The annual meeting of the Minnesota Historical Society was held in the
new Historical building at St. Paul, January 14, 1918. The address was
delivered by Lester B. Shippee of the University of Minnesota on the
subject, “Social and Economic Effects of the Civil War with Special
Reference to Minnesota.”
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The annual spring meeting of the Mississippi Valley Historical
Association is scheduled to be held at St. Paul this year; the formal
dedication of the Minnesota Historical Society’s building taking place
at this time.
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On April 9, in the Jefferson Memorial Library, St. Louis, was unveiled
a bronze Roll of Fame tablet in honor of the pioneers of Missouri from
1793 to 1826. There are 112 names on the tablet, among them those of
Major Nathan Heald and Rebekah Heald, his wife. Major Heald was
commander at Fort Dearborn from 1810 until its destruction by the
savages in 1812. Most of Major Heald’s existing papers are preserved
in the Wisconsin Historical Library.
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Mr. R. C. Ballard Thruston of Louisville has secured possession of the
manuscript report of the Illinois country made by George Rogers Clark
to Governor Mason of Virginia in 1779. The document contains
seventy-four pages 6½ by 8¼ inches, amounting to some 18,000 words.
Mr. Thruston intends that it shall eventually go either to the Filson
Club or to some other Kentucky historical organization. Although
already twice put in print, it is a source of gratification to the
historical fraternity of the Middle West to know that this interesting
manuscript is to be permanently preserved and made accessible to the
public.
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A laudable undertaking having for its ultimate object the improvement
of our relations with Mexico has been instituted through the
generosity of Edward Doheny, of Los Angeles. He has given a fund for
the study of social and industrial conditions in Mexico, in order that
the American public may be given impartial and authoritative
information about these matters instead of having to depend, as has
been largely the case hitherto, on partisan or ill-informed reports.
Twelve students have been at work on the study since October, 1917,
having been engaged for the period of one year. The results of this
work will be published in a series of reports. Members of the State
Historical Society and Wisconsin people, generally, will be interested
to know that Chester Lloyd Jones of Madison, a life member of the
Society, is one of the scholars engaged in this important task of
constructive research. Headquarters for the work have been established
at the Bancroft Library, University of California, where Mr. Jones is
spending the year in the capacity of research associate of the
University.
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The Illinois Catholic Historical Society has recently been organized,
with headquarters in the Ashland Block, Chicago. William J. Onahan is
president of the Society and Joseph J. Thompson editor-in-chief. From
the preliminary announcement, which comes to us just as we go to
press, the new society appears to have the backing of the more
important churchmen of Chicago and Illinois. A magazine, the _Illinois
Catholic Historical Review_, is to be issued.
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As we go to press the program is received for a centennial meeting of
the Illinois State Historical Society at Springfield, April 17 and 18.
Addresses by Prof. Allen Johnson, of Yale, Elbert J. Benton, of
Western Reserve, C. W. Alvord, of the University of Illinois, Charles
W. Moores, of Indianapolis, Hon. Louis Aubert, member of the French
High Commission, and Pres. John H. Finley, of the University of New
York, are scheduled.
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Francis A. Sampson, secretary of the Missouri Historical Society from
1901 to 1915 and bibliographer from 1915 on, died at Columbia,
Missouri, February 4, 1918. From 1906 until 1915 Mr. Sampson was
editor of the _Missouri Historical Review_. He was an inveterate
collector of materials pertaining to Missouri history, and was largely
responsible for the upbuilding of the society’s library of 60,000
titles.
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The death of Father Arthur E. Jones, archivist of the Jesuit College
of St. Mary, took place at Montreal, on January 19. Father Jones was
one of the foremost authorities in America on the work of the early
Jesuit missionaries and explorers. To the unrivaled opportunities
afforded him for utilizing all the source material in the possession
of his order he united a great energy and zeal in carrying his
researches to the very scene of Jesuit labors, one of his many
activities being the location around the Georgian Bay of the mission
stations which were destroyed in the Iroquois onslaughts, so well
described by Parkman. The researches that were carried on in this
regard were fully described in the fifth annual report of the Bureau
of Archives of Ontario, published in 1909.
The archives of St. Mary’s College, Montreal, of which Father Jones
was custodian, comprise one of the most valuable collections of
material on early Canadian and mid-west material in the Dominion.
Marquette’s journal is there; so are the wonderfully minute linguistic
writings of Father Potier, five large volumes dealing with the Huron
language, now completely dead. When it is remembered that the Jesuits
have been in America three centuries and that they are noted for the
care they take of their records, some idea can be gained of the
importance of the collection in St. Mary’s College.
In his later years Father Jones had given special attention to making
his record of Jesuit service at the various missions as complete as
possible. He had also done considerable work on the Potier writings
which, but for the outbreak of the Great War, would probably have been
reproduced in photo-facsimile ere now by the Ontario Archives
Department. The project is only held up until such time as world
affairs are less disturbed.
Though a portion of his life was spent in parochial work, the chief
work of Father Jones was along educational lines. He is the author or
editor of a number of valuable publications in his chosen field of
investigation. He was a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a
corresponding member of several of the leading historical societies of
the United States, including our own State Historical Society. He was
a fine type of that mentality which the training of his order so often
produces; a delightful friend and acquaintance and a thorough
investigator.
* * * * *
The Wyoming Historical and Geological Society of Pennsylvania
celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of its founding on April 12, 1918,
commemorating at the same time the one hundred tenth anniversary of
the burning of anthracite coal successfully in an open grate of
Wilkes-Barre. Christopher Wren was elected corresponding secretary of
the society, succeeding the late Rev. Horace E. Hayden.
* * * * *
The leading article in the March number of the _Mississippi Valley
Historical Review_ is on “President Lincoln and the Illinois Radical
Republicans,” by Arthur C. Cole. It sets forth in interesting fashion
the dissatisfaction felt by the radical wing of the Republican party
in the early part of Lincoln’s administration with his conservative
and temporizing policy. L. H. Gipson gives a clear account of the
internal dissensions and other factors responsible for “The Collapse
of the Confederacy”; Homer Hockett, formerly of Wisconsin, discusses
“The Influence of the West on the Rise and Fall of Political Parties”;
and Theodore Blegen, of Milwaukee, a member of the State Historical
Society of Wisconsin, tells of “A Plan for the Union of British North
America and the United States, 1866.” Professor Alvord, whose
resignation as managing editor of the _Review_ was announced in our
March number, has consented to continue in charge until the close of
the war.