facts or occurrences besides the mere mention of births, marriages, residences, and deaths. And this he did in very many instances. We will name one case of his amplification: Dr. George Cheyne Shattuck, son of Dr. Benjamin Shattuck, is presented not only with the usual notice of birth and death, with his residence and profession, but with an. interesting biographical notice of over nine pages. In this way Mr. Shattuck added to the size and value of his book; and no doubt if he had had the facts and information before him which have been spread before the public since he wrote. his memorial, he would have given us a fuller and more perfect book. But as it is, it reflects high honor upon the writer.

Mr. Shattuck was of the old puritanical stock, as will be seen by the following reference to his genealogy. The original ancestor in this country was William Shattuck, who was born in England, in 1621. He came to this country and settled in Watertown, where he died, Aug. 14, 1672. He had a family of ten children; among them was John, who was drowned in Charles River in passing from Boston to Charlestown. John married Ruth Whitney, and from this Puritan stock Lemuel Shattuck descended; so that he could justly claim all the characteristics of the Puritan race, and in his whole life he exhibited their natural traits of character. Cool, collected, and self-reliant, he felt perfectly competent to accomplish whatever was required of him. His opportunities for education were limited. He says of himself, speaking as of a third person, "He never had the benefit of much public instruction. The common school in the district to which his father belonged was at a considerable distance from his dwelling-house, and was generally very imperfectly taught, and continued only a part of the year. He seldom attended more than five or six weeks in one season. The chief educational privileges which he enjoyed in his youth were in the school of mutual instruction, composed of his older brothers and his sisters, kept in intervals of leisure in an industrious and laborious early lifetime in his father's own household. Two quarters in the academy completed his public education. Whatever knowledge he has possessed besides has been acquired almost entirely in his private study, by his own unaided efforts, at such times as could be spared from actual labor and business, or from sleep. And he has great satisfaction in stating as the result of his own experience, that any person, by having a judicious plan for saving

the odd moments of life, and appropriating them to reading good books, or the acquisition of useful information, may obtain a large fund of knowledge, which will be a qualification for greater usefulness in any station, and be the source. of great gratification and happiness in more mature and declining life."

This Mr. Shattuck says of himself, and his whole life bears testimony to the truth of the statement. In this case as in almost every other, a man's character may be known by his acts. No observing man can review Mr. Shattuck's works, without seeing that he possessed a cool, deliberate mind, of more than ordinary strength and self-reliance; and that when he had formed a resolution, he would not relax his effort till the object was attained. He not only possessed a discriminating mind, but he had more than ordinary executive or business talent. His fixedness of purpose and untiring industry were prominent traits of his character. And the natural powers of the man were undoubtedly under the control of the true Puritan doctrines of the age, modified in his case by his reflections and his acquaintance with the world. So that there is a free, generous, and moral tone displayed in all his writings, showing a true patriotic spirit, equally distant from a rigid aristocracy on the one hand, and radical democracy on the other. His efforts to improve the health of the community by drainage and ventilation, the gathering of statistics to learn the situation of the people, their wishes and their wants, the sanitary condition of the community, and every subject connected with their well-being and prosperity, all show the natural feeling of the man, and the kindness of his heart. All this we read in the acts he performed, and the subjects on which he spent his powers. We discover in all his writing nothing which would abridge the privileges of the people; but on the contrary he labored to increase their perity and to elevate their character, physically, socially, and morally. What he has written on family registers and the genealogy of his own family illustrates one trait of character which might be overlooked, but which in fact shows the parental, filial, and brotherly affections of the heart from which the tenderest traits of character arise. The man who would curse father or mother, and despise those reared under the same roof with himself, we should all regard as a coldhearted wretch. So on the other hand, where we discover great regard for parents and kindred, we naturally look for kind and generous emotions, for reverence and fidelity, for

pros

respect for authority, a sympathy for the poor and unfortunate, and a readiness to instruct the ignorant, elevate the fallen, and protect the weak against the oppression of the strong. Such were the traits of his character; and the acts of benevolence shown in the life of Mr. Shattuck should be cherished, and perpetuate a pleasing remembrance of his amiable qualities.

1

MEMOIR

OF THE

HON. THOMAS G. CARY.

BY J. ELLIOT CABOT.

THOMAS GREAVES (or Graves) CARY was born at Chelsea, Sept. 7, 1791, and died at Nahant, July 4, 1859. The house in which he was born is still standing, a good specimen of the Provincial architecture. The estate, consisting of more than a thousand acres of land, belonged to Governor Bellingham, by whom the older part of the house is said to have been built, and came into the possession of Samuel Cary, grandfather of the subject of this memoir, through right of his wife, Margaret, daughter of Thomas Greaves, of Charlestown. Samuel Cary was great-grandson of James Cary, who came to Charlestown in 1639 from Bristol, England, in which city both his father and his great-grandfather had held the office of mayor. Samuel Cary had a son, also named Samuel, who married Sarah, daughter of the Rev. Ellis Gray, and had thirteen children, of whom Thomas Greaves Cary was the tenth.

Samuel Cary last mentioned was a successful merchant and planter in the island of Grenada; he returned to Massachusetts in 1791, in affluent circumstances; but a few years afterward the Grenada property was swept away in an insurrection consequent upon the revolution in St. Domingo, and the family were reduced for their main subsistence to the produce of the Chelsea farm.

Much attention had been paid to the education of the children, the elder of whom had been sent to England for this purpose. They now took charge of the schooling of their younger brothers and sisters. Mrs. Cary was a good reader of the English classics; an accomplishment which her son Thomas inherited. He was prepared for admission to Harvard College by Ebenezer Pemberton, at Billerica Academy,

and graduated in 1811 in the same class with Edward Everett, Dr. N. L. Frothingham, and other men of note. On graduating he studied law with Peter O. Thacher, walking to and from Boston except when the wind was fair for the sail-boat at the ferry. At home he took his share in the family work of instruction, advising and assisting in the studies of his younger brothers, who were fitted for college by him. He was admitted to the bar in Boston, in 1814, but soon afterward removed to Brattleborough, Vt., where he practised law until 1822, when he gave up that profession and joined his elder brother in business as a merchant in New York. Having married a daughter of Colonel T. H. Perkins, he was invited by his father-in-law to join the firm of J. & T. H. Perkins in Boston. Upon the dissolution of this copartnership he became treasurer of the Hamilton and Appleton Manufacturing Companies, and held this office until his

death.

Mr. Cary was a man of decided literary tastes, and although always actively engaged in business, he was an occasional writer upon financial, economical, and political subjects; always commanding attention by the elevation of his views. and the fulness and accuracy of his information. He was the unwearied friend and helper of every enterprise looking to the intellectual and moral advancement of the community. During the last twenty-five years of his life he was foremost in the management of the affairs of the Boston Athenæum, of which he was president. His connection with the Historical Society was a short one; he was chosen a member less than a year before his death, at a time when the state of his health probably prevented him from attending the meetings. He twice delivered orations in celebration of the Declaration of Independence: at Brattleborough, in 1821, and at Boston, in 1847. He was chosen senator for the Suffolk district of Massachusetts in 1846 and in 1852. In 1847 he was appointed commander of the Independent Company of Cadets. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and president of the Perkins Institution for the Blind.

The list of his public employments, however, but imperfectly represents his activity for the public good. Few men in his generation equalled him in single-hearted devotion to every duty, public or private, and this disposition was seconded by remarkable powers of application. He was always ready to give time and labor without stint and without thought of personal distinction. Never brilliantly successful so far as his own fortunes were concerned, his purity of char