CORRESPONDING MEMBERS,

ELECTED SINCE THE PASSAGE OF THE ACT OF 1857.

MEMBERS DECEASED.

Resident, Honorary, and Corresponding Members, who have died since the publication of the List of Members in the last volume of the Proceedings, May 14, 1880; or of whose death information has been received since that date.

PROCEEDINGS

OF THE

MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

THE

ANNUAL MEETING, APRIL, 1880.

HE Annual Meeting was held at the rooms in Boston, on Tuesday, the 6th day of April (Thursday, the stated day, having been appointed by the Governor of the Commonwealth for the Annual Fast), at 3 o'clock P. M.; the President, the Hon. ROBERT C. WINTHROP, in the chair.

Agreeably to usage, the business of the stated monthly meeting was first taken up.

The Recording Secretary read the record of the previous meeting, and it was approved.

The Librarian reported the donations to the Library since the last meeting, making special mention of the gift of about fifty volumes relating to the history of the late Rebellion. from an Associate Member, Mr. Amos A. Lawrence, whose large and continuous liberality in this direction had made the Society's collection of books on this subject one of the most valuable in the country. Mr. James F. Hunnewell had given a copy of his "Records of the First Church in Charlestown"; and Mr. Henry H. Edes, a large paper copy of his "History of the Harvard Church," of the same place.

*

There was received also for the Library, at the meeting, a gift from Mr. Winthrop, a copy of a sumptuous volume," "The Particular Description of England, 1588," by William Smith (Rouge Dragon), just published, in a limited edition for subscribers only, from the manuscript in the British Museum; and a copy of the "Analytical Index to the Series

* Mr. Hunnewell writes that this volume contains thirty per cent more matter than his contributions to the New England Historical and Genealogica. Register, and that he has had privately printed an edition of only sixty-two copies.-EDS.

L

of Records known as the Remembrancia, 1579-1664." * Through the President there were received also a new volume of "Transactions" from the Royal Historical Society of London, and a volume of "Letters by Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and others, to John Langdon, New Hampshire,' from Dr. Alfred Langdon Elwyn, of Philadelphia.

The Corresponding Secretary read a letter from Mr. Frederic De Peyster, accepting his election as an Honorary Member.

The President then announced the death of a Resident Member, as follows:

66

We have lost a worthy and excellent Associate Member, within a few days past, by the death of the Rev. George Punchard, to whose memory I am not prepared to pay any adequate tribute this afternoon, but whose loss cannot fail to be regretted by us all. Graduated at Dartmouth, and prepared for the ministry at Andover, he was for fourteen or fifteen years the pastor of a church in Plymouth, New Hampshire. Retiring from the ministry in 1844, he has since devoted himself to the work of the press, in connection with the Boston Traveller," to the work of the Tract Society, and more especially to the preparation and publication of a valuable "History of Congregationalism," the enlarged edition of which, in three volumes, was published in 1865-67. He was elected a Resident Member of this Society in 1870, and has been a frequent and always welcome attendant at our meetings. He died, somewhat suddenly, in the seventy-fourth year of his age, on Friday morning last, and his funeral was largely attended on Saturday. I am instructed by the Council to submit the following Resolution :

Resolved, That we haye heard with sincere sorrow the announcement of the death of our valued Associate, the Rev. George Punchard; and that the President be requested to appoint one of our number to prepare a Memoir of him for the Society's Proceedings.

The Rev. Dr. DEXTER said he could not allow the customary motion to be passed without a word of tribute to the lifework of their departed friend, one of whose excellences was a modesty which would shrink from any extended eulogistic reference, even in a friendly circle like this.

* See Proceedings for December, 1879, pp. 296, 297.-Eds.

Mr. Punchard came of a good old Puritan stock. And when in his first and only pastorate he encountered some necessity of discussing the principles of the fathers, his interest in the subject led him on until he had elaborated the substance of sermons first delivered to his own congregation into a modest little 12mo, entitled, "A View of Congregationalism." This volume attracted the favorable regard of Christians of that name, and, passing through several editions, filled an honorable and useful place in ecclesiastical literature. His enthusiasm, thus awakened toward the general theme, never flagged, and he soon after prepared "A History of Congregationalism," also in small 12mo form. This was good, though meagre, and had its chief value in that it led him on to broader and larger studies of the same general character. When compelled, by the throat disease which eventually ended his life, to leave the pulpit, he removed from Plymouth, N. H., to this city, and became one of the early proprietors and editors of the " Daily Evening Traveller," with which he was long connected. His brief leisure he devoted to the pursuance of the old theme, until the last issue of his "History" already fills three sizable volumes, while the stereotyping of a fourth was nearly completed at the time of his death; and he left to his nephew and literary executor, Professor George B. Jewett, the manuscript of a fifth and concluding volume, it is believed nearly or quite ready for the press.

This history covers a period from about A.D. 250, to the present time, and is particularly full in its details of many little-known portions of those centuries.

Mr. Punchard, as a matter of course for one tethered as he was, was compelled to depend entirely upon authorities which may be handled here. Had his health and his occasions. favored his going abroad, where he could have both enlarged and corrected Strype and Collier, and Brook, Neal, and Hanbury, by a reference to such of their original authorities as remain still within scholarly reach, with multitudes of others which were to them unknown, or little known, he might, and doubtless would, have largely increased the permanent usefulness of his work. As it is, however, it will remain a creditable monument of his unwearied diligence, an unconscious revelation of the quiet goodness of his own heart, and a helpful contribution to good letters.

Dr. DEXTER closed with the expression of the desire that we may always be fortunate enough to have within this select fellowship, workers of as tireless an enthusiasm, scholars of