Note 561 — Chapter IX · (continued 2)

[A list of the publications of this Society, brought down, however, no later than 1868, will be found in the Historical Magazine, xiv. 99; and in 1871 Dr. S. A. Green issued a bibliography of the Society, which was also printed in its Proceedings, xii. 2. The first seven volumes of its first series of Collections were early reprinted. Each series of ten volumes has its own index. The Society’s history is best gathered from its own Proceedings, the publication of which was begun in 1855; but two volumes have also been printed, covering the earlier years 1791-1854. The first of these dates marks the founding of this the oldest historical society in this country. Its founder, if one person can be so called, was Dr. Jeremy Belknap, who was one of the earliest who gave the writing of history in America a reputable character. His Life has been written by his granddaughter, Mrs. Jules Marcou, and the book is reviewed by Francis Parkman in the Christian Examiner, xliv. 78; cf. Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., i. 117; iii. 285; ix. 12; xiv. 37. His historical papers are described by C. C. Smith in the Unitarian Review, vii. 604. The two principal societies working parallel with it in part, though professedly of wider scope, are the American Antiquarian Society, at Worcester (not to be confounded with the Worcester Society of Antiquity,—a local antiquarian association), and the New England Historic, Genealogical Society, in Boston. The former has issued the Archæologia Americana and Proceedings (cf. Historical Magazine, xiv. 107); while the latter has been the main support of the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, which has published an annual volume since 1847, and these have contained various data for the history of the Society. Cf. 1855, p. 10; 1859, p. 266; 1861, preface; 1862, p. 203; 1863, preface; 1870, p. 225; 1876, p. 184, and reprinted as revised; 1879, preface, and p. 424, by E. B. Dearborn. To these associations may be added the Essex Institute, of Salem, the Connecticut Valley Historical Society (begun in 1876), the Dorchester Antiquarian Society, the Old Colony Historical Society (cf. the chapter on the Pilgrims),—all of which unite historical fellowship with publication,—and the Prince Society, an organization for publishing only, whose series of annotated volumes relating to early Massachusetts history is a valuable one.—Ed.]