Our aim in life is your aim, viz., to secure for our republic the very highest type of Americanism. With you and with us there is no misunder- standing as to what Americanism is. The Americanism for which we unitedly labor is the expression of the highest civil- ization, of the broadest humanity, of the purest and most simplified religion, of the grandest principles, personal and political, of the largest individual rights consistent with com- munal rights, of the truest and most exalted life and of a mag- nificent manhood and a holy womanhood. The Chairman: — Our next toast is : ''SOME OF THE RELIGIOUS, LITERARY AND POLITICAL CONTEMPORARIES OF THE PILGRIMS AND PURITANS." I have now the pleasure of introducing Professor Homer B. Sprague, who will respond to it. ADDRESS OF PROF. HOMER B. SPRAGUE. Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the New England So- ciety : — To us Americans, one of the highest visible results, on a large scale, of the great religious agitation of the sixteenth cen- tury, " The insurrection of the human mind against authority," was the age of Elizabeth. For that moral and political upheaval not only lifted the whole continent to a higher level, but it made England in particular a vast table-land of lofty thought. 59 It was an age of wonder, of daring, of startling discovery, of high achievement. The very atmosphere seemed to tingle and flash with electric memories, brilliant examples, auroral prophecies. And that long array of soldiers, statesmen, discoverers, ad- venturers, wits, scholars and poets, not only made her age surpass the Victorian, surpass the age of Anne, of Leo, of Au- gustus, and even of Pericles, but it accompanied and ushered in what was better still, the finest outgrowth, the bright con- summate flower of the century — PURITANISM ; not Puritanism as defined and burlesqued by enemies, marked by excesses, excrescences, eccentricities, but the intense over-mastering de- sire and the fixed purpose to attain for the individual, for the church and the state, a purer religion and a larger freedom. In the latter part of Elizabeth's reign, it began to be felt as an organizing force. At the beginning of the seventeenth cen- tury it compelled recognition. Before his coronation it con- fronted King James with its petition. Resisted by the learned but bigoted and beef-witted mon- arch and his foxy and faithless son, its power grew steadily for forty years, until, at last, it dominated England from about 1640 to 1660, the period of the Commonwealth ; vanishing at the Restoration, to reappear briefly at the Revolution of 1688. The first sixty years of the seventeenth century, then, are the era of Puritanism — the epoch of the Puritans and their brothers, the Pilgrims. Of the constellation of geniuses that illumined the sky ot Elizabeth, William of Orange had passed away in 1584, Sir Philip Sidney in 1586, Christopher Marlowe in 1594, Edmund Spenser in 1599, Richard Hooker in 1600. But in 1601 Shake- speare was still alive ;, so, too, Joseph Scaliger, Isaac Casaubon, Cervantes, Coke, Selden, young Grotius, Bacon, young Riche- lieu, Walter Raleigh, ingenious Galileo, and profound Kepler. Foremost among all the literary contemporaries of Pilgrims and Puritans was Shakespeare, then in the meridian of his brightness. Unlike Bacon, he had a horror of unjust war. There is 6o special reason for mentioning this now, for within the last three days a war craze has boomed. Portraying in Henry V his ideal king, his perfect prince, as all admit, Shakespeare makes him in most emphatic terms adjure his spiritual adviser, the Archbishop of Canterbury, not to attempt to lead him into an unholy conflict with France. "My learned lord, we pray you to proceed, And justly and religiously unfold Why the law Salique that they have in France, Or should or should not bar us in our claim. And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord, That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading, Or nicely charge your understanding soul. By opening titles miscreate, whose right Suits not in native colors with the truth ; For God doth know how many now in health Shall drop their blood in approbation Of what your reverence shall incite us to. Therefore take heed how you impawn our person. How you awake our sleeping sword of war. We charge you in the name of God, take heed I For never two such kingdoms did contend Without much fall of blood, whose guiltless drops Are every one a woe, a sore complaint 'Gainst him whose wrong gives edge unto the sword. ******** May I with right and conscience make this claim?" Would God we had more of that peace-loving spirit just now ! But Bacon, over and over in his essays and elsewhere, strongly urges princes and nations to adopt the " Jingo " policy and lose no good opportunity to make war ! Shakespeare, unlike Bacon, ridicules astrology, and in such terms that we cannot help feeling that Shakespeare regarded it as a sham. Unlike Bacon he does not believe in the use of torture as a means of ascertaining the truth. Bacon's racking the aged clergyman, Peacham, when he was Attorney-General, is too horrible for recital ; but Shakespeare had said long before, in the Merchant of Venice, through the lips of divine Portia, " I 6i cannot believe you. You speak upon the rack, where men enforced do speak anything." Bacon, as Attorney-General in 1614, had seen Legate and Whiteman burned alive by order of King James for not believ- ing in the divinity of Christ, and the great philosopher never lifted a finger nor uttered a syllable against the damnable deed, though the sweet-souled dramatist in his last comedy, The Winter s Tale, three years before, had thundered in the ears of the wicked king and his cold-blooded counselor, the im- mortal words, "It is an heretic that makes the fire Not she which burns in it! " But we know little, at most, of Shakespeare, and after all investigations we must still say with Matthew Arnold, " Otliers abide our question; thou art free: We ask and ask, thou smilest and art still, Out-topping knowledge." Bacon was forty when the century began. The preceding twenty years he had been, most of the time, an office hunter. Under James his rise was rapid ; knighted in 1603, Counsel Learned Extraordinary to the King, 1604; Solicitor General, 1607; Attorney-General, 1613 ; Counselor of State, 1616; Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, 1617 ; Baron of Verulam, 1618 ; Lord Chancellor, 161 8 ; Viscount St. Albans, 1620. He had reached the zenith. He fell like Lucifer. As Attorney-General he had seen, without protest, the Pilgrims driven out of England to Holland, and he had passed unnoticed their embarkation in, 1620, for the New World. All through the reign of James, when, according to Hallam, " The Court was incomparably the most disgraceful scene of profli- gacy which England has ever witnessed," and the Puritans were in continual oppression and disgrace, this Learned Coun- sel Extraordinary, Solicitor-General, Attorney-General, Coun- selor of State, Lord Chancellor, world philosopher, had no eyes to see nor ears to hear the crying need of more purity and more freedom. Worse than this. 62 Twenty-three charges of bribery and corruption in his great office of Lord Chancellor were formulated against him by the House of Commons and presented to the House of Lords. He at last confessed himself guilty. " It resteth, therefore, that without fig-leaves I do plainly and ingenu- ously confess that I am guilty of corruption, and do renounce all defence." This was on the 30th of April, 1621. The Lords appointed a committee, of which Shakespeare's friend, South- ampton, was a member, to ask Bacon if the signature was genuine, and the document his free act and deed. He replied: " It is my act, my hand, my heart." If the confession was true, it was bad enough ; but if false, and made, as some have thought, to please James and Bucking- ham, we cannot think of such pusillanimity without recalling Pope's stinging couplet : " If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined, The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind." The struggle was on at last between the royal prerogative and the rights of the people. It waxed especially fierce in parliament, until at last, having dissolved parliament after parliament, that had stubbornly stood for Magna Charta and the Petition of Right, Charles at last determined to rule Eng- land and her colonies without a parliament ; by proclamation forbade any one to be so presumptuous as to speak to him of another parliament ; meant to make himself autocrat. Mon- opolies, taxes, fines, pillories, imprisonments, persecution of Puritans and Independents, cropping ears, slitting noses, branding cheeks, flaying with whips — these outrages took the place of law and justice, and stung many a patriot to madness. But while the thief is stealing, the hemp is growing ; the axe is grinding. Pym, Hampden, Eliot, Vane, Cromwell, and their coadjutors are in training. At last it is clear that great Strafford, little Laud and lying Charles, have put their heads together " to subvert the funda- mental laws of the kingdom," to stamp out all dissent, and organize a despotism pure and simple. But one by one these 63 three heads fall at four-year intervals, 1641, 1645, 1649, as Mil- ton's prophetic verse had strangely foretold it : "That two-handed engine at the door Stands ready to smite once and smite no more." Pym interests us as the great orator and leader in the House of Commons, till his untimely death in 1643 ; Hampden, by his consummate ability and perfect integrity. But hostile bullets in the battle of Chalgrove, in the same year, take him prematurely from the scene, as our Warren was taken at Bunker Hill. Eliot had died in prison in 1632, a martyr for liberty, if there ever was one. Vane, " Young Sir Harry Vane," Governor of Massachusetts at the age of twenty-two, attracts all hearts by his spotless integrity, his love of liberty, and the heroism with which he endures his judicial murder. His vast powers and invaluable services are attested in Mil- ton's noble sonnet, beginning, "Vane, young in years but in sage counsel old, Than whom a better senator ne'er held The helm of Rome." But there was another leader more feared, hated, and loved than any other — " Cromwell, our chief of men, who through a cloud Not of war only, but detractions rude, Guided by faith and matchless fortitude, To peace and truth thy glorious way hast plough'd. And on the neck of crowned Fortune proud Hast rear'd God's trophies and his work pursued, While Darwen stream, with blood of Scots imbrued, And Dunbar field resounds thy praises loud, And Worcester's laureate wreath ! " Mistakes he doubtless made, for he was human — the execu- tion of Charles, the massacre of Drogheda, the insulting words with which he dismissed the remnant of Parliament. But his greatness was unmistakable, and is getting rec- ognized at last. He carried England to a height of prosperity hardly surpassed before or since. Most glorious of all, perhaps, was the attitude in which Cromwell, and England under his leadership, stood, when, in 64 the spring of 1655, Immanuel, Duke of Savoy, gave the order for the virtual extermination of his dissenting subjects. With fire and sword scores were slain, hundreds were thrown into chains, and all were driven from their homes and treated like mountain wolves. (1) In eloquent language Cromwell instantly protested by the pen of his great secretary, John Milton, and with intense earnestness besought and conjured the Duke to abrogate his cruel edict, ratify to his subjects their pristine liberty, com- mand that their losses be repaired, and an end put to their oppression. A special envoy, Sir Samuel Moreland, at once appeared at the Duke's Court to enforce the appeal in the name of God and humanity. (2.) Nor did Cromwell stop here. To Gustavus Adolphus, King of the Swedes ; to the prince of Transylvania, to the States of the United Provinces, to the cities of Switzerland, to Louis XIV, King of France ; to the King of Denmark and others, he immediately dispatched the most urgent entreaties summoning all whose sympathies were on the side of justice to join their entreaties instantly with his to the iron-hearted Duke. (3.) Nor did he stop even here. To every liberty-loving prince and State in Europe he added an earntst adjuration, that if these entreaties and intercessions should not imme- diately prevail with the Duke of Savoy, the sympathizing Powers should at once join their military and naval forces with those of England to secure and enforce the right. (4.) From his own purse Cromwell contributed heavily to relieve the sufferers, raised a subscription of i^8o,ooo for them, and commanded that a national day of fasting and prayer be observed in their behalf. These energetic measures were successful. The Duke did not wish to see Cromwell's Ironsides. Oh, for an hour of Oliver Cromwell now, when butcheries and outrages a hundred-fold more extensive and horrible have been and are still going on among our Christian brothers and sisters in Armenia ! But America is dumb, selfish, cowardly. 65 No protest is made ; no appeal by President or Congress ; no resolution passed ; no committee of investigation appointed ; no national fast ; no money contribution ; no solemn appeal to the great Powers, and to all Christendom to join America in intercession to the Sultan, and, that failing, to join America in forcing a passage through the Black Sea and immediately pushing cavalry, infantry and artillery to those bloody spots, where, for no crime but that they are Christians, the Armenian men are still slaughtered by the hundred, their crops and dwellings are still burning, their women and children are still starved, outraged, bayoneted, hunted like wild beasts. An opportunity yet offers to save perhaps hundreds of thousands of lives and unspeakable suffering. Energetically disclaiming all idea of aggrandizement, America can yet inter- pose, appeal to Turkey and all Christian nations, do her duty and cover herself with glory. No treaty stipulation stands in the way. Even the diplomatic forms are all prepared, made to hand, in the noble language of Milton. The effort would not be in vain. But if it were utterly useless for immediate effect, it would be no small honor for America to have taken the lead in this great movement. Shall our action be controlled by selfish interest alone ? When John Trelawney, Bishop of Bristol, was threatened with death by James II, in 1688, for doing his duty, a cry rang through his native shire of Cornwall, whose echoes have hardly yet died away — ' And shall Trelawney die, and shall Trelawney die ? Then thirty thousand Comishmen will know the reason why." Let us change that song. America can make it read — And shall the Armenians die, two million Christians die ? Three hundred million Christians then will know the reason why ! The Chairman : — Gentlemen, I was in error ; I thought my old college mate, Professor Sprague was a Greek ; his name is Homer B. Sprague; that makes him a Greek, and we know that they all come from Tipperary. Our next toast is 66 "BROOKLYN UP TO DATE, which will be responded to by our present Mayor. I have now the pleasure of introducing Hon. Charles A. Schieren, Mayor of Brooklyn. ADDRESS OF THE HON. CHARLES A. SCHIEREN. Since 1894 when a small majority at the polls decided to favor annexation, there has sprung up a strong feeling of civic pride, or what may be termed a greater love for Brooklyn. It manifests itself in various ways, not from any particular reason, but rather from a feeling or sentiment that Brooklyn as a city would soon lose its identity and be unknown, and form only a part of a larger municipality. While this might be beneficial in some respects, yet Brooklyn, would become a city of the past and known only in history. Naturally those who have been born here take a special local pride and interest in the city of their birth and can- not reconcile themselves to the thought that Brooklyn should be sacrificed. They point with pride and justly so to many things that have made our city famous, for Brooklyn, called the City of Churches, has been renowned for powerful preachers whose sermons are published all over the country ; and it was in Brooklyn that the first great modern industrial school was established by the late Charles Pratt ; and the Pratt institute stands to-day as a model school unexcelled and the best equipped in the coun- try. Our Manual Training school, at present controlled by the board of education, has pretty large proportions as a school for industrial education. But it should be connected or united with the Pratt institute to make it more effective, thus saving considerable public money and offering the scholar or student greater facilities for a thorough education in the industrial arts. Brooklyn's charter is well known and considered a model for good municipal government. 67 At the mayor's office we frequently receive demands for copies of that charter from other cities, and our present local government, based upon that splendid charter, is widely known and admired. Several years ago the first attempt was made in this city to improve upon the old style of ten- ements, occupied as homes by many laboring men. Several improved tenements were erected, and some of these were models as to comfort, sanitary conditions and low rentals. Many others have been added with still more modern improvements, but the first erected still rank as excellent, and were the first improved tenement houses in this country. Brooklyn has the finest market in the United States. The remodelled Wallabout Market is worth a visit by every citizen, and he can justly be proud of its beauty and magnitude. It will surprise many people to learn the large amount of business transacted daily at this market. Within another year the plans for the additional purchase from the government will be fin- ished, which adds a large basin with splendid dock facilities, and merchants will be enabled to receive the goods direct from railroad floats from any part of the country, and ships of all classes can discharge their goods at the new Wallabout wharves. Brooklyn has made enormous strides in public parks and proposed roads and boulevards. In every section of this city, new, small parks — breathing places for the families of our mechanics — have been purchased and will speedily be trans- formed into pleasure places for the people. The shore drive- way is expected to be the finest in respect to grandeur of scenery of the city's boulevards. The commerce of the world passes by it, and for generations it will be the pride of the people. The Forest Park, which extends along the hills, east- ward of the Twenty-sixth ward, promises to be the most pic- turesque of the city's pleasure grounds, with a view of the Atlantic Ocean upon one side and Long Island Sound on the other, and it will be connected with a fine broad boulevard ex- tending across the entire island to Willett's Point, a distance of over twelve miles from the city. Yes, Brooklyn is up to date ! It has been thoroughly aroused and does not lag 68 behind any large city in this country. We accomplish more with the money that we have at our disposal than many other cities. The new public school houses are models in every respect, and within six months we expect to have a seat for every child that applies to our schools, such has been the activity in building new schools within the past year. Yes, Brooklyn is up to date. As a host it entertained most royally the guests from Maryland upon the presentation of that ornate column which graces Prospect Park, and was placed there in commemoration of the heroes of the revolutionary war, and the citizens paid the entire expense by private sub- scriptions. She also responded most generously to the Brook- lyn cruiser fund. Almost $ii,ooo has been subscribed. And at Atlanta, Brooklyn was very much up to date. Many of our prominent citizens participated in the celebration of Brooklyn Day, which proved a great success, and a most pleasant trip was enjoyed by all who made the journey to the South at that time. Many other things might be mentioned in which Brook- lyn is up to date. Only a week ago the corner stone of a magnificent building was laid, which, when finished, will be entirely devoted to arts and sciences, and will have the name of Brooklyn permanently connected with it. This museum, no doubt, will ever be the pride of our people. Our streets pre- sent a different appearance now from what they have hereto- fore. All the main thoroughfares are well paved and are kept clean. Miles of asphalt pavements have already been laid, and more are being laid in many private streets. If this public enterprise continues, we shall have a well paved city in the near future. Brooklyn has been extraordinarily active in build- ing sewers. This year alone about fifty-eight miles have been constructed, a larger amount than in any other like period in this city, and more than any other like city for the same time. Brooklyn is up to date on the water question, and no more fear of a water famine is expressed. All our sources of supply are in splendid condition, and yield more than enough water for our present needs. A comprehensive report will soon be pub- lished, which will gratify the people by showing that an almost 69 inexhaustible supply of pure water can be had for years to come. Brooklyn is up to date on the question of health, under the energetic control of the present commissioner, whose weekly reports assure us that Brooklyn has the lowest death rate of any large city, and so must be the most healthful city- Therefore, as Mayor, I can truthfully say that Brooklyn is up to date, yes, very much up to date. The Chairman :— And now, gentlemen, at this late hour, I have the pleasure of presenting to you a man whose ancestry is German, whose birth is North Carolinian, whose residence is Brooklyn, and who, after January ist, is to be our Mayor, with- out regard to party, Hon. Frederick W. Wurster. ADDRESS OF HON. FREDERICK W. WURSTER. The Brooklyn of the future will bear the same relation to the Brooklyn of to-day that the city at present bears to what it was at any period of the past. If we look back a few years and see the changes made and improvements secured, it will be comparatively easy to forecast the future for the like period. From what has been only can we judge what will be. Yet the idea of taking a long look ahead is a fascinating one. We can regard either the immediate future or the more remote period which the passing of a few years will bring to us. In either situation there is much food for thought. Brooklyn begins the year 1896 with a considerable increase of territory, due to the an- nexation of the new Thirty-second ward, now the town of Flat- lands, completing the consolidation of the city and county. Her water line is increased to nearly thirty miles stretching from Newtown Creek to Canarsie, and including frontage on ocean, river and bay. With a territory half as large again as that of New York City there are enormous possibilities within her borders for the accommodation of increasing population, manufactures and all kinds of business. Educational, religious and literary advantages must keep pace with this advancement and the city must do much to provide facilities for the physi- 70 cal well-being of her inhabitants. A mere aggregation of peo- ple does not make a city. It must have a consistent and coherent purpose, carried out by the united efforts of the citi- zens to secure the best possible government. With well-paved and clean streets, the finest educational facilities, broad pleas- ure grounds and beautiful boulevards for the recreation of the multitude, and a high ideal of public service, the possibilities of the future of Brooklyn are boundless. " The Queen City of the Atlantic Slope," as Brooklyn was recently termed by an elo- quent speaker, fronts the future with the firm conviction that the work of the past will not have been in vain. Ample pro- vision will be made for the normal increase in population, and the city will welcome every one led to seek his home here. The broad stretches of territory recently annexed await build- ings, very soon to be erected. The territory to be built upon within the former city limits is rapidly diminishing, and there will soon be few vacant lots. But the increase in transit facili- ties will enable the suburban territory to be as easily accessible as the uptown wards were a few years ago. The center of population has been moving steadily eastward for the past few years. Now its progress will be southward toward the sea. From the heights to Prospect Park, crowned by the new museum, now building, the Brooklyn of the future will radiate in every direction. Much of the great growth of this city, doubling her popula- tion in the last fifteen years, has been due to the increased means of crossing the East river provided by the present bridge and the establishment of rapid transit lines. In five years more we shall be upon the threshold of the new century. By that time another bridge will link Brooklyn with the metropo- lis and additional impetus will be given to the increase in the size of the city. Compact communities upon the easterly border of the city — the only direction in which the city of the future can grow, unless land under water is reclaimed — will be knocking at our doors for admittance. An imaginative writer has drawn a picture of the future metropolis of Long Island, placing the city hall at the center where the village of Jamaica 71 now stands, and presenting a state of society in which the drawbacks of the present are dispensed with and ideal social conditions prevail. All the vexed problems of municipal government are happily solved in his work of fiction. But stern facts must be faced by any one who works under actual conditions, and the ideal can only be approached. The future of Brooklyn will be what her people make it? No theory, however elaborate, will endure in face of facts which controvert it, and facts are what the future must face. Practical munici- pal reforms must be sought after. The improvements already secured are the best tokens of what the future holds in store for Brooklyn. I need not allude to the possible future of Brooklyn if she is consolidated with the sister city on the opposite side of the East River, for then Brooklyn under the name of Brooklyn would have no future. But even as an integral part of New York, destined to become the greatest city on the globe, the name of Brooklyn would survive in many ways. I need only refer to the fact that although forty years have elapsed since the consolidation of the city of Williams- burgh with Brooklyn, the name of the former is still tenaciously fixed in the minds of many people. The federal authorities for many years required the letters E. D. to designate mail matter for that part of the city. If Brooklyn, New York, is not used to indicate that letters are to cross the East river then this part of the greater city will become New York, E. D., or perhaps — perish the thought — East New York. In 1855 the consolidated city of Brooklyn, having grown from the few wards originally incorporated, which included the Heights, Gowanus and Wallabout, so as to take in Williams- burgh and Bushwick, had about 100,000 inhabitants. To-day she has 1,100,000. The growth of Brooklyn has been much more rapid in proportion than that of New York. At the be- ginning of the century New York was thirty times as large as Brooklyn. By the middle of the century she was only five times as large. To-day, according to the closest calculations, the ratio is less than two to one. When the last federal census was taken Brooklyn had about 800,000 people and New York 72 about 1,500,000. Each had increased by about 300,000 in the preceding ten years. In the past five years each has added a like nun:iber to its population. But 200,000 added to Brook- lyn's previous number means a much higher ratio of increase than that of our sister city. If it is maintained it can only be a question of time when the population on this side of the East river will surpass that on the New York side. With the con- tiguous territory of Long Island to provide homes for her sur- plus population, Brooklyn can welcome all who desire to cross the arm of its sea, separating the territory upon which we dwell from the continent, with hospitable arms. With more than a million people in her borders, and a territory double what it was two years ago, the Brooklyn of to-day looks for- ward hopefully to the future, when twice or thrice the present population is crowded upon the same territory, and a steady increase is secured in all the comforts of refined and enlightened existence. That the future will be full of benefit and blessing- to the multitude of homes in the city, and that civic virtue will prevail in it can be confidently asserted. The future of the city is in the hands of the people. The patriotic citizens of this great municipahty must not fail to do their duty. In ancient times it was the duty of men entrusted with public affairs to see that the commonwealth took no harm. That might well be the motto of all men in public positions in these days. If no harm comes to the community the future of Brooklyn is assured. Beyond human foresight are the perils of the unknown future, but faith in the people will preserve civic institutions founded for and maintained by them to se- cure the greatest good to the greatest number. The Dinner was brought to a close by the singing of the Doxology : "Praise God, from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below; Praise Him above ye heavenly host, Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost." SPRING MEETING. On Wednesday evening, May 8, 1895, there was gathered a large representative audience to attend the ceremonies con- nected with the presentation to the Society of a fine marble bust of its first president, the Honorable Benjamin D. Silliman. The exercises were in the Art building, and there were present leading citizens of New York and Brooklyn, and many ladies. Excellent music was rendered by the Dudley Buck Quartette. The occasion will long be remembered as most enjoyable and interesting. After the singing of "America" by 'the quartette, Hon. Stewart L. Woodford, president of the Society, made some fe- licitous remarks in relation to the" occasion and read the fol- lowing letter from Timothy Dwight, president of Yale Uni- versity : Yale University, New Haven, May 7th, 1895. Hon. John Winslow : My Dear Sir — Let me express to you my very sincere thanks for your kindness, and that of your committee, in ex- tending to me an invitation to be present at the meeting of the New England Society, of Brooklyn, on Wednesday evening, the eighth. I need not say that it would give me great pleas- ure to accept the invitation if it were practicable for me to do so. To have any share in a meeting called to do honor to the Honorable Benjamin D. Silliman would be a matter of much satisfaction to me, and most gratifying to my feeling. But my engagements are such that I must deny myself the privilege. I beg you will allow me, myself, and on behalf of the University which I represent, to express to your Society my very great esteem for Mr. Silliman, my appreciation of the nobleness of his character, and the value of his services to the 74 state and the nation, and my hope that he may continue in your membership for years to come. Our University counts him as one among the number of its sons whom it most delights to honor. The earnest desire of all the graduates of Yale is that his happy old age may grow happier from year to year, and that light and peace may ever abide with him. Assuring you, my dear sir, and all the members of the New England Society of my high regard, I am, very sincerely yours, TIMOTHY DWIGHT. ADDRESS OF HON. JOHN WINSLOW. Mr. President^ Ladies and Gentlemen : — It is my purpose to make a statement of some facts leading up to this interest- ing occasion. A little more than a year ago it seemed to some of us that it was desirable to have a marble bust of our friend, Mr. Silli- man. Accordingly a subscription was begun, without his knowledge, limiting each subscriber to ten dollars. The prop- osition met with cordial favor, some insisting upon a larger subscription, and one old personal friend offered to make his subscription one hundred dollars instead of ten. But the limit was adhered to, and the whole amount required was quickly made up. If Mr Silliman could have heard the ex- pressions of warm regard among the subscribers, his belief that this is not altogether a cold and unfriendly world, would have been confirmed. The Committee in charge of the subscription consisted of Hon. Jasper W. Gilbert, F. A. Ward, Esq., and myself, and was authorized by the subscribers to engage the services of Mr. William Ordway Partridge, as sculptor, and did so. The Committee was also authorized to present the bust to some society or public institution in the city of Brooklyn. Upon completion of the work it was, upon consideration. 75 determined that it would be appropriate and fitting to present the bust to the New England Society in the city of Brooklyn. Accordingly the following letter of presentation was ad- dressed to the directors of the Society and read at a meeting held on April 17, 1895 : " To the Directors of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn. Gentlemen: — A marble bust of Hon. Benjamin D. Silliman has been secured by subscription. " The subscribers have authorized the undersigned as a Committee to present the bust to some society or institution in Brooklyn. " Inasmuch as Mr. Silliman was the first President of your Society, holding the office for six years, and has always felt a warm interest in its welfare, we have thought it proper and fitting to present the bust, in pursuance of our authority, to the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, and do hereby, as such Committee, so present it. " We hope the gift will in the coming years be carefully preserved and remind many of the distinguished citizen and esteemed gentleman in whose honor in has been procured. "J. W. GILBERT, "JOHN WINSLOW, "FREDERIC A. WARD, '* Committee. " Dated Brooklyn, N. Y., April 2, 1895." On motion of Judge Bartlett, it was unanimously voted : That the directors, in behalf of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn gratefully accept the gift to the Society of a marble bust of Hon. Benjamin D. Silliman, and thank the committee, Messrs. Gilbert, Winslow and Ward, for their letter of gift to this Society. Voted further : That the President is requested to send a letter of acceptance to the committee. Voted, further : That the President is authorized to make an arrangement with some public institution, preferably the 76 Long Island Historical Society, to take custody and care of the bust until further notice from the directors of this Society. PRESIDENT WOODFORD'S LETTER. Brooklyn, May 7th, 1895. Gentlemen : — The Board of Directors of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, direct me to acknowledge your gift to our Society of a marble bust of the Honorable Benjamin D. Silliman, who was our first president, and is one of our most honored members. Our Society is deeply sensible of your generosity, and will take the surest care to see that this marble is preserved for the pleasure and profit of succeeding generations of New England- ers. To this end, we have arranged with the Long Island Historical Society to place the bust in their temporary keep- ing, in the hope that our own Society may soon have a perma- nent home of our own. Please present our grateful thanks to all the subscribers to your fund, and believe me. Very truly yours, (Signed) STEWART L. WOODFORD, President Nezv England Society in the City of Brooklyn. To Messrs. Jasper W. Gilbert, John Winslow, and Frederic A. Ward, Coininittee for Subscribers. This statement and correspondence give the members of our Society the information we trust they are glad to receive. The subscribers to the fund, as was natural, were in large part judges, ex-judges and members of the bar. These, as well as the members of our Society, have been cordially invited to be with us this evening, and we are pleased to see so many of them present. The reasons which induced the subscription will be referred to by others ; but I may speak for a moment of some of the reasons that induced the committee to think the gift to our Society appropriate. 77 This Society was organized and incorporated in the year 1880, and Mr. SilHman was its first president, holding the office with great acceptance six years. In these fifteen years since our organization, Mr. SilHman has been an active and cordial friend. From a quite close and intimate observation in these years, I know that our first president has thoroughly enjoyed the Society and its work, and that he has often so expressed himself. Mr. SilHman has considered the work of this Society an important and useful educational influence in this community. It has been useful in calling attention to our colonial beginnings, the principles involved, and in correctino- misstatements and misapprehensions concerning them. Was it not then the right thing to present this likeness of our friend and first president to the New England Society he has served, and loved, and honored so much ? [Applause.! But someone may ask: Why thus honor the living? It is all right, provided there are sincere, earnest friends who feel they wish to do so. I once heard General Sherman express himself on this point in a conversation at a New England dinner in New York. A friend said to the General : " You have the satisfaction to know, sir. that you will not be for- gotten, but your memory will be ever honored by your coun- trymen." "That is all very well," said the General, "but I want to enjoy something of that in my lifetime.' The General added : " What the arrangements in the next life will be, as to conscious knowledge of this, is problematical." The friends who were moved thus to honor Mr. Stranahan by a beautiful statue in our Brooklyn Park, gave expression to an instinctive and fine sense of present appreciation of one who has meant well and worked well with great ability for the city of his home. It may be that Cicero was right in his thouo-ht expressed {de senectute) that one of the rewards of a well-spent life is the knowledge of the departed that he is thought well of, and sweetly remembered by the living. If this be so, then the worthy who are honored in their lifetime are destined to find their enjoyment of appreciative friends not cut off by death, but continuous in the life beyond. 78 As to the work itself, it is due to the distinguished artist to say of it that, so far as heard from, it pleases all who have seen it, and it is also satisfactory to the subject. It has been a labor of love as well as of skillful fidelity by Mr. Partridge. In his famous lecture on " The Lost Arts," Wendell Phillips said : " I remember once standing in front of a bit of marble carved by Powers, a Vermonter, who had a matchless instinc- tive love of art and perception of beauty. I said to an Italian standing with me : ' Well, now, that seems to me to be per. fection.' The answer was : ' To be perfection,' shrugging his shoulders. ' Why; sir, that reminds you of Phidias ! ' as if to remind you of that Greek was a greater compliment than to be perfection." So our sculptor's work may remind us of Phidias. It will surely recall the noble head and face of our distin- guished friend, Mr. Silliman. Gray, in his " Elegy," inquires: "Can storied urn or animated bust, Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath ? " Thank heaven ! we have no " fleeting breath " to consider now, for Mr. Silliman is alive and well and in good form. But we see in the work of the sculptor an "animated bust" that gives satisfaction. Let its custodian be careful of it that it may in the coming years recall to us the attractive qualities of mind and heart that have distinguished our friend in all his life. [General Applause.] Mr. Partridge, the sculptor of the bust, stepped forward and unveiled it. The excellent likeness was at once seen, and there was much applause. Mrs. Hemans' immortal poetic description of the landing of the Mayflower Pilgrims, set to Browne's stately music, was sung by the quartette, after which the Rev. Dr. Storrs was introduced, and said : 79 ADDRESS BY REV. DR. STORRS. Ladies and Gentlemen .-—My promise to this very seductive President of your Society was to come this evening to say a few words in token of my great esteem for our eminent fellow- citizen whose bust is before us, and though he has transformed that promise of a few remarks into the suggestion of an address, as I have no typewritten address you will allow the remarks to be informal and not numerous. I confess to a certain sort of admiration for the man or the woman who consents to undergo the ordeal of sitting for a marble bust. A photograph, by comparison, doesn't amount to very much. It can and often does easily fade, and gets into the bureau drawer or the waste basket. A picture in colors on the canvas will not endure so long as marble, and the skillful and kindly painter can sometimes put a delicacy of line and color on canvas, with an expression, which may not altogether belong to the subject of the picture, while it will be close enough to life to identify it to the friends of the person who has been sitting for it. But in the solidity of marble every- thing has to be exact in measurement and proportion and in lines of expression, or else the whole thing is worthless. You remember the story of a wealthy New Yorker who sat for a bust. He was not a handsome man, rather low in the forehead and pudgy in the cheeks. One of his friends said to him : " You paid a great many hundreds of dollars for that thing. Why didn't you get Story or Powers to do it? " He replied : " It is not the likeness I want. What I want is a piece of marble handsomely sculped." [Laughter.] I remember in the Vatican galleries at Rome, where many of you have been, that the multitudinous busts of great per- sonages always seemed to be in the main commonplace and monotonous. Of course there were some exceptions. Julius Ceesar had a fine head, and so had Augustus; and the young Augustus had an extraordinary resemblance to Napoleon. Caligula and many of the others were very commonplace- looking people, as the sculptor has presented them to us. 8o though sometimes you find a subtle expression of the moral life shining through the lines sunken into the softened marble. I remember that particularly in Caligula, in that furtive, secre- tive, apprehensive look, marking his insanity ; and there was a sad and sombre pathos in the head of Tiberius. Generally, however, they were a commonplace set of figures as presented to us. Some sarcastic Frenchman has said that, inasmuch as every emperor's profile was stamped on the coin of his reign, the only advantage he saw in having been an emperor was that when the nose of the statue was brokien it could be restored from the coin. In the busts of Alcibiades and Socrates, stand- ing side by side as they did, was a striking contrast ; Socrates, though homely, was majestic and thoughtful, while Alcibiades bore in his whole expression, in face and form, elegance, but not nobleness ; he appeared what he was, a handsome, accomp- lished Athenian scamp. Well, as I said, it is an ordeal, but I am sure that no one can look on this bust without feeling that, of all our fellow citi- zens, we could not have chosen one more worthy of this honor than he whose grand and beautiful portrait is before us in stone to-night. [Applause.] I do not think that this is altogether his merit. The fact is that there is a great deal in heredity. Your distinguished president has already referred to Mr. Silliman's ancestry. I have a good deal of respect for those conservative Chinamen, who do not handle a rifle or re- volver as skilfully as the Japanese do, but one of whose ideas is that when a man does a thing that is great and good it is not he that is to be applauded, but his ancestors who are to be en- obled. I think that is right. Dr. Holmes said that the best time to begin a boy's education was about a hundred years before he was born. [Laughter.] That would carry our friend's education back to 1705, in the reign of Queen Anne. I am authorized to say that Mr. Silliman has no personal recol- lection of the founding of Yale college, but his education began long before that. Of course, we know what it was. His mother was wide-minded beyond most women that I have ever known — a woman of great strength and sweetness of spirit. It 8i is enough to say of her that she was the daughter of a New England minister. The name of his grandfather, Gen. SiUiman, was associated with the battle of Long Island, and his grand- mother was known as " Lady Noyes," in New Haven. Then you go back to the great-grandfather and find him a judge and a member of the Governor's Council in Connecticut. But you have not yet got at the roots of our friend's ancestry. They go back to the Puritan days. He stands before us in the sixth generation from Plymouth Rock and the Mayflower. Further back still we are led, as we pursue the quest. The Silliman family was an Italian family which, at the time of the Reformation, left the Roman Catholic Church and migrating to Switzerland lived around and in Berne. One of them came hither through Holland, and became the first colonist of that name in this new country. It is a great lineage, and we may affectionately hail him as " the noblest Roman of them all." So we are delighted to have this permanent memorial and portrait of him go on to face the future. I do not know that I wish any evil to the New England Society, but I am very glad that the Historical Society, of which our honored friend has been a member from the beginning, is to have the custody of this bust until the New England Society has its building erected, and I hope it will be a century and a half before that building is up. [Laughter and Applause.] We will take good care of it until you want it. It is a relief to me to know that he is not present, and that therefore we can say what we think of him. We don't cause this bust to remain a memorial of him because of the high offices he has filled, as a member of a constitutional conven- tion or under the general government. It is not for that he is honored, nor for deserved honor in his profession, acquired fifty years ago ; but we rejoice in this work, and this permanent memorial of him, because of the quality of his mind — the statesmanlike power of it, its clearness, vigor, breadth, judicial fairness, the geniality of it, full of humor, yet thinking pro- foundly on higher things, and competent to take up and handle any subject, however difficult, that is presented to it. You know 82 him, too, as most sincere, faithful, cordial and patriotic. The longer we live the more we feel that silent influence proceed- ing from character, by which men are moved to do things that they would not otherwise have attempted. Such noble charac- ter is the expression of the inward life of the man himself. And in our friend it is expressed in a manner not artificial or elaborate, natural, spontaneous, gracious, benignant, represent- ing his spirit as its color does the rose or its symmetry the oak. How rare this is ! In the rapidity of life, in the rush of it, we do not cultivate that beautiful fashion of life which is always sympathetic, and never condescending, which is always courte- ous, always sincere, and which makes the attractive atmosphere around one. Our friend has been a beautiful and memorable example of that. And then his reverence for the truth and for the church in which his fathers had been brought up. I remember in the life of Prof. Silliman, of New Haven, how clearly it is shown that his education was in the Bible, in the Westminster catechism, and in Watts' hymns. Perhaps some of you may not think that is quite as much as clergymen and great pro- fessors get in modern times ; but when the Bible, the West- minster catechism and Watts' hymns get into the blood, they build strong characters, beautiful and noble in men and women. And then we honor him for the perennial youngness of his mind and spirit, for the delightful cordiality of his friendship and manner, for all that is in him that is beautiful and strong. He has been an example to all in carrying on the same spirit of young interest in public affairs, and in every interest of life with which he began here when this city was a village, destined to grow to the amplitude and power and fame of a great city. We may rejoice for these reasons that this marble has been wrought so skilfully, without flattery, and with delicate hands, by the sculptor to whom the work was committed ; and that it is going forth to meet the generations that are to come after, not to honor one who has a deserved renown as president of the New England Society, or as director in the Historical So- ciety alone, but to honor an eminent, distinguished, cultured gentleman, whose presence has been to us a benediction, whose 83 memory we shall always treasure, and whose inspiring power of mind and spirit has been, and will be to the end, a glorious living power in the city. [Applause.] ADDRESS OF FREDERIC A. WARD, ESQ. Mr. Ward, upon being introduced, said : I would not presume to interrupt the lingering echoes of the charming eloquence to which we have been listening for any other cause than that of the beloved university with which the name of Silliman has been so long and so intimately asso- ciated, but Yale seems privileged to be heard to-night as she comes with maternal love and maternal pride to place her wreath of laurel upon the brow of one of her very eldest and most beloved sons. To me, as her representative, it is a pleasing thought that as this marble, which in its flawless purity so fitly symbolizes the beautiful life which we are met to honor, is the product of that sunny land of song and story, from which in the times of the reformation came the Sillimandi, the progenitors of the race which has so greatly honored Yale ; so the skill, which has so cunningly fashioned it and made it well nigh animate before us, is the direct product of Yalensian influence and instruction ; for our Brooklyn Phidias, whose work we are admiring, is a grandson of Yale, his maternal grandfather, Charles T. Catlin, having been the college mate and life long friend of Mr. Silli- man. The length and intimacy of the relations between the dis- tinguished family of our friend and their Alma Mater, are cer- tainly remarkable, and perhaps without a parallel in the annals of university life. In the year 1723, during the first quarter century of Yale's corporate existence, when the first of the Georges ruled over England, and Louis XV. sat on the French throne, when Hume and Robertson, Smollett and Dr. Johnson were school boys, when Pope was publishing his Odyssey and Gil Bias and Robinson Crusoe were new books, while Isaac Newton and 84 Voltaire were living and good old Elihu Yale, whom the students of to-day regard like Romulus and Remus, as a semi- mythical and fabulous character, had just gone to his reward, the first of the Sillimans entered Yale and graduated in a class of ten in 1727. This was Ebenezer Silliman, Chief Justice of the Superior Court of the State of Connecticut, grandfather of the elder Professor, and great-grandfather of our guest. Five years earlier, in 17 18 (by a singular coincidence), Mr. Silliman's maternal great-great-grandfather had entered Yale and was succeeded in subsequent years by his lineal descend- ants, so that in the book of Yale's peerage, our friend may read the regular succession of his paternal and maternal ancestry for very nearly two centuries. Unspeakably precious to us of Yale is this beloved link which unites the stirring present with the remote and shadowy past of the university. Mr. Silliman's grandfather, Gold Selleck Silliman, counsel to the Crown of England in the colonial times, ardent patriot and distinguished General of the Revolution, long-suffering captive in the hands of the British, was graduated in 1752, and in the class of 1796, his honored father and uncle, the elder Professor Silliman, who perhaps has contributed more than any one of her thousands of sons to the fame and prestige of Yale at home and abroad. No one who was privileged to know the good professor, will ever forget the noble and commanding presence, the hand- some countenance, radiant even in extreme age with intelli- gence and manly beauty, the superb physique, the dignified and courtly manners of the " father of American Chemistry," the first scientist of his day. The history of the college which he so dearly loved and for which he so assiduously labored for half a century, can never be written to the remotest time without including the illus- trious record of his life and work. In the famous class of 1837, was graduated the younger Professor Silliman, founder of the Department of Applied Chemistry at Yale, the chair of which he filled for years with 85 great distinction, but for a long time without salary, himself a chemist of world-wide renown, who added new honors to the family name and new lustre to the fame of the university. When in 1820, our friend entered Yale, in the class of which he is the sole survivor, embracing such distinguished names as Origen S. Seymour, Ezra W. Leavenworth and Ashbel Smith, it was a very different institution from the Yale of to-day. Better illustration of the comparative nothingness of the university at that time can scarcely be found, than in the well-accredited statement that Prof. Silliman in 1803, carried the entire miner- alogical collection of Yale to Philadelphia in a candle-box. Physical science was then in its infancy when, in 1808, Prof. Silliman and Prof. Kingsley (then singularly, as now seems to us, filling with acceptation, both the important professorships of Greek and Latin at the college), published their joint paper giving an account of the meteor which burst over Weston in Connecticut, a paper which excited the attention of the scienti- fic world, and was read before the Royal Society of London, and the Academy of Science at Paris. Thomas Jefferson, then President of the American Philosophical Society, com- menting before that body upon the paper, and adopting the slur of Hume against the miracles, said that " it was easier to believe that two Yale professors would lie than that stones would fall from the sky upon the earth." To reach New Haven at that time involved a long, not to say formidable, journey. He went, not by the flying express, reclining in a sumptuous Pullman, but usually by a sloop, or in stormy weather by the Boston stage. While president of our Alumni Association, he once favored us with a reminis- cence of one of these journeys during his freshman year. On leaving New York there were three passengers to Stamford ; after that but two young men returning to college. On reach- ing New Haven, at midnight, they separated. One was Ben- jamin D. Silliman ; the other, the solitary passenger between New York and Boston that winter night, was Edward Everett. Would that, by the then undiscovered art, we could throw upon a screen before us, a flash-light picture of that lumbering 86 muddy old stage coach, with those two handsome, bright-eyed boys of 1820. Great, indeed, have been the changes at Yale during the life which, like a beautiful bow, spans the century; a life which to us seems so long and which to him who has lived it seems, as he has often said, " like the arrow's flight." The picture of the old college which we have hung so long in the chamber of our memory has been supplanted of late by a broader and more elegant canvas. The rough bricks and the sandstone of the Connecticut valley have been exchanged for the granite of Scotland and the marbles of Egypt and of Italy. The plain row under the graceful elms has given place to the magnificent quadrangle, which, in its incompleteness, is prophetic of the future wealth and grandeur of the University. Equally radical and significant have been the changes in the mode of life and course of study. The surroundings of the student of to-day, who dwells in the halls of Vanderbilt and lolls on the sumptu- ous divan's in his elegantly furnished apartments, are in strik- ing contrast with the uncarpeted holes in old South Middle in which we used to sleep, often with the pure driven snow of the morning for our only counterpane. The motto of Yale in those days was the maxim of the Connecticut farmer, that " Colts wintered best on short fodder." So, too, the lean and meagre curriculum, covering a single page in the catalogue of the twenties, bears about the same relation to its bloated successor of the nineties as the bill of fare at the Commons in our friend's day, when he paid $1.60 per week for board, would bear to that elaborate menu which was spread before him at Delmonico's, when, in 1889, the Bar of these two great cities assembled to do him honor upon the sixtieth anniversary of his admission to the legal profession. There was plenty of the cold roast beef and mutton, of the Greek and Latin, and the cold corned beef of mathematics in the old course, but a striking absence of the canvas back and the terrapin of elective studies and of the aesthetic accomplish- ments of the present day. Years ago the poet Southey said at Oxford : " This is a 87 place to make Americans feel unhappy." He was right. But the time will come, not in our day nor in our childrens' day, but it will assuredly come, when the American scholar, stand- ing " 'neath the elms of Yale," shall say, THIS is the place to make Englishmen feel unhappy ; and when that day shall come, then, perhaps, not till then, shall due honor be paid to Yale's great master builders, to the Sillimans, the Danas, the Piersons, the Days, the Dwights, the Woolseys and the Porters, who, in reverence and in Godly fear, have laid broad and deep and strong the imperishable foundations of our noble uni- versity. Standing to-night on the verge of the twentieth century, Yale looks backward with pride and forward with hope, but it is her peculiar honor that to-night she may also glory in the immediate present. For to you, assembled here, and to this community, who have so long known and honored our friend, she may say, " If you would have an example of Yale culture, of Yale character, of Yale scholarship, of Yale manhood, regard him who is the recipient of this unique honor. Not a dillitanti, not a theorist, not an enthusiast, not a book worm, nor a monk, but a man. Knowing right well, as I do, our friend's utter abhorrence of personal laudation, and especially (to use his own expression) " of being exhibited as an antique," it is a little difficult for me, unskilled mariner as I am, to steer between Scylla of the requirements, and the Charybdis of the properties of this singu- lar occasion ; but if in the few entirely impersonal inquiries that I shall make I chance to run upon the rocks I know that my friend will, out of his abounding kindness, attribute the mis- hap to the variation of the compass affected by the loadstone of my own great personal love. It has lately been fashionable to criticise the course of physical culture at Yale. The Evening Post in every edition " takes up the nightly tale." It says that our sports are brutal and that those who participate in them are brutes. President Elliott of Harvard says essentially the same thing, but in politer phrase, adding that lawn tennis, riding the bicycle and 88 boating are the only proper sports for the educated gentleman of to-day. But I would like to ask these authorities in hoop- trundling athletics, if they can name the university in this land or abroad (and they may call upon them all), on Bologna, and on Padua, on Upsala and on Rostock, on Heidelberg and Erlan- gen, on Oxford and on Cambridge, on Williams and on Amherst, on Columbia and Cornell, on Princeton and on Harvard, that can produce to-night, as a specimen of its physical culture, an alumnus, who at ninety years of age can read the finest of fine print in scorn of adventitious aids, or who at this advanced age has yet to learn that he has a stomach, and to whom in this land of irregular habits and ice water, headache and dyspepsia are utter strangers. Harvard, which instinctively takes exception to anything that redounds to the glory of Yale, on one memorable occasion said, through her favorite orator, Mr. Choate, that the excellent health which our friend enjoys is due, not to the physical cul- ture at Yale, nor to the manly sports in which he there in- dulged, but to the fact that he lived in Brooklyn and enjoyed " unbroken and protracted sleep." But Choate is a wag. He lives on just such fallacies as this, and has made such a good living in this way that he has been compelled in self-defense to devote the supremest effort of his matchless genius to the de- struction of the income tax. If even he can make no better answer to our argument, then we say, let us hear no more crit- icism upon athletics at Yale. Another inquiry. Can the university be named, in this land or abroad, which can furnish an alumnus who, for twenty years, could be an acceptable, successful and beloved president of the Brooklyn Club ? Who through all these years, pursuing a policy at all times dignified and firm, and at times aggressive, could so combine a fixedness of purpose with perfect urbanity and kindliness of manner, as not to alienate a friend or make a foe? You, sir, who have recently received the distinguished honor of being elected to the presidency of a similar institu- tion will, I doubt not, agree with me in the statement that it requires more and rarer qualities to successfully fill such a po- sition than to be President of the United States. 89 Again, where is the university that can furnish a son who, battling in the foremost rank of the legal profession for nearly the natural term of human life, from the time of Chancellor Kent, Aaron Burr and Daniel Webster, to this hour: measur- ing swords with the giants of the past and of the present, with the O'Connors, the Lords, and the Cuttings, the Carters and the Choates, should never in all these years receive an indig- nity, or lose his temper, or be guilty of indecorum, or excite a single envious reproach, or evoke aught save expressions of approval and of unaffected admiration, affection and esteem ; a man who has been a distinguished member of legislative assemblies, of constitutional and national conventions, a hero in the halls of justice, in the clubs of men and in the salons of society, and a hero, the greatest of all heroes to his own, old valet ? The lists are open and free to all comers. The challenge has gone forth. Do we anywhere see approaching the com- peting crimson of Cambridge or the yellow of old Nassau ? The challenge is unanswered, and with that modesty which is proverbial of Yale, I will tell you why. It is because there is but one such university, and but one such alumnus, and he, like his father, his grandfather, his great-grandfather, and his great-great-grandfather, God bless him, is a loyal wearer of the blue. A gentleman whose acquaintance is an honor, whose companionship is a constant and a liberal education, whose example is beyond price, and the serene sunshine of whose presence is a perpetual benediction. And to-night, with those here assembled, and with the wider community of his friends throughout this broad land, Yale unites in the earnest hope and the fervent prayer that there may yet be many happy years ere his honored and revered name shall be added to the long, starry list on her tri- ennial. [General applause.] Gen. Woodford evoked laughter by reminding Mr. Ward of President Seth Low's grand gift to Columbia, and saying : " If Low is such a man while yet young, what will he be when he is ninety? " 90 After singing of " Our Pilgrim Fathers " by the quartette. Gen. Woodford introduced ex-Senator William M. Evarts as "Yale's most distinguished living son." Mr. Evarts was received with loud and long-continued applause. He expressed regret at not meeting his old friend Silliman, whom he had expected to see, and whom he came especially to see. He spoke humorously of allusion that had been made to the modesty of Mr. Silliman, whose age might entitle him to bear, without blushing, the tributes paid to him, and he told the story of a domestic writing to her former employer an extended letter, saying at the end : " Please excuse my longevity." He didn't think Silliman needed to apologize for his longevity. Mr. Evarts began to tell of an experience he had when he went from Yale to Harvard to take his law course. There was a roar of laughter when the distinguished Yalensian thus acknowledged that he owed something to Yale's great fore- runner and rival. " I perceive," he said, dryly, " that there are some Harvard men here." He got back at them by saying that once it was said of him at an alumni dinner that the keel of his education was laid at Yale, but that he had taken- his armor on board at Harvard. In reply he said, when the oppor- tunity came, that it was true that while his keel was laid at Yale, he had taken his " brass " on board at Harvard. Quite lovingly Mr. Evarts dwelt upon his long-continued and pleasant recollections with Mr. Silliman, who, he said, was accustomed to speak of him as " my young friend " long after the young friend was 74 years old. He spoke, too, in praise of Mr. Silliman's qualities as a man and a lawyer. Speaking of the unsatisfactoriness of busts, Mr, Evarts told a good story of a time when he was himself sitting for one, and his friend, the late Judge E. Rockwood Hoar, of Massa- chusetts, happened to be with him. Hoar could never resist the temptation to say a good thing, and after examining the sculptor's work, he exclaimed : " William, I'd advise you to wear that head instead of your own." In closing Mr. Evarts spoke again of Mr, Silliman's fine 91 qualities, and especially of his serene temperament and cheer- ful disposition. He spoke of the enthusiasm in colleges to-day over athletic victories, and the ringing of bells when the victors return. There is no ringing of college bells for the men who have triumphed in the world of thought, but their renown must ring down through years when the victories of the athletic field are forgotten. After Mr. Evarts' interesting address, of which the above is but a brief summary, President Woodford announced that a collation was ready. This, with social intercourse, was much enjoyed, and thus closed a memorable occasion. The " Silli- man Bust " is for the present in the beautiful Library Room of " The Long Island Historical Society." TRIBUTE TO THE LATE WILLIAM H. WILLIAMS. The committee to which was referred the duty of report- ing to the Board of Directors of the New England Society in the city of Brooklyn, a suitable recognition of the life, charac- ter and services of the late William H. Williams, for many years a member of this society and a Director, respectfully re- port the following : Mr. Williams became a member in 1880, the year when our society was organized, and always manifested a warm interest in its work. In 1885 our friend was elected a Director and continued in that office until his death, which occurred on the 14th day of August, 1895. Mr. Williams was a gentleman of agreeable presence, force- ful intelligence and kindly character. As a member of our Dinner Committee, and in other ways, he was useful and faith- ful. As a citizen of public spirit his career in Brooklyn has been marked and creditable. He was sure to help any good cause so far as he could that attracted his sympathy and approval. In recalling his character and life among us, we see nothing to regret, and much to admire and remember. The announce- 92 merit of his unexpected death brought to his associates in this Board a sad sense of the loss of one whom to know was a privilege which was appreciated by us all. JOHN WINSLOW, STEWART L. WOODFORD, WNl. C. CREAMER, Commztfee. Dated October 21, 1895. CERTIFICATE OF INCORPORATION. State of New York, ^ County of Kings, - ss. : City of Brooklyn. ) We, the undersigned citizens of the United States and citizens of the State of New York, to wit: Benjamin D. Sihiman, Calvin E. Pratt, Ripley Ropes, Charles Storrs, Hiram W. Hunt, WiUiam B. Kendall, and John Wins- low, do hereby certify that we desire to form a Society pursuant to the pro- visions of an act entitled " An Act for the Incorporation of Societies or Clubs for certain lawful purposes," passed May 12, 1875, and of the act extending and amending said act. That the corporate name of said Society is to be The New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, and the objects for which such Society is formed are to encourage the study of New England History and for such purpose to establish a Library, and also for social purposes, and to promote charity and good fellowship among its members. - That the term of existence of said Society shall be fifty years. That the number of Directors who shall manage the concerns of said Society shall be twelve ; and the names of such Directors for the first year are the following, to wit: Benjamin D. Silliman, John Winslow, Calvin E. Pratt, Henry W. Slocum, Wm. B. Kendall, Charles Storrs, Wm. H. Lyon, Ripley Ropes, Geo. H. Fisher, Hiram W. Hunt, A. S. Barnes, A. W. Tenney. That the name of the city in which the operations of such Society are to be carried on is the City of Brooklyn, in the County of Kings, and State of New York. Witness: BENJ. D. SILLIMAN, John Heydinger, Jr. C. E. PRATT, RIPLEY ROPES, JOHN WINSLOW. HIRAM W. HUNT, CHAS. STORRS, WM. B. KENDALL. State of New York,~) County of Kings, ,- ss. : City of Brooklyn. ) On this 25th day of February, A. D. 1S80, before me personally appeared Benj. D. SiUiman, Calvin E. Pratt, Ripley Ropes, Chas. Storrs, Hiram W. Hunt, Wm. B. Kendall, and John Winslow, to me known to be the individ- uals described in and who executed the foregoing certificate, and they 94 severally before me signed the said certificate, and acknowledged that they signed the same for the purjDoses therein mentioned. JOHN HEYDINGER, Jr., ' " ^ Notary Public, NOTARIAL / Tr- r> ^ SEAL. Kings County. ^ , ' N. Y. I hereby approve the within Certificate, and consent that it be filed. J. W. GILBERT, /. S. C. Filed in the office of the Clerk of the County of Kings, and in the office of the Secretary of State at Albany, Feb. 27, 1880, for the incorporators, by JOHN WINSLOW. CERTIFICATE. State of New York, ) County of Kings, - ss. : City of Brooklyn. ) The undersigned do hereby certify and declare : First. — That " The New England Society in the City of Brooklyn " is a Corporation duly created and organized under and pursuant to an act of the Legislature of the State of New York, entitled "An Act for the Incorpora- tion of Societies or Clubs for certain lawful purposes," passed May 12, 1875, and the act or acts amending or extending said act. Second. — That the number of Directors of said Corporation is twelve ; and the names of its present Board of Directors are : Benjamin D. Silliman, John Winslow, Calvin E. Pratt, Asa W. Tenney, Benjamin F. Tracy, A. S. Barnes, Henry W. Slocum, Hiram W. Hunt, William H. Lyon, WiUiam B. Kendall, George H. Fisher and Albert E. Lamb. 77i/rc/.— That by virtue of this certificate, made and signed pursuant to the statutes in such case made and provided, the number of directors of said Corporation is hereby increased from twelve to twenty. Fourth. — That said Corporation shall hereafter have twenty Directors, and the names of its additional Directors are : Joseph F. Knapp, Nelson G. Carman, Jr., Ransom H. Thomas, William H. Williams, J. S. Case, George B. Abbott, Charles N. Manchester and J. Lester Keep, who shall respectively hold office thei-ein until a new election thereof shall be had, as provided in the Statutes and By-Laws of said Corporation. 95 Fifth.— ThaX. the undersigned are the existing Directors of said Corpor- ation who make and sign this certificate. JOHN WINSLOW, C. E. PRATT, HIRAM W. HUNT, A. W. TENNEY, BENJ. F. TRACY, BENJ. D. SILLIMAN, H. W. SLOCUM, ALBERT E. LAMB. GEORGE H. FISHER, On the 2gth day of September, 1SS5, before me personally appeared John Winslow, Hiram W. Hmit, Benj. F. Tracy, H. W. Slocum, and Geo. H. Fisher, and on September 30, 1885, C. E. Pratt, A. W. Tenney, Benj. D. Silliman, and Albert E. Lamb, to me known to be the individuals who signed the foregoing certificate ; and they severally before me signed said cer- tificate, and acknowledged that they made and signed it for the purpose stated therein. JOHN CURRIE, , * , Notary Public, j NOTARIAL^ Kings County, \ SEAL. ) N. Y. I hereby approve this certificate, and consent that it be filed. EDGAR M. CULLEN, September 30, 1885. J. S. C State of New York,) 'r ss.: County of Kings. ) I, Rodney Thursby, Clerk of the County of Kings, and Clerk of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, in and for said county (said Court being a Court of Record), do hereby certify that I have compared the annexed with the original certificate increasing the number of Directors of " The New England Society in the City of Brooklyn," filed and recorded in my ofhce September 30, 1885, and that the same is a true transcript thereof, and of the whole of such original. In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and affixed tlie seal of the said County Court, this 30th day of September. 1885. RODNEY THURSBY, C/grk. Note. — Duplicate filed in the office of the Secretary of State. BY-LAWS. Adopted May 6, 1881. ARTICLE I. OBJECT OF THE SOCIETY. The New Englaisp Society in the City of Brooklyn is incorporated and organized to commemorate the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers ; to encourage the study of New England history; to estabhsh a library, and to promote charity, good fellowship, and social intercourse among its members. ARTICLE II. MEMBERSHIP, ADMISSION FEE AND DUES. 1. Any male person of good moral character who is a native or descend- ant of a native of any of the New England States, and who is eighteen years old or more, is eligible to, and may be elected a member of the Society at any meeting thereof, or at any meeting of the Board of Directors ; provided, that no person so elected shall have or exercise any right or privilege of membership before paying the admission fee to the Treasurer. 2. The admission fee shall be ten dollars. 3. The dues shall be five dollars a year and shall be payable in the month of January in each year. 4. Dues not paid on or before the first day of November in each year shall be deemed in arrears. 5. No member in arrears shall vote at any meeting of the Society or be eligible to any office therein. 6. If the dues of any member shall remain unpaid for a period exceeding one year, the Board of Directors may drop the name of such member from the rolls for non-payment of dues. 7. Any member of the Society in good standing may become a Life Member on paying to the Treasurer, at one time, the sum of fifty dollars, and thereafter such member shall be exempt from further payment of dues. 8. If for any cause any person shall cease to be a member of the Society, all the right, title and interest of such person in and to the funds and prop- erty of the Society shall revert to and be vested in the Society. 97 ARTICLE III. ANNUAL MEETING OF THE SOCIETY AND ELECTION OF DIRECTORS. The Annual meeting of the Society for the election of Directors, and Other business, shall be held on the first Wednesday in December, at such hour and place as the Directors may determine. The Recording Secretary shall publish (in two daily newspapers of the City of Brooklyn) a notice of such meeting three consecutive days prior thereto, and shall send a copy of such notice by mail, post-paid, to each member of the Society. The twenty Directors of the Society having been divided into four classes of five Direc- tors each, as provided by law, the Society shall at every Annual Meeting elect by ballot five Directors for a term of four years, or until their successors are elected. ARTICLE IV. OFFICERS AND THEIR ELECTION. 1. The officers of the Society shall be a President, First Vice-President, Second Vice-President, Treasurer, Recording Secretary, Corresponding Sec- retary, Historiographer and Librarian. 2. Such officers shall be elected by the Directors at the first meeting of the Board after the Annual Meeting of the Society, and shall hold office for the term of one year, or until their successors are elected. ARTICLE V. DUTIES OF DIRECTORS. It shall be the duty of the Directors to control and manage the afiiairs and funds of the Society ; to elect officers ; to fill vacancies in the Board ; to elect members and honorary members to, and Standing Committees and Council of, the Society, and to do all lawful things which they may deem expedient and proper to promote the objects of the Society. Seven of the Directors shall be a quorum. ARTICLE VI. DUTIES OF PRESIDENT AND VICE-PRESIDENT. 1. It shall be the duty of the President to preside at all meetings of the Society and the Board of Directors. In his absence the First Vice-President, or in his absence the Second Vice-President ; or in the absence of all such officers at any meeting of the Society, one of its members may be selected to preside thereat. In the absence of all such officers at any meeting of the Board of Directors, one of the Directors may be selected to preside thereat. 2. At the Annual Meeting of the Society it shall be the duty of the Pres- ident to make a report, stating such matters as he may deem of interest and importance to the Society. 7 98 ARTICLE VII. DUTIES OF TREASURER. It shall be the duty of the Treasurer to take charge of the seal, money, funds and securities of the Society ; to pay all bills and accounts, to collect all sums of money and accounts, fees and dues ; to keep a record of all moneys received and paid, and render an account thereof to the Board of Directors ; to report to the Society at the Annual Meeting, and to perform such other duties as may be assigned him by the Board of Directors. ARTICLE VIIL DUTIES OF RECORDING SECRETARY. It shall be the duty of the Recording Secretary to call, as herein provided, all meetings of the Members, Directors and Council of the Society ; to make and keep a record of the acts and proceedings of such meetings ; to notify all persons of their election as members, Directors, Officers, Council or Stand- ing Committees of the Society ; to furnish the President data for his Annual Report ; to prepare and have printed annually a pamphlet containing the names of the Officers, Directors, Councils, Members and Committees of the Society, the By-Laws, and an account of the proceedings of the Annual Meet- ing and Dinner, and to perform such other duties as may be assigned him by the Board of Directors and Standing Committees. ARTICLE IX. DUTIES OF CORRESPONDING SECRETARY. It shall be the duty of the Corresponding Secretary to conduct such cor- respondence as may be required by the Board of Directors and the Standing Committees. ARTICLE X. DUTIES OF THE HISTORIOGRAPHER. It shall be the duty of the Historiographer to prepare the necrology of members, to keep a record of the deaths of members, the place and date of their birth and death, and the date of their admission to the Society ; and on the last day of November, in each year, to make a copy of such record for the preceding year, and to deliver such copy to the President three days before the Annual Meeting. ARTICLE XI. DUTIES OF THE LIBRARIAN. It shall be the duty of the Librarian to classify, catalogue and take charge of all books, pamphlets and relics which may become the property of the Society ; to acknowledge all donations of books, pamphlets and relics, and to make and deliver to the President, three days before the Annual Meeting, a report of the condition of the Library. 99 ARTICLE XII. ELECTION AND DUTIES OF THE COUNCIL. The Directors shall elect, annually, a Council of thirty members, who shall hold office for one year from their election, or until their successors are elected. Members of the Council may advise and consult with the Directors and Officers on matters of interest or importance to the Society. ARTICLE XIII. STANDING COMMITTEES. In the month of January or February, in each year, the Board of Direct- ors shall elect five Standing Committees, consisting of three persons each ; a Committee on Finance ; a Committee on Charity ; a Committee on Invita- tions ; a Committee on Annual Dinner ; a Committee on Publications. Each of such Committees may consist of two Directors and one member of the Society, and shall hold office for the term of one year, or until their success- ors are elected ; and shall be subject to the control of the Board of Directors. ARTICLE XIV. DUTIES OF THE COMMITTEE ON FINANCE. It shall be the duty of the Committee on Finance to audit all bills and accounts of the Society in the months of June and November in each year, and to perform such other duties relating to the accounts, funds and finances of the Society as may be assigned them by the Board of Directors. ARTICLE XV. DUTIES OF THE COMMITTEE ON CHARITY. It shall be the duty of the Committee on Charity to distribute and dis- burse such moneys as may be appropriated by the Board of Directors for charitable purposes, as provided by Article Twenty-four, and to render an account of all such distributions and disbursements to the Board of Directors. ARTICLE XVI. DUTIES OF THE COMMITTEE ON INVITATIONS. It shall be the duty of the Committee on Invitations to invite and receive all guests of the Society at the Annual Dinner ; to select the speakers, and prepare and assign the toasts. ARTICLE XVII. DUTIES OF THE COMMITTEE ON ANNUAL DINNER. It shall be the duty of the Committee on Annual Dinner to make all arrangements, and to do and procure each and everything therefor, not herein otherwise provided to be done and procured. lOO ARTICLE XVIII. DUTIES OF THE COMMITTEE ON PUBLICATIONS. It shall be the duty of the Committee on Publications to supervise such pubHcations as the Recording Secretary is required to make by Article Eight, and perform such other duties as may be assigned them by the Board of Directors. ARTICLE XIX. ANNUAL DINNER. The Annual Dinner of the Society shall be held in the month of Decem- ber, on such day as may be designated by the Board of Directors. ARTICLE XX. SPECIAL MEETINGS OF THE SOCIETY. On the request in writing of any five members of the Society, the Presi- dent, or if he be absent from the city, either of the Vice-Presidents, shall request the Secretary to call a special meeting of the Society. In compliance therewith the Secretary shall cause a notice of such meeting to be published in two daily newspapers published in the City of Brooklyn, for three consecu- tive days prior thereto, and shall send (by mail, post-paid) a copy of such notice to each member of the Society. ARTICLE XXI. MEETING OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS. The President, of if he be absent from the city, either of the Vice-Presi- dents, or any three Directors, may request the Secretary to call a meeting of the Directors. In compliance therewith, the Secretary shall send (by mail, post-paid) to each Director a notice of such meeting, at least one day prior thereto. ARTICLE XXII. ORDER OF BUSINESS AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE SOCIETY. ist. Reading of Minutes of last Annual Meeting. 2d. Election of Members. 3d. Report of Standing Committees. 4th. Report of Treasurer. 5th. Report of President. 6th. Other Business. ARTICLE XXIII. ORDER OF BUSINESS AT DIRECTORS' MEETING. ist. Reading of the Minutes. 2d. Report of Committees. 3d. Election of Members. 4th. Report of Treasurer. 5th. Other Business. lOI ARTICLE XXIV. CHARITIES. If in the judgment of the Board of Directors they are in need of it, the widow or children of any deceased member shall receive from the funds of the Society a sum equal to five times the amount such deceased member has paid to the Society ; such sum to be paid in equal annual payments for five successive years after the decease of such member. The same annuity shall not be paid to any such widow after she shall have married again, but shall be paid to such of the children as are not able to earn their subsistence. ARTICLE XXV. RESIGNATIONS. All resignations of membership in the Society shall be in writing and shall be delivered to the Recording Secretary. ARTICLE XXVI. AMENDMENTS TO BY-LAWS. The By-Laws of the Society may be altered and amended by vote of two- thirds of all the Directors, provided that a written notice of such proposed alteration and amendment shall have been presented at a meeting of the Board, held one month or more previous to the adoption thereof. ANNUAL RECEPTIONS. Resolutions adopted at a 7neeting of the Board of Directors, held Feb- ruary 4, 1886. Amended Jatiuary, 1S91. There shall be an annual reception on a day named by the committee, not earlier than February nor later than May, in each year. A special committee, consisting of five members, in addition to the President, who shall be ex-offlcio a member thereof, shall take charge of such reception, at which refreshments shall be served, and such number of guests may be invited by each member as shall be determined by the committee. HONORARY, LIFE AND ANNUAL MEMBERS. HONORARY MEMBERS. *Gen. U. S. Grant, *Hon. Rutherford B. Hayes, Hon. WilHam M. Evarts, *Gen. William T. Sherman, *Rev. Noah Porter, D. D., ♦Hon. Chester A. Arthur, Hon. William P. Frye, Rev. Timothy Dwight, LL. D., Rev. A. P. Putnam, D. D., Rev. Richard S. Storrs, D. D., LL. D. Joseph H. Choate, Gen. Horace Porter, Prof. Charles E. West. Elected. A iSSo *Atkins, Edwin LIFE MEMBERS. B iS8o *Beach, M. S. " *Beadle, Erastus F. Brookman, H. D. " *Barnes, Alfred Smith 1 891 Bridgman, Herbert L. " Betts, John Hunt 1892 Bassett, Edwin P. Elected. i8St Denney, Charles A. 1 891 *Downing, Benjamin W. 1880 E Eames, E. E. 1S80 Fish, Latham A. *Gager, Oliver Ager 1880 Carman, Nelson G. Jr. H Gary, ] saac H. 1880 Hine, Ethel C. *Coffin, Henry " Hunt, Hiram W. Claflin , H. A. " ♦Hutchinson, John B. Claflin , John " Hulbert, H. C. ♦Claflin , Horace Brigham 1S92 Hoyt, Mark Cowing, James R. 1894 Hoyt, Mark, Jr. " Cutter, Ralph L. IS8I Cross, Alfred F. J 1884 Cross, William T. 1880 Johnson, J. G., M. D. 1892 Cross, Ferdinand Louis r8S7 Jacobs, John E. D K 1880 Dickinson, J. C. 1880 Keep, J. Lester, M. D " ♦Dike, Camden C. 1882 *Knapp, Joseph F. " Durkee, E. R. " Knowlton, E. F. " ♦Dennis , Charles 1890 Knowlton, Eben J. 'Deceased. I03 Elected. L 1880 Lewis, Edwin A., M. D. " Leonard, Lewis H. *Low, A. A. *Jow, Josiah O. Lyman, E. H. R. " Lyon, William H. 1882 Laighton, George J. 1889 Low, Seth Logan, W. S. 1893 Low, A. Augustus M 1S80 Mathewson, Arthur, M. D. *Mallory, Charles Henry i8go Mallory, Charles. N 1S80 Noyes, Henry F. " Noyes, James A. *Noyes, James S. Elected. 18S0 *Rodman, Thomas H. ♦Robbins, Amos ♦Ropes, Ripley 1883 Richards, Edmund Ira, Jr. i8gi Ropes, Walter P. " Ropes, Albert G. 1880 Silliman, Benjamin D. ♦Smith, James W. *Spicer, E., Jr. *Storrs, Augustus *Storrs, Charles Stranahan, J. S. T. T 1880 Taylor, Frank E. *Thayer, George A. Tweedy, John A. 1887 Taylor, William A. 1888 Olcott, George M. P 1 8 So *Pratt, Charles " Putnam, Nathaniel D. Putnam, William A. " *Pierrepont, Henry E. 1887 Palmer, Lowell M. 1893 Prentiss, George H. R 1 8 So *Richardson, Leonard " *Robinson, M. W. 1880 Valentine, B. E. W 18S0 Waterman, Edwin S. White, Thomas " Winslow, John 1882 *Wheeler, Charles H. 1884 Wilcox, George N. 18S7 Wheeler, George S. 1 891 Wade, William D. 1893 White, A. T. Elected. 1880 iSSi I8S2 *Annan, Edward Arnold, Daniel S Arnold, E. H. *Archer, George Beckford Abbott, George B. *Averill, J. Otis Allen, Franklin Atwood, Quincy A. JNUAL MEMBERS. Elected. 1885 * Adams, John P. 1S86 *Allaben, James R. 1887 Angus, John P. D. iford [892 Abbott, Lyman, Rev., D. D " Atkins, Edwin H. " Atwater, W. H. " Atwater, Augustus 1893 Abbott, PhilHps 'Deceased. I04. Elected. B iS8o *Bailey, James S. " Barnes, A. C. " *Babcock, John H. " *Bass, Samuel G. " *Bulkley, Edwin " *Bill, C. E., Jr. *Bestow, Marcus P. *Babcock, David S. *Britton, Winchester " Barnes, R. S. Bartlett, Willard Bassett, Wyatt M. Beale, WiUiam P. " Belcher, Samuel E. Benedict, R. D. Benedict, R, S. " Brainerd, George C. Brown, Joseph E. *Brown, William A. Bryant, WiUiam C. " Burnham, Lyman S. 1 88 1 Bigelow, Elliott " Bunker, Wm. R. 1S82 Babcock, David S. *Bartlett, David W. 1884 Badger, Walter S. 1885 Bigelow, Charles E. 1886 Boody, David A. " Brady, James 1887 Bradley, George C. Brainerd, Cyprian S., Barnes, W. D. L. Brooks, George G. 1890 Bardwell, Willis A. " Burr, Joseph A. 1 891 Bailey, Frank Barnaby, Frank A. " Barnes, E. H. Burleigh, John L. Burwell, Chas. D. 1892 Burtis, John H. 1893 Beecher, Wm. C. Bartlett, George E. 1894 Bragdon, Irving L. Baker, Rev. Chas. R.. Jr. D.D. * Deceased. Elected. 1 894 *Brewster, Rev. J. Brewster, Rev. C. B. Burr, John T. 18S0 Candee, Edward D. Chase, William H. Chittenden, S. B. Claghom, Charles Clement, N. H. " *Coit. William Colton, F. H., M. D. " Corbin, Austin " Cowing, Herbert W. Creamer, William G. " *Crary, George *Clapp, John Francis " *Collins, Henry *Cary, Nathaniel Harris ♦Chittenden, Simeon B. *Claflin, Aaron *Cowing, James Aranson Carter, Walter S. ♦Carman, Nelson D., Sr. Childs, Wm. H. H. Collins, Henry C. Clarke, Charles M. *Case, James S. Chadwick, Chas. N. Candler, Flamen B. Cordier, A. J. Chandler, F. H. Coffin, J. Sherwood Chandler, A. B. Coffin, Isaac S. Candler, Robert W. Candler, D. W. Chapin, Henry, Jr. D Davenport, C. B. Davenport, Julius *Dike. W. H. *Dodge, Harry Eugene Doty, Ethan Allen Duval, Horace C. 1S82 1883 1885 1886 iSSS I89I 1894 IS95 1880 I05 Elected. i88i Davenport, Wm. B. Dickerman, W. B. 18S3 Dean, James E. 1885 Dewson, James B. Denison, R. N., M. D. 1886 D wight, Elihu Duxbury, C. R. 1887 Dame, Augustus A. 1888 Deshon, Henry S. 1889 Dailey, Abram H. '1 *Davenport, A. B. 1 89 1 Darling, Daniel P. " Dresser, Horace E. " Driggs, Marshall S. 1892 Dearborn, D. B. Davis, B. C. 1894 DuVal, Guy 1895 Dwight, F. A. 1880 Earle, Henry ♦Edwards, S. J. Elwell, J. W. 1851 Elliott, Joseph Bailey, M, " Emery, Charles G. 1852 Elliott, Henry " Estes, Benjamin 1886 *Emerson, Henry 1888 Ewer, R. G. 1889 Evans, George A. 1894 Eliot, Samuel A., Rev. 1S80 *Farley,Fred'kA.,Rev.D " Fisher, George H. Follett, A. W. " Follett, George *Ford, Gordon L. ♦Frothingham, John W. *Frothingham, Abram R *Frothingham, Isaac H. Farrington, Harvey 1886 Fletcher, George M. 1 891 Frost, T. P., Rev. 1894 Fairchild, Julius O. Elected. 1880 D. D. 1882 1886 1894 1881 1S82 1883 1884 1886 18S7 1888 i88q 1S93 1894 •Deceased. Graves, Horace ♦Greenwood, John *Goodnow, Abel Franklin Greene, Lyman R. Gilbert, Jasper W. Gleason, Andrew W. Gregory, George F. Gates, Nelson J. Giddings. Silas M. Goddard, J. F. Guild, Frederick A. H Hart, A. B. Hart, Henry S. *Harteau, Henry Hatch, W. T. Healey, Jacob F. *Henry, John F. Hine, Francis L. Hill, John L. Holmes, E. ♦Huntley, Richard H. Hutchinson, Henry E. ♦How, James ♦Howard, John Tasker Howard, Samuel E. Hoyt, Edward E. Hobbs, Edward H. ♦Hitchings, Benj. G. Hyde, Joel W., M. D. Heath, Henry R. Hart, N. R. Hale, George H. Healey, James I. How, Charles Hurd, Wm. B., Jr. Hayden, Henry I. Hooper, Franklin W. Higgins, Algernon S. Hooker, Capt. Edw., U.S.N- Hooker, Henry Daggett Hewett, Thomas B. ♦Hall, Chas. H., Rev., D. D. Haley, Albert Hamblet, James io6 Elected. I 1880 *Ives, Arthur C. 1888 Ide, Charles W. 1893 Ingersoll, Wm. H., Rev. J 1880 James, Darwin R. ' Johnson, Jesse Judd, Herbert L. 1882 Jewett, Charles, M. D. " Johnson, A. R. 1883 Jennmgs, Abraham G. 1 886 Johnson, S. W. Josselyn, N. W. Jacobs, Andrew 1S90 Jenny, Charles A. 1892 Jeffrey, Reuben 1893 JaiTett, Arthur R., M. D. K Lamb, Albert E. ♦Langley, Wm. C. Langley, Wm. H. " Latimer, Frederick B. " Latimer, Brainard G. " Lawrence, C. F. Leavitt, J. M. " *Litchfield, Rufus Low, Wm. G. ' ' *Low, Ethelbert Mills " *Libby, William P. 1881 Lovell, F. H. 1S83 Lewis, Alva, M. D. 1886 Leland, Reuben 1S92 Langdon, P. C. " Loomis, Edward P. 1895 Lovell, Thos. W. Elected. M 1S80 Maxwell, H. W. " Moore, Thomas S. ♦Manning, Richard H. 1S82 Merrill, George P. *Marvin, Joseph Howard " *Merrill, Wm. G. " McKeen, James 18S3 Moody, Leonard 1S84 *Manchester, C. N. 1 88 5 Moore, Harrison B. 1S86 Morse, George L. Marean, J. T. 1890 Morse, Daniel P. 1S91 *Maxwell, E. L. " Moore, Charles A. " Moulton, Daniel Stellifer Maxwell, J. R. 1880 Kendall, Wm. B. 1092 iviorse, ijyman u. " Kennedy, E. R. N " Kidder, Stephen 1S80 ♦Northup, D. L. " Kimball, R. J. " *Norton, John I88I Kellogg, Edward H. 18S1 *Noyes, Stephen B. " *Kent, William 1882 Nichols, Wm. H. 1885 Knapp, B. H. 1886 Newton, Albro J. 1886 *Kimball. Ira Allen " Newell, A. W. 1892 Knowlton, C. C. L 1880 Ormsbee, Allen L 1880 Lacey, Richard 1886 Otis, Charles H. I8S0 I8SI Packard, Edwin Packard, Mitchel N. Parsons, Charles H. Parsons, F. E. *Parsons, L. A. Partridge, John N. Penfield, S. N. Perry, A. J. Pierce, F. O. *Plummer, J. S. Pratt, Calvin E. Pratt, Charles M. *Pope, Samuel Putnam *Pease, George L. *Perry, John C. "Deceased. I07 Elected. 1882 Parker, Frederick S. Pratt, James H. 1583 *Pratt, Henry 1584 Price, George A. Pratt, Charles D. 1 886 Paine, Arthur R., M. D. " Patterson, Calvin Perry, W. A. iSgo Perham, A. G. 1891 Prichard, Nathaniel B. W. " Putnam, Harrington 1592 Proctor, A. W. S. " Phillip, James P. 1593 Perry, Timothy " *Peet, William 1894 Pierce, James F. 1895 Porter, Horace R 1880 Roberts, R. S. " *Robinson, Jeremiah P. " *Ropes, Ruben Wilkens 1882 *Roby, Ebenezer 18S4 Richardson, Ephraim W. 1890 Randall, Howard S. 1892 Russell, Isaac F. 1894 Roberts, George H. 1S80 Sanborn, N. B. *Shaw, Philander K. Sheldon, Henry Sheldon, Henry K. Sheldon, W. R. *Slocum, Henry W. Snow, Michael Spelman, T. M. Spelman, W. C. Sprague, William E. Stanton, John S. Staples, Cyrus E. *Stearns, Joel W. Stillman, Thomas E. Stockwell, Geo. P. *Sedgwick, John Webster *Sanger, Henry Elected. 1880 *Sanford, Edward S. " *San borne, Daniel E. " *Spooner, Alden J. " *Storrs, James H. 1881 Sherman, John T. Stoddard, John H. " Snow, Henry S. " Southard, George H. Stevens, H. H. 1883 Skerry, Amory T. Scott, Rufus L. 1884 *Snow, Ambrose Sanger, Abraham 18S7 Stewart, Horatio S. " Skerry, Amory T., Jr. 1890 Spencer, James E. 1 89 1 Sturges, William P. " Sherrill, Henry W. " Steele, Hiram R. 1892 Sprague, N. T. 1893 Sanxay, Charles S. " Sumner, William O. 1895 Silver, Charles A. 1880 Taylor, James R. " Thornton, Thomas A. " Tracy, Benjamin F. 1882 *Tucker, H. A., M. D. " Tupper, Wm. Vaughan *Thayer, Nathan " *Taggard, Wm. H. 1883 Thayer, N. Townsend 1884 Tyler, Wm. A. 1885 Tebbets, Noah Taylor, Wm. H. Thomas, Ransom H. 1886 Tucker, H. A., Jr., M. D. 1888 Turner, J. Spencer Tucker, Chas. B., M. D. 1 891 Tyler, Edmond Tyler, Frank H. Tyler, Louis A. 1892 Tinker, Charles A. " Taylor, J. Preston Deceased. io8 Elected. 1892 *Thompson, Willett Townsend, Gerard B. " Titus, Henri U 1887 Utter, Samuel S. V 1885 Van Wyck, Augustus 1888 Vose, Clarence W 1880 Wallace, James P. " * Wheeler, H. H. Wheeler, H. W. Wheelock, A. D. White, A. M. Whitman, Isaac Allen " *Williams, Wm. H. Wood, C. D. Woodford, Stewart L. Ward, Fred. A. * Woodruff, Albert Woodruff, Albert C. ♦Wheeler, Andrew Smith " * Woodford, Walter Oliver *Whitemore, William H. Elected. 1880 * Wheeler, Russell L. " *Waring, WiUiam Henry iSSi Wallace, W. C. Webster, E. G. " White, George C, Jr. " * White, George C. 1 882 Warren, Horace M. Wellington, Walter L. Wilber, Mark D. " Wilcock, George 1886 White, W. A. Woodruff, T. L. 1887 Wheelock, Wm. E. 1888 Wilmarth, John R. 1892 Wood, Howard O. Walker, J. J. Wadsworth, E. C, D. D. S. Walkley. W. R. Wines, W. D. " Wilson, Francis H. 1893 Withee, U. V. " Wingate, George W. 1894 Wilmot, James E. Whitney, Charles S. Y 1892 Youngs, Wm. J. * Deceased. PAST OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY. PRESIDENTS. BENJAMIN D. SILLIMAN, 1880 JOHN WINSLOW, 1887 CALVIN E. PRATT, . . . ... . • 1889 WILLARD BARTLETT, 1890 CALVIN E. PRATT 1891 ROBERT D. BENEDICT. 1893 TREASURERS. WILLIAM B. KENDALL 1880 CHARLES N. MANCHESTER, .... 1890 WILLIAM G. CREAMER 1892 RECORDING SECRETARIES. ALBERT E. LAMB 1880 STEPHEN B. NOTES, 1885 THOMAS S. MOORE, 1891 CORRESPONDING SECRETARIES. Rev. a. V. PUTNAM, D. D., 1880 WILLIAM H. WILLIAMS 1891 HISTORIOGRAPHERS. ALDEN J. SPOONER, if STEPHEN B. NOYES if PAUL L. FORD, . li LIBRARIANS. DANIEL L. NORTHUP, 1874 Rev. W. H. WHITTEMORE 1880 CHARLES E. WEST, 18S6 MEETINGS OF THE SOCIETY. The Annual Meeting of the Society for the election of Directors, and other business, will be held on the first Wednesday in December. It is very desirable to have all the members of the Society present at this meeting. The Annual Dinner of the Society will be held December 21, 1S96. In the sale of tickets members will have a preference. FORM OF A BEQUEST. ir (3iVe an& ^(Sequeatb to "The New England Society in THE City of Brooklyn," incorporated under the Laws of New York, the sum of $ .to be applied to the charitable uses and purposes of the said Society. i