MAY MEETING, 1880.

The stated meeting was held on Thursday, the 13th instant, at 3 o'clock P.M.; the President, Mr. WINTHROP, in the chair.

The Recording Secretary read the record of the Annual Meeting, which was approved.

The Librarian reported the accessions to the Library during the month. These included a curious "Plan for a Survey of a Canal from Boston to Connecticut River, 1. made under the direction of the Commissioners, by L. Baldwin, Engineer," 1826, in which is set down a proposal for a tunnel under the Hoosac Mountain; and a large and valuable volume, entitled "Memorials of London and London Life in the XIIIth, XIVth and XVth Centuries," selected from the archives of the city, and prepared by Mr. Henry T. Riley, by order of the corporation of London. This volume was the gift of Mr. Winthrop.

The Corresponding Secretary read letters from the Rev. Edward G. Porter and James M. Le Moine, Esq., accepting their election to membership in the Society.

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

The Rev. Samuel Osgood, D.D., whose name has been on our Corresponding roll for more than twenty years, died at New York, on the 14th of April last. Born at Charlestown, Mass., on the 30th of August, 1812, and a graduate of Harvard University with the class of 1832, his early sympathies and associations were with New England, and his attachments to the scenes and friendships of his youth were strong to the last.

Prepared for the ministry at the Cambridge Divinity School, he was for more than thirty years a Unitarian preacher, four years at Nashua, N. H., seven years at Providence, R. I., and twenty years at the Church of the Messiah in New York. Connecting himself afterward with the Protestant Episcopal Church, and dividing his time between Fairfield, Conn., and the city of New York, in both of which he had residences, he officiated and preached wherever he was called to do so, but had no stated parish.

He was a man of large and varied accomplishments, a prolific writer, greatly interested in historical studies, and earnestly devoted to the illustration and promotion of every department of good learning. He has left many warm friends, here as well as in New York, to whom his sudden death gave a shock, and who do not fail to regret the loss of one whose acquirements and abilities were still in the way of being so valuable to his fellow-men.

The President stated next that he had received for the Library from Mr. Samuel Bradford of Philadelphia, a privately printed memoir of his father, an early marshal of the United States for the Massachusetts district, to which the author had added, at the request of many friends, an autobiographical sketch. The thanks of the Society were voted for this gift. Messrs. Williams & Everett of Boston had written that they had on sale a view of Boston in 1820, painted by Thomas Cole, which picture was thought a desirable acquisition for the Society's Cabinet. This matter was referred to the Com

mittee on the Cabinet.

Mr. WINTHROP presented another gift, saying:

I have received from Mrs. Laura Winthrop Johnson, of Staten Island, N. Y., a large number of autograph letters and papers, to be presented to this Society, in her name and those of her sister, Elizabeth Winthrop, and her brother, Colonel William Winthrop, of Washington. Mrs. Johnson and her sister and brother are children of my late cousin, Francis Bayard Winthrop of New Haven, a former Corresponding Member of this Society, the father, also, of Theodore Winthrop, who was killed at Big Bethel at the beginning of the late Civil War. These letters and papers are the originals of the Winthrop Papers printed by Mr. Savage in the Appendix to his successive editions of the old Governor's Journal or History of New England. If I have counted them correctly, there are thirty-seven letters from the Governor to his eldest son, John Winthrop, of Connecticut; eighteen letters from the Governor to his wife, Margaret Tyndal; seven letters of Margaret to her husband; one letter of the Governor to his sister, Mrs. Thomas Fones; and one to his son Henry ; two original wills of the Governor, and one business memorandum of his. There is, also, one little letter or note from the younger Winthrop to his wife. In all there are sixty-eight papers, bearing dates from 1620 to 1648. I may add that these letters were included, with many others in

my own possession, in my "Life and Letters of John Winthrop."

These venerable autographs, however, cannot fail to be regarded as interesting and valuable, and I am sure the Society will deposit them sacredly among the precious things in its archives. They would form a volume by themselves, if carefully arranged by an expert, and I venture to propose that they be referred to Judge Chamberlain and Mr. Waterston for that purpose.

On motion of Mr. DEANE, the thanks of the Society were voted to Mrs. Templeton Johnson, and to her sister and brother for this interesting and valuable collection of letters, and they were referred to Messrs. Chamberlain and Waterston (as suggested by the President), with Mr. Winthrop, as a Committee to examine and arrange them.

An invitation was received from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences asking the attendance of this Society, by delegates, at the one hundredth anniversary of the foundation of the Academy on the 26th of May. It was voted to accept the invitation, and the President was requested to appoint delegates to represent the Society.*

Dr. Alfred Langdon Elwyn, of Philadelphia, was elected a Corresponding Member.

Mr. D. A. Goddard was appointed to write a memoir of the Hon. Erastus B. Bigelow; Mr. Deane to prepare one of the Hon. Richard Frothingham; and Dr. H. M. Dexter one of the Rev. George Punchard.

Announcement was made that Mr. William T. Davis had resigned his place as a Resident Member, and that Mr. James Parton, having taken up his residence in the Commonwealth, had thereby ceased to be a Corresponding Member, under the Society's rule.

Mr. DEANE, from the Committee on the Early Proceedings, presented the second volume of these Proceedings in print, completing the work. To the record of the Society's meetings the Committee had added memoirs of all Resident Members deceased prior to the Annual Meeting of April, 1855, at which time the current Proceedings begin, and had given, in a note, brief sketches of those members who either resigned their membership or lost it by removal from the State.

*The President appointed subsequently Messrs. Leverett Saltonstall, Charles C. Smith, and Samuel A. Green as delegates; and the two gentlemen last named were present as representatives of the Society at the celebration.-EDS.

P

On motion of Mr. WINSOR, it was

Voted, That the thanks of the Society be given to Mr. Deane and Mr. Smith for their valued services in the preparation of the Early Proceedings of the Society.

A serial number of the current Proceedings, completing a volume, was also laid upon the table, and the Committee, through its chairman, Mr. Dexter, stated that as soon as the index was prepared the volume would be issued and numbered xvii.; the filling of the gap by the publication of the second volume of the Early Proceedings having made it possible to designate the volumes by numbers, by which arrangement they could be conveniently cited.

Mr. JUSTIN WINSOR drew attention to the Society's copy of Price's view of Boston, dated 1743, and gave his reasons for believing that this view is from a revamped old plate, brought forward anew at that time to compliment Faneuil for the gift of his hall, the plate being dedicated by Price to that benefactor of the town. This 1743 plate has been generally considered, up to a year or two ago, the oldest known engraved view of Boston. The Public Library procured not many months ago a smaller view, measuring 18 by 12 inches, styled "Southeast View of the City of Boston, in North America; I. Carwithan, engraver, London; printed for Bowles and Carver, No. 69 St. Paul's Church Yard." Those who have carefully examined this view place it somewhat earlier than the Price-Faneuil view, as represented by the copies now known. A duplicate of this smaller view is owned by Mr. Henry H. Edes of Charlestown. Still another copy, with changes in the inscription, and with numbers attached to prominent buildings, belongs to a set of colored views, which were imported during the last century by Treasurer Storer, of Harvard College, for use in an instrument then in vogue, which represented such views under magnifying power. This set now belongs to Miss Eliza Susan Quincy, and the precise correspondence of the numbers in this smaller view with those of what seems to be the original series of figures in the PriceFaneuil (1743) view led Mr. Winsor to think that we have in this view a close transcript of the original condition of the larger plate. There is a second copy of the 1743 view in the Public Library, which formerly belonged to the Hon. Josiah Quincy, Jr., and it was from this last that the lithographic reduced fac-simile was made some years ago. A third copy, of much better condition than the other two, belongs to the

American Antiquarian Society. The recently published albertype reproduction is reduced from the lithographic facsimile which omits some features of the original. Dr. Greenwood, in his History of the King's Chapel, mentions an engraved view, showing Boston as it appeared in 1720, but no such view bearing that date is now known. Fortunately the statement is accompanied by a vignette extract from this alleged 1720 view, showing old King's Chapel and Beacon Hill behind it. This small extract, by comparison, is shown to correspond with Price's view as we know it, even to the bad drawing of the buildings, but with two significant differences. Beacon Hill has shrubbery on it in the large print, and the Hancock house, erected in 1737, cuts the southerly line of Beacon-hill slope, and these are not in the vignette. This would show that the plate Greenwood copied from was of a condition anterior to 1737. Further, the principal buildings in the 1743 view are numbered, as before intimated, from Boston Neck to the North End in regular sequence from 1 to 49, with explanations in the margin. Now, scrutiny shows that no building erected after 1731 is included in this sequence of numbers with one significant exception, while buildings erected subsequent to 1731 are numbered in irregular order with figures higher than 50. This would indicate that the state of the plate, when the numbering was first put on, must be of an earlier date than 1731. The exception referred to is this: In the marginal description number 10 is "the South Meetinghouse, built 1669," while number 10 in the picture shows the body of the old church which stood on that site, topped with the present steeple, erected in 1729, and not very neatly joined. The inference is that the engraver added the steeple to the older plate, which had the original meeting-house, and neglected to change the date "1669" in the margin to "1729," to correspond. In this regular sequence of numbers the new brick church and Christ Church come in their proper places, and as these buildings were erected respectively in 1721 and 1723, it would seem that the original condition of the plate must be later than these dates.

Mr. Winsor's deduction was this, that the original plate of Price's view must have been executed between 1723 and 1729, and must represent the oldest known engraved view of Boston. He hoped a copy of the picture as originally engraved might be brought to light. In the mean while the smaller view, already referred to, must be held to represent it.

Mr. GEORGE B. CHASE communicated a diary kept by