SOCIETY NEWS and ACCESSIONS on November 9, 1936, Professor Samuel E
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SOCIETY NEWS AND ACCESSIONS On November 9, 1936, Professor Samuel E. Morison of Harvard University delivered an address before the Society on "Harvard College in the Eighteenth Century." At the conclusion of the illustrated lecture, Mr. Richard Peters, Jr., Recording Secretary of the Society, notified Professor Morison of the CounciPs action in electing him an honorary member of the Society. ARTICLES AND PUBLICATIONS The second volume of Frank H. Stewart*s Notes on Old Gloucester County, New Jersey, calendars the contents of two Gloucester County newspapers, The Columbian Herald and The Constitution. Documents and information drawn from other sources are printed as well, but by far the greater part of the material is taken from the files of these two papers. Lists of wills probated; names of those who were candidates for political office; lists of justices of the peace; records of tavern licenses; tax lists and lists of debtors will aid materially the researches of genealogists. Records of commodity prices; ferry rates; tavern rates; items of information about the manufacture of glass; the raising of silk; the Camden and Woodbury railroad; information about schools and libraries; and poor house reports may be found in this volume. Anthony Wayne a biographical essay by Dr. Henry Pleasants, Jr., designed to give "the citizens of Chester County a brief word-picture of a man who typified all that was upright, fearless and generous"; the same author*s Three Scientists of Chester County, containing sketches of Humphrey Marshall, author of Arbustum Americanum, of William Darlington, doctor and botanist whose major work was Flora Cestrica, and of Joseph Trimble Rothrock one of the earliest of Pennsylvanians to interest himself in forest conservation; and Four Great Artists of Chester County, embodying essays on Bayard Taylor and Thomas Buchanan Read who divided their interests between art and letters, on William Marshall Swayne, the sculptor, and on George Cope, the exponent of photographic realism in his paintings, compose the series of little books devoted to Chester County biography presented to the Society by Dr. Pleasants. A Unique Institution: the Story of the National Farm School, by Herbert D. Allman, is a history of the Farm School which was founded in 1896 at Doyles- town, Pennsylvania, by Joseph Krauskopf in order to train "scientific and prac- tical agriculturists." This book records one man's attempt to deal with one of the problems created by the unprecedented immigration of the post-Civil War period by providing an opportunity for boys and young men to fit themselves for another kind of life than that of the city slums. 103 104 SOCIETY NEWS AND ACCESSIONS January The Bulletin of the Historical Society of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, for October, 1936, constitutes the first number of a new publication undertaken by that society in order to keep the members informed of the "work, progress and needs of the Society." Papers read at the meetings immediately preceding the date of publication and selections from the material accumulated in the years from 1926-1936 will be printed. The October issue includes essays by Chauncey B. Knapp on "Montgomery Square and Its Traditions"; by Laura Riegel Cook on "Sampler Lore," being a brief history of the sampler from the first recorded use of the word in 1502 to more modern times; by Mrs. William F. Moyer on "Glass Paper-Weights and What-Not"; "A Few Remarks Relating to Belmont Driving Park," by Milton R. Yerkes; and "Backed Against the Hundred Miles Hills—the Spirit of Pennsylvania," by Irvin P. Knipe. "Town Regulations of Lititz, 1759," by Herbert H. Beck published in the Transactions of the Moravian Historical Society for 1936, describes the rules by which the congregation or "Economy" of Lititz was governed. These regula- tions extended to almost all fields—agriculture, domestic, social and religious life—and were rigidly enforced for almost a hundred years. The Moravian religion and influence was not suffered to grow without op- position as "An Honest Effort to 'Save Pennsylvania from the Moravians/ " an article in this same issue by Clara A. Beck shows. Further information on this opposition is contained in "The Beginning of the Moravian Church in Lan- caster, Pennsylvania," by the late Reverend J. Max Hark, edited by G. W. Schultz. Here the Moravians' difficulties in getting ministers for their congre- gations, their quarrels with the German Lutherans, and the disagreeable passages at arms between the Muhlenberg and the Lyberg factions are discussed. "The Autobiography of Bernhard Adam Grube," translated by the Right Reverend J. T. Hamilton; an account of the "Visit of the Chiefs of the Six Nations to Nazareth, Pennsylvania," translated by James Henry; and an article on "Moravian Customs; Our Inheritance," by Adelaide L. Fries are also in- cluded in this volume of Transactions. Frederick A. Godcharles contributed a biographical sketch of Governor James Pollock, descriptive of Pennsylvania politics in the heyday of the Know Nothing Party, to the Northumberland County Historical Society Proceedings and Addresses for May, 1936. In the same issue Heber G. Gearhart considered critically "The Stone House at Fisher's Ferry and the John Penn Legend." Other articles contained in this issue of the Proceedings are: "The Old Centre Turnpike," by Chester D. Clark; "Early Taverns along the Centre Turnpike in Northumberland County," by Carl Rice; an account of "Early Life in the Vicinity of Bear Gap," by J. Mettler Pensyl; a brief history of the "Music of Northumberland County," by Irvin W. Rothenberg; an article on the origin and meaning of the "Township Names of Old Northumberland County," and "The Names of Present Day Townships of Northumberland County," both by Charles Fisher Snyder; notes on "The Dewart Family," by Lewis i937 SOCIETY NEWS AND ACCESSIONS 105 Dewart; extracts from "Philip Vickers Fithian's Journal," by T. Kenneth Wood; and an account of "The Himmel Church," to which has been appended a transcription of the early baptismal and communion records, by John H. Carter. The publication of the Scottish Record Society for September, 1936, con- tains an account of the "Binns Papers 1320-1864." Among the papers described are letters and documents pertaining to Captain James Dalyell (1730-1763). Dalyell was with the English army in America acting as aide-de-camp to Gen- eral Amherst, and was killed at Fort Detroit in July, 1763. The various com- missions of Dalyell, letters to him from friends serving in Virginia, the Carolinas, and the West Indies, including a long account of the capture of Martinique; letters discussing the situation in New Foundland, Montreal, Niagara, and Detroit are in this collection. These letters are full of military news and gossip redolent of life in the army posts of the British colonies. " 'Hans Breitmann' in England and America" is the title of an essay on Charles Godfrey Leland, by Sculley Bradley, which appears in the Autumn, 1936 Colophon. Mr. Bradley discussed Leland's difficulties because of the lack of proper copyright laws in America; his journalistic labors in New York and Philadelphia and his ultimate discouragement and bitterness because of the little recognition accorded his work in his native city. This last was in marked contrast to the delighted appreciation of the comic qualities of "Hans" which was evident in European literary circles from London to Rome. As a result Leland concluded that to live the life of an expatriate was more pleasant than to return to this country. He wrote to his friend George Henry Boker, "I was made so very little of in my native city—(even in Rome I was more honored and esteemed)—that I had lost a great deal of interest in it before I left. Poor old Philadelphia—God grant that she send me money enough all my days!" "Where Is Franklin's First Chart of the Gulf Stream?" by Franklin Bache, is published in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society for 1936. This essay contains an account of Franklin's observations on the Gulf Stream and those of other navigators. Three charts are appended to the article. One is the chart which Franklin had engraved in France, the second is the chart printed by the Philosophical Society with an inset showing the observations of a certain Mr. Gilpin on the migration of herring, observations which were subsequently confounded with Franklin's on the Gulf Stream; and the result of this confusion, a composite chart printed for Albert Henry Smyth's work, The Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin. Leland's friend, Boker, is the subject of an article by Mr. Bradley in the November, 1936, issue of American Literature. In "George Henry Boker and Angie Hicks," Mr. Bradley comments upon Boker and his relations with Angie 106 SOCIETY NEWS AND ACCESSIONS January Hicks whom tradition had designated as the probable "Dark Lady" of Boker's sonnet sequence. The discovery of a new manuscript now in the library of the University of Pennsylvania proves conclusively that at least 86 of the sonnets were "written for, and sent to, Mrs. Hicks." The same periodical contains an article on "Edgar Allen Poe, Cryptographer," by William F. Friedman in which the bubble of Poe's reputed knowledge of the art of deciphering codes is pricked by one in a position to speak with authority on the subject. Southern Sketches No. 10, 1936, contains an article on "Republican News- papers of South Carolina," by Robert H. Woody. Unionist and Republican papers existed in this state from 1862-1877. The first ones were little more than military gazettes published for the Northern expeditionary forces garrisoned in the region. In as much as these regiments were largely from New England the most complete files of The New South, The Free South, The Palmetto Herald, and The Swamp Angel are to be found in the American Antiquarian Society, the Widener Library, and the Massachusetts Historical Society.