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queathed to the town of his birth by Benjamin Franklin, with a primary view of encouraging young and meritorious mechanics. This Fund was placed in Mr. Minot's hands by the authorities of Boston in 1804, and was gratuitously administered by him for the long period of sixty-four years, when it had increased from four thousand to one hundred and twentyfive thousand dollars. The City Government did not fail to enter upon its records a grateful acknowledgment of the eminent prudence and probity with which the Fund had been managed.

Naturally of a retiring disposition, Mr. Minot never sought public office, and very rarely yielded to the solicitation of friends by accepting it. He served his native place for a year or two, when it was first incorporated as a City, as the presiding officer of one of its wards; and he served the Commonwealth, for another year or two, with fidelity and honor, as a member of the Executive Council, during the administration. of Governor Everett. He rendered valuable services, also, to the community, for a considerable time, as an Inspector of Prisons. But his tastes were for professional and domestic life, and he resolutely declined all further public employment.

No one could be more charming in the family or social circle, which often included Sedgwicks and Saltonstalls, and Lees and the Deweys, and Mrs. Fanny Kemble, and others of similar gifts. His noble countenance and genial manner attracted the regard and admiration of all who were admitted to his friendship, while his Christian faith and principle gave the crowning grace to his life and character.

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He was of an ancient family, which has been traced back to Thomas Minot, the Secretary to the Abbot of Saffron Walden, in Essex County, England, in the reign of Henry VIII., whose coat-of-arms was surmounted by a Cross, with the motto Ad astra per aspera." The family name, indeed, finds a distinguished wearer, still further back, in the reign of Edward III.,in the person of Laurence Minot, whose Poems, written about 1352,-earlier even than those of Chaucer, were printed in London in 1795. A copy of the little volume has recently been added to our library.

Mr. Minot was elected a member of this Society in 1843, and had thus been associated with us for thirty years, his name standing, at the time of his death, sixth, in the order of seniority of membership, on our Resident Roll. He took a warm interest in our prosperity, and delighted to remember that his father had been one of our founders. To his thoughtful consideration for our welfare, as I have the best reason to

know, we have owed more than one of the substantial contributions to our funds, which have helped to relieve our treasury within the past few years.

He was a great reader during the later period of his long life. Few men were more familiar with the sterling productions of English literature, and he was always eager to converse, with the friends who visited him in his old age, on the books of history or philosophy, of romance or poetry, which were seldom out of his hands. Rarely, however, could he be induced to prepare any thing for the press. He communicated to the "Polyanthos," a periodical now forgotten, in 1806, a graceful sketch of his father's life and character, which has lately been privately reprinted in a separate form, and a copy of it added to our collection of pamphlets. A single other production completes the list of his published writings. At the request of our own Society, he prepared, in January, 1862, a Memoir of his distinguished classmate and life-long friend, the Hon. Samuel Hoar, which is among our printed papers. It is brief, simple, just to its subject, and eminently characteristic of its author. He was impatient of the long, and often extravagant, posthumous tributes which have become customary of late years; and it would be an offence to his own memory to extend this notice by further details of his excellent, but quiet and uneventful life.

He died, in the house in Beacon Street, which he had occupied for sixty years, in the ninetieth year of his age, on the 2d of June, 1873. His old family tomb, in the "Granary Burying Ground," in which the remains of General Joseph Warren had reposed for many years after they were identified at Bunker Hill, having been vacated and surrendered by him to the City, he was buried in "Forest-Hills Cemetery," where the dust of those dear to him had already been gathered, and not far from his pleasant summer residence at Jamaica Plain.

Mr. Minot was married, in 1809, to a daughter of a former well-remembered Solicitor-General of Massachusetts, Daniel Davis, the father, also, of the present Admiral Charles H. Davis. She was a lady of rare accomplishments, whose death in 1858 was felt as a bereavement far beyond the large domestic circle of which she was an ornament. Two daughters and three sons survived him; and to one of the latter, bearing his name and engaged in the same professional pursuits, we are already indebted for an excellent account of his father's life and character, privately and anonymously printed, which has left little to be added by any one else, and which has given a warmth and a truth of delineation and color to the portrait

it presents which could only be supplied by a loving filial hand.

It is enough for others to bear witness to its fidelity.

The President presented to the Society, in the name of Mr. William Minot, the son of our late associate, two pamphlets, and a volume of Poems of Lawrence Minot, who lived in the fourteenth century.

The President now announced the decease of the Honorable Millard Fillmore, an Honorary Member, and of the Honorable Charles Sumner, a Resident Member, in the following language:

The grave closes to-day, Gentlemen, over one of our most distinguished Honorary Members, who, having held the office of President of the United States, has been recognized at the capital and throughout the country as the fit subject of national funeral honors. It is, however, by no means only to the exalted position which Mr. Fillmore was privileged to occupy more than twenty years ago, that his name will owe the respectful remembrance and grateful regard of his fellow-citizens. His political career was, indeed, an elevated and a proud one. As a member of the legislature of New York, and for a time the comptroller of its finances; as a member of the House of Representatives of the United States, and for a time its chairman of the committee of ways and means; as the elected Vice-President, and, for more than two years, owing to the lamented death of General Taylor, the President of our Republic, and this during a period of great sectional agitation and disturbance, in all these relations he has made a mark in the history of the country which cannot easily be erased or overlooked.

It certainly will not be forgotten by us of Massachusetts, that Daniel Webster and Edward Everett were successively his Secretaries of State, and that he enjoyed the confidence, the respect, and the warm regard and friendship of them both. Indeed, his whole cabinet council, during the period of his presidency, including as it did the names of Webster and Everett, of Crittenden and Corwin, of Graham and Kennedy, of Stuart and Conrad and Nathan K. Hall, but few of whom are now left among the living, and the last of whom, so long the law partner of the ex-President, by a striking coincidence has preceded him to the grave by only two or three days, that whole Cabinet, I repeat, presents a group, which will be recognized even by those who differed most widely from its policy, as reflecting lustre on him who had so surrounded himself. I may be

her & her poore parents ther, and wt ever you do let her not come again in this condition shee is now: for shee will most c'teinly be y death of her Parents; but rather let her be handed to y° old man on y Iland, for ye benefit of his goverm' to be extended to her.

Dr. HOPPIN inquired if the portrait said to be that of Charles Chauncy, the second President of the College, in the collection belonging to Harvard College, was really known to be authentic. He had some doubts about it. No one present could satisfy his doubts.

FEBRUARY MEETING, 1874.

A stated meeting was held on Thursday, the 12th instant, at 11 o'clock A.M.; the President in the chair.

The Recording Secretary read the record of the preceding meeting.

The Librarian read the list of donors to the Library for the month past.

The Corresponding Secretary read a letter of acceptance from Edward A. Freeman, D.C.L., of England, elected an Honorary Member at the September meeting.

The Recording Secretary presented, in the name of the author, the Memorial of Thomas Potts, Junior, who settled in Pennsylvania, with an historic-genealogical account of his descendants to the eighth generation. By Mrs. Thomas Potts James. Cambridge: privately printed. 1874." 416 pp. 4to, for which the thanks of the Society were voted.

The President presented, in the name of the author, the "Life and Correspondence of Samuel Johnson, D.D., Missionary of the Church of England in Connecticut, and first President of King's College, New York. By E. Edwards. Beardsley, D.D., Rector of St. Thomas's Church, New Haven." New York: 1874,-for which the thanks of the Society were ordered.

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Happening to observe, in one of our daily papers, an account of a little story book, published at Christmas, entitled "Fanny St. John," I found, on turning to it at the bookstore, that it contained what purports to be the history of the family of

Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, a French gentleman, long resi dent in this country, who made himself known by several literary works. He was the author of " Letters from an American Farmer," published in Philadelphia in 1794, and of a work in three volumes printed in Paris in 1801, entitled " Voyage dans la haute Pennsylvanie par un membre adoptif de la Nation Oneida." The story of his children, as given in the little book, is a very touching and romantic one; and they seem to have owed their preservation to Mr. Gustavus Fellowes, of a wellknown family of Boston or the vicinity, by whose granddaughter the book was written. M. de Crevecoeur was born in Caen, Normandy, in 1731, and emigrated to America in 1754. He returned finally to France (after having been Consul at New York in 1783), and died there in 1813. Among the Bowdoin papers, in my possession, I have found four of his letters to Governor Bowdoin, which are not without interest, and which I submit to the consideration of our Publishing Committee.

CAEN, LOWER NORMANDY, 1" July, 1786.

I hope your excellency has Received the Books I sent by M Barret, who was to sail from Lorient the latter end of February. I flatter myself they will be useful. I embrace the favourable opportunity of the bearer hereof Mr. Philip Déjean, a Gentleman much esteemed by the Good Marquis de la Fayette, to recall me to your excellency's remembrance, & to beg for him your Kind Protection & Countenance. We had Sollicited for him the Agency of Georgia, from whence we had conceived hope our Gouv! wou'd draw a considerable quantity of life Oak; but the Influence of the Northern contractors from Russia & Sweden have oversat all our schemes. He has resided in Canada 32 years, 18 of which he has spent at De'troit. He proposes to live some Time in your Town.

Will your Excellency be pleased to remember the differ! Seeds of artificial Grasses I sent you some Time before I left New York. I hope they have fructified, that their use is now better known. They most certainly are of y° Greatest Importance in Husbandry. I have desired M Déjean to examine those fields here which are covered with them, that after having been an ocular Witness of the vast quantities of Fodder they bring forth, he may more particularly ex-' plain it to your Excellency. I have desired him to deliver you a small quantity of the same Seeds, that in case of any accident these useful Tryals may be renew'd. Next fall I will send you a more compleat assortment & a Greater quantity, many not being Ripe. I beg your Excellency Wou'd receive them as a Token of my Earnest desire of Introducing that Important Branch of Rural Improvement into the State of Massachusetts.

I refer your Excellency to the Imperfect Instructions I have Printed in the New York Gazette, a copy of which I sent together

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