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SERENO D. NICKERSON 1828-1909

SerenoNickerson1874.jpg

Deputy Grand Master, 1866
Grand Master 1872-1874,
Recording Grand Secretary, 1881-1908,
Grand Historian 1908-1909.


TERM

1872 1873 1874

MEMORIAL

From Proceedings, Page 1909-145:

"Si Monumentum Requiris Circumspice. This inscription appears on a tablet in Saint Paul's Cathedral, in London, dedicated to Sir Christopher Wren, the architect and builder of that monumeutal structure. To him who searches our records, examines our Proceedings, or becomes interested in. our archives, and finds as a result a well preserved system wherein appear the historical, literary, and Masonic landmarks of our Older, we may well quote the ahove inscription and say of Brother Nickerson, If Thou Seekest His Monument, Look About Thee.

"Officially Brother Nickerson is best known and will be longest remembered as our Recording Grand Secretary for twenty-seven years; but to those of us who have known his work, his great merit extends beyond that official position to his contributions to the history, literature, and jurisprudence of our Order during the larger part of his mole than a half century of Masonic brotherhood. Not only in these but in the quality and correctness of our ritual and its establishment on a permanent basis, in his remarkable business sagacity, and in his attention to the financial management of our affairs at a critical time, he has left an impress on the life of our Grand Lodge that makes his personal Masonic biography almost a history of our jurisdiction duling the period of his Masonic life.

"His especial fitness for the various important positions which he filled with us was derived from an inheritance and training accorded to but few in his day and generation; and it was the good fortune of this body to have enjoyed the benefits resulting from his devotion and skill.

"Descended in direct line from William Nickerson - who arrived in this country in 1637 and afterwards became the active and stalwart settler of Monomoy, now the entire town of Chatham, on Cape Cod, where, after years of struggle in and out of courts, he finally became possessed of four thousand acres of land - Brother Nickerson also derived origin from Elder William Brewster and Stephen Hopkins of the Mayflower, from Governor Thomas Prence of the Old Colony, and from Reverend John Mayo, who was the first minister of the Second Church in Boston.

"Men of present valor, stalwart old iconoclasts,
Unconvinced by axe or gibbet that all virtue was the past's."

"He thus came naturally by those enduring principles combining independence of thought. strength of character, and habits of industry, which were essential parts of his nature.

"From a father of high character and reputation - Captain Ebenezer Nickerson - who for half a century was a leading and successful old-time Boston merchant on Long Wharf, he acquired through precept and association the habits of honesty, candor, and industry which we admired; and from a pious and cultured mother of Lexington and Concord ancestry, intellectual in her attainments and of refined mind, those rules of life and conduct that in after years made him so zealously devoted to the principles and cardinal virtues of our Institution.

"Along the cool sequestered vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way"

until their remains were placed. at rest in the Nickerson tomb, in the Granary Burying Ground iu Boston - a fitting place of repose for persons of such distinguished ancestry and personal attainments.

"Brother Nickerson was born in Boston, Oct. 16, 1828, and his education began under the guidance of his accomplished mother, supplemented by the best private schools of the period; after a course at Chauncy Hall, so famous in its day as a fitting school for college, he entered, in 1839, at the age of sixteen years, Phillips Academy at Andover, where he graduated with high honors, being valedictorian of his class and taking a part in a Greek dialogue written by himself. He at once entered Yale College, where he earned a high rank in his work and received his degree on graduation in 1845. For nearly two years following he studied law at the Dane Law School of Harvard College, from which he received his degree of LL.B. in 1847, and the next year, on an examination in open court before a presiding Judge, as was the custom in those days, he was admitted to the Suffolk Bar.

"Before another year expired he relinquished what had been the ambition of his life, and, in deference to his father's wishes, gave up the practice of the law, and in 1849 entered mercantile life with his father, under the name of E. Nickerson & Co.; during the subsequent years he devoted several months to travel in European countries, continuing his studies, and collecting works of art and literature, for which he had a well cultivated taste for one of his time.

"After his retirement from active business he occupied his time with real estate interests, and in 1861, at the opening of the Civil War, enlisted in the United States service, but failed to pass the physical examination, being rejected as a soldier on account of defective eyesight.

"During his years of active business life in Boston, he sustained the reputation acquired by his father, of a man of high character and absolute integrity in his dealings. He was one of the organizers of the Third National Bank of Boston, aud for many years a Director.

"Social life in Boston knew him well, as !e was a member of almost every club, society and gathering of his day. His literary and artistic attainments caused him to be sought after in many influential positions, and few men of his age and time in his younger days oecupied a more attractive and dignified position among the best people in Boston than did our late Brother.

"April 21, 1856, he took his first degree in Freemasonry in Winslow Lewis Lodge, Boston (the Lodge being then under dispensation), and he was twelfth in the number of candidates. Later, March 13, 1857, he qualified as a member of the Lodge; he was its Worshipful Master in 1860-1863 ; Aug. 25, 1865, the Lodge made him an honorary member, and at the time of his death he was not only the senior Past Master but the senior member of that body.

"From this time forward he appears to have devoted his life almost exclusively to Freemasonry as exemplified and embodied in our Grand Lodge and its dependencies.

"In 1860 he entered the Grand Lodge as a Warden from his Lodge, and until the time of his death held office uninterruptedly in connection with our Body.

"He was appointed District Deputy Grand Master (First District) in 1864 while William Parkman was Grand Master, and the following year was appointed Deputy Grand Master, occupying that position during the year 1866.

"In the years 1872-3-4 he was Grand Master of our Grand Lodge, and the Proceedings for those years bear evidence of the personal care, attention and interest he showed in the welfare of the Craft. While his administration was marked by no great or spectacular event in our history, his great interest, his wisdom, care and thought, coupled with an enthusiasm then ripened by mature years and experience gave to our system of administration a method and direction that assisted to establish a policy, the benefits of which we enjoy to-day in our methods and habits of work. He was at the time of his death our oldest Past Grand Master.

"In 1864 he was elected one of the Board of Directors of the Grand Lodge, in which office he continued until 1881, when he became Recording Grand Secretary. During this same period, from 1867 to 1875, he was Chairman of the Finance Committee of the Grand Lodge, having practically entire charge of the management of its funds.

"He was a member of the Library Committee from 1875 to 1909; one of the Commissioners of Trials from 1877 to 1881; of the Charity Committee from 1898 to 1909.

"In April, 1864, our apartments at the top of the Winthrop House, on the site of the present Masonic Temple, were destroyed by fire; after the adjustment of the insurance the Grand Lodge found itself with a lot of land and $2,000 in money with which to erect a new structure. He was on the Building Committee, and as Chairman of the Finance Committee, assumed the duty and responsibility of financing the building of the new Temple. While occupying that position, which continued until 1875, he handled something like half a million of dollars. This large sum of money was raised through the inspiration which he helped to impart to the Lodges, Brethren of the Craft possessed of means, and the hazard of his own fortune, which was then substantial, by endorsing the loans to the Grand Lodge, until at one time he stood as its guarantor or endorser to the amount of $200,000. but for his action the Grand Lodge would have been unable to borrow money and carry on the construction of the Temple at that time; the beauty of this noble work is that he was always too modest to speak of the great and important part which he thus played in making the building of that Temple possible.

"Incidentally, as an evidence of his generosity and love of the Craft, when he was elected and installed Grand Master in 1871, he invited the members of the Grand Lodge to dine with him, and gave a banquet to four hundred persons, costing him personally in the neighborhood of $3,000.

"On the death, in 1881, of Tracy P. Cheever, who had been Recording Grand Secretary for three years, Brother Nickerson was appointed and subsequently was elected to that office by the Grand Lodge; his election and installation as Recording Grand Secretary continued annually until 1908, when he declined to serve further in that capacity, and in June of that year was appointed, with universal approval, to the position of Grand Historian to the Grand Lodge, - a place never held by any one before and which was created for him personally by reason of his high attainments in the line of Masonic history. The special task which he intended to carry out was to write a history of our Grand Lodge, and he himself hoped his life would be spared years enough to complete so important an undertaking. Within a few months of his death, however, when his health began to fail, he expressed his sincere regret that he had not retired ten years earlier from his position as Recording Grand Secretary so that he could accomplish this work, which he now saw would be impossible.

"We drop the veil of charity over the acts of those whom Brother Nickerson trusted, whose unfortunate doings contributed to the loss of his comfortable fortune during the early seventies; but we will record to his eternal credit that he subsequently paid thousands of dollars for which he was in no way personally or legally responsible, but which he felt morally bound to make good because of the actions of others connected with him. Those to whom the circumstances and facts are known will never forget this unusual example of honorable action on his part in connection with his business affairs. And on all these matters he was modestly silent.

"During the same year that he became a member of Winslow Lewis Lodge he received the Capitular Degrees in St. Paul's Royal Arch Chapter, and was knighted in De Molay Commandery of Knights Templars. St. Bernard Comrnandery later conferred upon him honorary membership. He received the degrees of the Cryptic Rite in 1877 in Roxbury Council of Royal and Select Masters.

"He was a member of all the Scottish Rite bodies meeting in Boston, and on Nov. 17, 1871, he was crowned a Sovereign Grand Inspector General, and thus attained honorary membership in the Supreme Council of the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction for the United States.

"By his education, tastes and surroundings he was attracted to the literary and historical side of Freemasonry. He was not only interested in its ritual, in the Charges of the Masters of past years, and the ancient writings of the Order, but more especially in its early history in this country which to him was rich in incidents, particularly prior to and during the formative period of our government, in which Masonry played so large a part. By actual association and natural inspiration he had acquired from Charles W. Moore, that eminent writer and almost the foremost Masonic authority of his time, his historical tastes, so that for two years, in 1874 and 1875, he edited and maintained the New England Freemason, a magazine of which it has been written that it was 'the most scholarly production of its kind ever issued in this country.'

"It is a great misfortune that means were not provided to carry on that publication, which, like many similar works special in their nature, was not sustained as a commercial enterprise; for if the work undertaken by Brother Nickerson had been continued through a score of years there would be to-day fewer questions raised concerning priority and other circumstances connected with early Masonic life in Arnerica. Fortunately a great deal of matter, the original of which was destroyed by the unfortunate flre of 1864, has been preserved in Moore's Magazine and kindred publications, settling many points. In the dozens of volumes of our Proceedings published during Brother Nickerson's activity will be found, year after year, special statements on controverted subjects, and historical narrative occasioned by events occurring in our various Masonic bodies, enriched in style by the tongue and pen of our late Brother, and thus finding permanent place in our Records and Proceedings, separately and collectively forming a compendium of the history of events which they commemorate.

"During the year and more in which he filled the office of Grand Historian, he continued faithfully and patiently at his work, devoting his time principally to special sketches; all of us will remember his contribution on William Hoskins, Secretary of the Grand Lodge 1778-1782, a Revolutionary soldier whose portrait had recently been added to our collection in the Library; also his original sketch of the Masonic life of Josiah Quincy, who was a president of Harvard College - few if any of the Brethren knowing that that distinguished man had ever been a member of our Fraternity. These and other contributions will be recalled as coming from his pen and voice during the last year and a half of his life.

"One of Brother Nickerson's great disappointments was his inability for want of time to gather more information and evidence relative to the famous stone, the original description of which is in possession of the New England Historic Genealogical Society; this stone marked with Masonic emblems, with its date of 1606, was found at Annapolis Royal in Nova Scotia and properly authenticated, and is fully described in our Proceedings for 1891. Had Brother Nickerson been a younger man, with time at his command for research in the Provinces and Europe, he would probably have accomplished much toward his purpose.

"Before his death he was engaged, with other Brethren of the Grand Lodge, in putting into shape the material in support of the existence of a regularly chartered Masonic Lodge in Boston in 1720, recorded by Charles W. Moore in the Sketches of Masonry in his Masonic Mirror - the information coming originally from the Rev. William Montague, a Mason, and Rector of Christ Church after the Revolution, who stated that he had found in the records of King's Chapel evidence of the fact that a regular Masonic Lodge existed in Boston in 1720.

"He was disappointed also that he had not been able to trace, with more deflniteness, the origin and history of the vessel called the Freemason, owned in and cleared from Boston for the West Indiee, Sept. 18, 1721, as published in the Boston News Letter of that time.

"The story of these and other interesting facts, well established but inviting additional research, were among the many things left unfinished by him, and occasioned the few regrets which he could number in looking back over his active life. Let us hope that some future historian will continue the good work begun by him.

"Faithful to his duty to the very last he appeared, as we all know, at our September Communication, in failing health but with intellect and mind vigorous and strong; there, without reference to note or minute, he repeated facts and dates connected with the thus far futile and abortive attempt on the part of Pennsylvania to claim priority to Massachusetts in chartered and recorded Freemasonry in America. The occasion, you will recall, was the receipt of a facsimile reproduction of a writing of the Old Charges by one Thomas Carmick, an Irishman, headed at the top of some of the pages The Constitutions of Saint John's Lodge, a common dedication one hundred and fifty years and more ago by Lodges to their patron saint, and no more applicable to St. John's Lodge in Philadelphia than to any other St. John's Lodge; the headings of other pages being The Constitutions from Prince Edwin, and The holy Lodge, etc.

"This book, neatly bound, had been sent out with the endorsement of the Librarian and Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, prefaced by a statement, to support which there is absolutely no evidence, that this document added another link to the chain connecting them with something antedating the Henry Price Commission, which he received in 1733 and under which they derived title from him in 1734. There is not in the book the slightest pretence of any connection of Thomas Carmick with Pennsylvania or any other place, or that the writing is known to have had existence anywhere until 1756, when it is endorsed by somebody into whose hands it came, whose Masonic affiliation is traced and accounted for in the book.

"To a historian like Brother Nickerson, who knew of dozens of such manuscripts of earlier date, the whole assumption could be considered only as a farce comedy, were it not taken so seriously, and deliberately given out with authority, by the head of a Grand Lodge such as Pennsylvania; and we could only admire the vigor of manner in which he thus again demolished and ridiculed, as he had repeatedly done before, a feeble attempt to create non-existing history; this last disposition of the matter still leaves he case where it stood in 1834, when George M. Dallas, a Senator and afterwards Vice-President of the United States, delivered his famous oration at the Centennial of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, accepting the date of 1734 as that of its beginning, and concerning which there has been no evidence from that time to the present justifying a change. A number of attempts like this have been made, but the superior knowledge and research of our late Brother have disposed of them; and the security of Massachusetts to-day in the position which it has always maintained, of being the senior Sovereign Grand Lodge on this continent, is due to the indefatigable work and the dignified yet persistent action of Brother Nickerson in showing the integrity of our title, and the failure of every attempt to dispute it. Numerous pages in our Proceedings have from time to time been devoted by him to exhaustive treatises on this subject, and a debt of gratitude from this Grand Lodge aud all the Brethren is due to our late Brother for this labor alone, as a great and important work in our behalf.

"Twilight and evening bell, and after that the dark."

"Brother Nickerson passed from earth on the sixth of November, 1909, after an illness of some months which did not incapacitate him for work till within a few days of his death.

"His homelife had been peaceful, happy and contented, - made so largely by his step-daughter, Miss Cheever, whose mother he married Oct. 16, 1883. two years after the death of her husband, the late Tracy P. Cheever, whom he succeeded as Recording Grand Secretary. After the death of her mother, Sept. 1, 1899, Miss Cheever assumed charge of his household, and until his decease there continued between Brother Nickerson and herself a devotion, affection and regard as unselfish and thoughtful as could possibly exist between father and daughter: - faithful to the last, she is left to mourn the loss of one who was to her a kindly, considerate and affectionate father and friend.

"Of his own kindred, a sister, Susan Dwight Nickerson, and four children of a younger brother - one of whom, Philip T. Nickerson, is Senior Warden of Winslow Lewis Lodge - survive. Our sinceiest sympathy goes out to them, and we share with them the pride with which they will cherish the memory of one who has made their name so worthy a name which we rejoice to have had associated with us.

"Funeral services were held at his late home, 22 Clinton Street, Cambridge, and at the First Parish Church in Harvard Square; at the latter place a touching and feeling tribute in the form of a comprehensive and exhaustive eulogy, was pronounced by our Grand Chaplain, the Rev. Mr. Horton, who performed this kindly service in conformity to the personally expressed wish of our late Brother.

"The church was generously filled with the mourning family and sympathiiing friends and Brethlen; Most Worshipful Brother Flanders, our Grand Master, officers and permanent members of the Grand Lodge, with delegations from every Masonic body with which Brother Nickerson was connected occupied the body of the church, the pall-bearers, consisting of M.W. Brothers Flanders, Lawrence, Holmes and Gallagher of the Grand Lodge, and W. Brothers Coppins, Kimball, Strain and Gay of Winslow Lewis Lodge, being seated on either side of the casket. The floral offerings were profuse and beautiful; the pulpit and chancel being hidden hy tbeir decoration.

"After the ehulch service the burial ritual of our Grand Lodge was rendered by Winslow Lewis Lodge, assisted by our Grand Chaplain, the Rev. Dr. Rider; the Masonic Brethren, to the number of several hundred, passed mutely by the casket, each with his last fond look leaving a memento of that immortal part which survives the grave. The remains were solemnly borne to Mt. Auburn Cemetery, where in the presence of representatives of the Grand Lodge and Winslow Lewis Lodge, all that was mortal of our loved, our valued, our respected friend and Brother was reduced to ashes, while his spirit had returned to God who gave it. Beside a blessed memory he leaves with us in enduring bronze the perfect likeness of his face on the memorial medal struck the past summer in his honor; thus he will ever live with us 'in minds made better by his presence.'

"The limited space allotted to a memorial will not admit an eulogy of life and character that in completeness of detail would extend to a volume; - a brief characterization of his worth, inadequate even as a summary, is the attempt of your Committee.

"Brother Nickerson was one of the best beloved and most universally known of Masons at the time of his death. His life work had been to advance Freemasonry and its principles, to build more securely the foundations and superstructure of the Institution, to preserve the Ancient Landmarks, and revive and record, for the benefit of all, everything that was good, great and important in the history and jurisprudence of our Order.

"Thus all the fraternity of English speech came to know him or to know of him; and with his erudition, his legal training, his mercantile experience, his intellectual power, his wide and critical knowledge, his familiarity with men end events, he gave to the Brethren everywhere a better knowledge of the Ancient Craft, and put them directly in touch with its dignified, interesting and instructive past.

"Valuable as was his work to Freemasonry, so was his devotion faithful to our service and needs ;

" Without haste, without rest,"

he was found daily, foregoing the usual summer vacation and the customary noon-day meal, thus making his presence at the old familiar desk day in and day out, year after year, constant and continuous, - the necessity for economy of time and labor by the use of short-hand and modern office methods not seeming to him adaptable to a venerable and dignified Institution such as ours.

"In this personally devoted manner he thus built a monument to his love of the Order and mankind.

"Positive in his convictions, in his dealings with the Brethren he was considerate, affable and courteous; impatient of sham and pretence. and a firm believer in the right, he did not hesitate to exhibit and express his opinion concerning subjects or individuals when he felt duty required it. This phase of his character was seldom manifested; but when the occasion arose, there was no uncertainty as to his position, and right-thinking Brethren could not fail to respect his sincerity.

"Methods whereby organization rather than merit determines elections and appointments found no favor with him and he always feared for the time when they should become applied to our Grand Lodge, which would thereby lose its high position among American jurisdictions.

"He was zealous in maintaining the high moral character and standing of our Institution; and as to other orders in Masonry and the tendency of some of the Lodges, he had little respect for those whose devotion to the Fraternity consisted in making the 'banquet and the parade' its chief end; - he ever preached quality rather than quantity, and principles rather than men.

"He was 'a gentleman of the old school,' but in no sense too conservative; for though puritan by nature, be was progressive and liberal in his views both on matters of the world and of the conscience.

"It is reasonable to say that no one man in our jurisdiction in his day and generation has performed more important or larger Masonic work than Brother Nickerson. He has left us a heritage, both in material and example, of which we can be justly proud; and his life of industry, honesty and patience will ever live in our memories as the synonym of integrity of character and noble purpose.

"Of no distemper, of no blast he died,
But fell like autumn fruit that mellow'd long,
Even wonder'd at, because he dropp'd no sooner.
Fate seem'd to wind him up for fourscore years,
Yet freshly ran he on [six] winters more;
Till like a clock worn out with eating time;
The wheels of weary life at last stood still."

Samuel C. Lawrence,
Charles T. Gallagher,
William T. Coppins,
Committee.

REMARKS ON RUFUS CHOATE

RufusChoate.png

Delivered at the Feast of St. John, December, 1908:

The crowning glory of Jordan Lodge, of Peabody, is that it imparted Masonic light to Rufus Choate. He was born on the first of October, 1799, two months and a half before the death of George Washington. I am not going to claim that that had any particular influence in exciting his almost extravagant love of country, but the death of Washington caused a great sensation throughout our land, and during that and the following years, especially in 1800, 1801 and 1802, the date of his birth or his death was observed all over the country, and an immense number of sermons and eulogies were printed. I had the pleasure some years ago of making a collection, - I think the largest one that has ever been made, - of these sermons and eulogies commemorative of George Washington, which is now in the library of past Grand Master Samuel C. Lawrence. f think there are some two hundred of them.

The boy Choate probably had his ideas in regard to Washington greatly stimulated by the fact that his father and mother selected Washington as the name of their next-born child, to whom Rufus became greatly attached. Choate entered Dartmouth College when he was sixteen years old, in 1815. At that time a remarkable controversy was going on in regard to the institution. The founder of it had given offence to the trustees, and they had removed him and appointed another party to fill his office. This matter became involved in politics, and the Legislature chartered another institution called Dartmouth University, and conferred upon it the seal and the property, the buildings and the libraries, which had formerly belonged to Dartmouth College. This controversy was carried into the law courts, and continued for four years. During that whole period Choate was a student in the college.

He probably attended the argument in the Supreme Court of the State, which was held in 1817, at Exeter. The decision of that court was against the trustees and in favor of the right of the Legislature to incorporate the new institution. Daniel Webster was one of the counsel engaged in that cause before the Supreme Court, and he was appointed by his associates to carry the cause to the United States Supreme Court; and there he made an argument, which has been famous ever since, which established his reputation as a lawyer at the very head of the profession of this country. Probably Choate's interest in that cause and in the argument made by Daniel Webster, who was a graduate of the college, stimulated the young student to the choice of his profession as a lawyer.

In 1825 - I don't know the exact date of his initiation - he served as Junior Warden of Jordan Lodge. In 1823 he was admitted to the bar of the Court of Common Pleas, and in 1825 to the bar of the Supreme Court. In the latter year he was married.

In 1830 Stephen Oliver, a quite prominent Quaker of Salem, where Choate was then practising, announced to him his nomination as a candidate for Congress by the Republican Party of that period, urging him to accept the nomination of which he had received no intimation previously. Mr. Oliver closed his letter as follows:- "When we find the right means in all other respects, we are willing to waive the Masonic objection, believing the time is coming when all men of talents and respectability will leave that mere shadow for things more substantial."

In 1830 Daniel Webster made his famous speech in the Senate of the United States in reply to Hayne. A few months later he was engaged to assist the Attorney-General of the Commonwealth in the trial of those persons who were accused of the murder of Bro. Joseph White, a very wealthy and much respected citizen of Salem. Choate assisted Daniel Webster in his part of that trial, and was present at all the private sessions of the counsel for the Government. It is remarkable tbat Webster could have done so much work as he did on that case in the same year when he made his important arguments iu the Senate of the United States connected with the nullification business.

In 1833 Choate wae elected to Congress, and served for two years. In 1841, when Daniel Webster was called to the office of Secretary of State, and when he negotiated the Ashburton Treaty, Choate took Webster's place in the Senate. He served there four years. I attended repeatedly the trials which were held here in Boston when he was of counsel. I recollect distinctly the two famous trials of Albert J. Tirrell, for murder and arson. The first was the one in which he introduced somnambulism as part of his defence. I think the bar were generally agreed when that case was corumenced that there was no hope for the accused; but when Choate had finished it was the prevailing opinion of the bar that the case was not sure, and that the acquittal was justified.

In 1858 the Democratic Club of Boston invited him to deliver a Fourth of July oration. He accepted the invitation, and that oration was delivered in Tremont Temple. The Chief Marshal on that occasion was the Master of my Lodge, and he appointed several of the members as his assistants. My duty was in the gallery, where I had a complete view of the whole hall. Choate was then feeble, evidently failing but the first part of his oration was delivered with considerable energy.

Our Chief Marshal, however, observed that he was flagging, and so he slipped into the Parker House, by means of a little platform which was laid between the rear windows of the two buildings, and when he returned he brought a tumbler half filled, and a pitcher of water. As he set the former down on the right hand of Mr. Choate he poured a little water into the glass. Choate took it up, and the moment he tasted it he swallowed the whole dose. He started on again immediately with renewed vigor, and finished most successfully.

The next year he had failed a good deal more, and it was decided that he should go to England. He finally made the attempt, but they. were obliged to land bim at Halifax, as they did not dare to take him across the water. He was in a boarding house there for a very short time; and a day or two before he died, while he was waiting for a vessel which might perhaps take him home, he said to those who were watching with him : "If a schooner or a sloop comes along, don't disturb me; but if a square-rigged vessel comes, wake me up."

He was born near the sea, at Chebacco, which, as some of you know, is a part of old Danvers; and he was always very much interested in the sea and in vessels. He died on the thirteenth of July, 1859. His great admiration in the profession was Daniel Webster. They tried cases against each other very often, but always with the utmost kindness and consideration of each other. After Webster's death on the twenty-fourth of October, 1852, Choate delivered within a year or two five or six eulogies of Webster, all varying a good deal, but all in most unbounded praise and admiration of his great model.

NOTES

William Hoskins biographical sketch

CHARTERS GRANTED

RULINGS


LINKS

Early Masonic History Address, 1906

John T. Heard Biography, 1907

Grand Masters