The property of the Society is as follows:

Real estate on Tremont Street.

Twenty-one thousand dollars in bonds of Boston & Albany R.R.

Five thousand dollars in bonds of the Philadelphia, Wilmington, &

Baltimore R.R.

Ten shares in stock of ditto.

Deposit of $493 in Suffolk Savings Bank.

Bond of the Hannibal & St. Joseph R.R. of one thousand dollars.

Bond of the Quincy & Palmyra R.R.

Five thousand volumes of the Society's Publications; viz., 41 of Collections, 10 of Proceedings, 2 of the Catalogue, and 1 of Lectures. Library of 17,852 volumes and 40,000 pamphlets.

The Dowse Library, of 4,650 volumes.

The Cabinet, consisting of pictures, medals, and statuary.

The copyright of plates of the Life of John Q. Adams.

The income of the Society consists of an annual assessment on each resident member of ten dollars, the admission-fee of ten dollars, the rent of the building, the interest on the Peabody and Savage Funds, and on $2,000 bonds.

The obligations of the Society are the annual interest to the Appleton Fund, to the Dowse Fund, and to the Massachusetts Historical Trust-Fund, and the interest on its mortgage note.

It owes the Merchants Bank $1,800, borrowed on the Quincy and Palmyra, and Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad bonds, and $2,500 on a note signed by the Treasurer and President.

The liberality of the members, in paying the subscriptions towards the publication of new volumes of the "Collections," has enabled me to meet the demands on the treasury.

Respectfully submitted.

BOSTON, April 8, 1874.

RICHARD FROTHINGHAM, Treasurer.

Report of the Cabinet-keeper.

The Cabinet-keeper reports that during the past year gifts to the Cabinet have been received from thirteen different persons, four of whom are members of the Society.

Among the most noteworthy articles received are profile likenesses of George Washington and of Colonel John Washington, the bequest of Joshua F. Fisher of Philadelphia; a bronze medallion of William Roscoe, sent with other gifts by Miss Dorothy L. Dix of Boston; a pen-and-ink profile likeness of George Washington, from Mr. A. H. Safford of Cambridge; a portrait of the late Hon. David Sears, by Pratt of Boston, from Mr. Winthrop; and relics of the Chicago fire, from Mr. Lawrence.

The Cabinet-keeper is indebted to Messrs. Perkins and Appleton, now of the committee on the Cabinet from the

Council of the Society, for valuable assistance, his own pressing business engagements having left him less time for the duties of his office than might advantageously be spent in their discharge.

Respectfully submitted.

BOSTON, April 9, 1874.

HENRY G. DENNY, Cabinet-keeper.

Mr. SALTONSTALL, from the Committee on Nominations, submitted the following list of officers for the ensuing year, which was unanimously adopted :

The thanks of the Society were presented to Mr. Denny, the late Cabinet-keeper, who had declined a renomination, for his services in that office for the last six years.

Also the thanks of the Society were voted to Mr. Waterston and to Mr. Appleton, the retiring members of the Standing Committee, for their services on that Committee.

Voted, to give the Building Committee full power to introduce the new improvement for making the roof of the Society's Building more completely fire-proof, if in their judgment it was expedient.

The President notified the meeting that the Council had accepted an invitation to the Society to meet at his house on the evening of the 16th instant.

MEMOIR

OF

HON. WILLIAM BRIGHA M.

BY CHANDLER ROBBINS, D.D.

WILLIAM BRIGHAM was born in Grafton, Mass., Sept. 6, 1806, at the old homestead, secured by his great-grandfather, Charles Brigham, one of the forty original grantees to whom the deed of conveyance of the town was given by the Indians, on the 19th of March, 1728. His father was Charles (born July 27, 1769, died Dec. 2, 1847); his mother, Susanna Baylis (died June 10, 1837).

He fitted for college partly at Leicester Academy, and partly at Westboro', where he taught in the village school. From the former place, twelve miles distant from his home, he was accustomed to walk every Saturday afternoon to spend the Sabbath with his parents.

He entered Harvard College in 1825, older and more fully grown than most of his classmates; with a strong constitution, and vigorous health, established by the excellent physical and moral habits of his youth. Diligent and faithful as a student, conscientiously obedient to the college laws, manly and irreproachable in character, he secured the respect and kindly regard both of the Faculty and the class.

Soon after having received his Bachelor's Degree in 1829, he came to Boston; and by a fortunate coincidence, as he always regarded it, while on his way from Grafton in the stage-coach met a lady, the wife of Hon. George Morey, then a lawyer of repute in Boston, who, on learning the object for which he was going to the city, kindly offered to introduce him to her husband. This circumstance led to his studying law in Mr. Morey's office, and had an important influence upon his future career. He was admitted to the bar in 1832.

He represented Boston in the General Court in 1834, 1835, and 1836, again in 1841, and still again in 1849, and was a member of the Massachusetts Senate in the Legislature of 1866. In the year 1836 he was appointed by Governor Everett to edit

the laws of Plymouth Colony, which office he discharged with his habitual fidelity and accuracy. He was admitted to the Supreme Court of the United States, on motion of Mr. Webster, Dec. 28, 1847.

Mr. Brigham delivered Addresses on several occasions, among which was that at the Centennial Anniversary at Grafton, April 29, 1835, which was printed; one at Leicester Academy, August, 1850; an Address before the Worcester County Agricultural Society in 1835, and another before the Westboro' Agricultural Society in 1855. He also delivered a lecture before the Lowell Institute, Jan. 19, 1869, on "The Colony of New Plymouth, and its relations to Massachusetts," which was published, together with other lectures by members of the Massachusetts Historical Society, on "The Early History of Massachusetts."

He was married, June 11, 1840, to Margaret Austin Brooks. His children are William Tufts, H.U. 1862, Charles Brooks, H.U. 1866, Edward Austin, Mary Brooks, and Arthur Austin. In 1848 he purchased the interest of his brothers and sisters in the Brigham Hill Homestead in Grafton, and for the rest of his life made that his summer residence. He died in Boston, July 9, 1869.

Mr. Brigham was an able lawyer, and had a large practice; but his devotion to his professional duties did not prevent him from taking an active interest in public affairs and in philanthropic enterprises. His cheerful and hopeful temper, his healthiness of mind, and the animation with which he worked, contributed in no small measure to his influence and success. He was a prudent and trusted counsellor, and a useful and upright man.

80

SPECIAL MEETING, APRIL, 1874.

A Social Meeting of the Society was held at the house of the President, 90 Marlboro' Street, on the evening of the 16th April.

The President took the chair at a little after 8 o'clock, and entered upon the duties of the evening by presenting to the Society a copy of Vol. I. of the "Codex Diplomaticus Cavensis," to which he and others in this country had subscribed at the suggestion of Count Circourt of Paris. He also gave a copy of a recent pamphlet issued by the Peabody Educational Fund.

He then read a letter addressed to himself by the late Professor Agassiz, introducing it as follows:

I have thought, Gentlemen, that I might occupy a few moments this evening, not altogether inappropriately, by presenting to the Society, with a few words of explanation, a letter from the late Professor Agassiz, on a subject of public interest, addressed to me nearly nine years ago, under somewhat peculiar circumstances.

It happened that Mr. George Peabody, on his arrival in this country, in the summer of 1866, did me the honor to take me into his confidence and counsel, in regard to the great benefactions which he was proposing for his native land. He came out to my residence at Brookline, and spent two or three days with me in consultation. On one of these days I sent for Professor Agassiz to meet him at dinner. Agassiz accepted the invitation and came. But, before coming, he addressed this letter to me, understanding that Mr. Peabody might possibly be influenced, in some degree, by my advice.

In this letter, without asking any thing for himself, or for the particular work in which he was engaged, he unfolded, in the most unselfish way, his own views as to one of the great needs for the successful prosecution of scientific, and indeed of philosophical and literary, studies in our country.

The letter is too interesting and too important to be lost or left unpublished; and as Mr. Peabody, not long afterwards, became one of our greatest benefactors, and was placed on our Honorary Roll, and as he made the President of our Society (ex officio) one of the Trustees and Guardians of his Museum of Archæology and Ethnology at Cambridge, it has seemed to me not unfit that this letter of Agassiz should find a place in our archives, and be printed in our Proceedings.