Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[graphic]

Photograph copyrighted 1887 by George C. Cox.

Walt Whitman
Sept: 187

[blocks in formation]

T was in grateful memory of the founders of the republic and in sympathy with the revival of interest in our country's history marking the period of the centennial of our independence, that the Society of the Sons of the Revolution was formed. Instituted on the birthday of Washington, February 22, 1876,-the original roll of membership being preserved in the library of the New York Historical Society, the association took fuller and firmer shape on the centennial celebration of the anniversary of the formal evacuation of New York by the British, December 3, 1883. It was incorporated as a society of the state of New York, May 3, 1884. Numbers were attracted to an organization so patriotic in its object and rapidly becoming so popular; and, with added numbers, there arose in the minds of many descendants of Revolutionary sires outside of the state of New York the wish to share in this patriotic purpose of honoring our fathers' memory.

Pennsylvania was the first to organize a state society of the Sons of the Revolution, independent of the parent society of New York. The District of Columbia followed; Iowa, New Jersey and Geogia successively organized societies; and these six state societies

united in a general or national organization, in March, 1890.

On the evening of October 1, 1891, in response to a call for organization issued September 23, some twentyfive or thirty gentlemen met in the anteroom of Faneuil Hall and formed a Society of Sons of the Revolution in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, electing the following list of officers: William Leverett Chase, president; Hazard Stevens, vice-president; Frank Harrison Briggs, treasurer; Henry Dexter Warren, secretary; Walter Kendall Watkins, registrar; Francis Ellingwood Abbot, historian; and Eben Norton Horsford, Horsford, Andrew Robeson, William Curtis Curtis Capell, Theodore Harold Clapp, Arthur Henry Dutton, Gilbert Hodges, Charles Howard Bailey, Jr., Walter Gilman Page and Winthrop Wetherbee, as a board of managers.

On October 9, 1891, a charter was granted the society by the secretary of the Commonwealth. October 24 the first meeting of the board of managers was held, and it was at once decided that immediate action should be taken towards fulfilling the requirements of the constitution of the society, which were "to perpetuate the memory of the men who, in the military, naval and civil service of the

[graphic]

Photograph copyrighted 1887 by George C. Cox.

Walt Whitman

THE

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE.

NEW SERIES.

MARCH, 1899.

VOL. XX. No. 1.

I1

THE MASSACHUSETTS SOCIETY OF SONS OF THE REVOLUTION.

By Walter Gilman Page.

T was in grateful memory of the founders of the republic and in sympathy with the revival of interest in our country's history marking the period of the centennial of our independence, that the Society of the Sons of the Revolution was formed. Instituted on the birthday of Washington, February 22, 1876, the original roll of membership being preserved in the library of the New York Historical Society, the association took fuller and firmer shape on the centennial celebration of the anniversary of the formal evacuation of New York by the British, December 3, 1883. It was incorporated as a society of the state of New York, May 3, 1884. Numbers were attracted to an organization triotic in its object and rapid mino so popular; and, with in the r

united in a general or national organization, in March, 1890.

On the evening of October 1, 1891, in response to a call for organization issued September 23, some twentyfive or thirty gentlemen met in the anteroom of Faneuil Hall and formed a Society of Sons of the Revolution in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, electing the following list of officers: William Leverett Chase, president; Hazard Stevens, vice-president; Frank Harrison Briggs, treasurer; Henry Dexter Warren, secretary; Walter Kendall Watkins, registrar; Francis Ellingwood Abbot, historian; and Eben Norton Horsford, Andrew Robeson, Robeson, William Curtis Capell, Theodore Harold Clapp, Arthur Henry Dutton, Gilbert Hodges, Charles Howard Bailey, Jr., Walter Gilman Page and Winthrop Wetherbee, as a board of managers.

On October 9, 1891, a charter was granted the society by the secretary of the Commonwealth. October 24 the first meeting of the board of managers was held, and it was at once decided that immediate action should be taken towards fulfilling the requirements of the constitution of the society, which were "to perpetuate the memory of the men who, in the military, naval and civil service of the

[graphic]
« AnteriorContinuar »