WILLIAM SUMNER APPLETON. 047 



with notes. This was a work of great hibor and research, 

 involving- a vast amount of correspondence ; and in the end 

 he was able to ascertain the date and place of death of all the 

 members, eight hundred and forty-eight in number, with only 

 two exceptions. A separate edition was afterward published 

 for sale. Two j^ears later he read a short paper on the char- 

 acter and personal relations of the Whigs of Massachusetts 

 during the period from 1840 to 1850. In February, 1898, 

 after the sale of the Treraont Street estate, the stated meeting 

 was held at his new house in Beacon Street, and the use of 

 his parlors was offered to the Council for any other meetings 

 which it might be convenient to hold there before the com- 

 pletion of the Society's new building. His last important 

 contribution was in June, 1901, when he read a keen and 

 searching paper on Heraldry in America. 



Even a cursory examination of his contributions to the 

 Proceedings of the Society indicates how great an interest 

 he took in carrying on the work which its founders had in 

 view, and what special fields of inquiry most attracted him. 

 He never served on any Publishing Committee, and with the 

 exception of one year on the Executive Committee and six 

 years as Cabinet-Keeper he had no direct and avowed part in 

 determining the policy of the Society ; but few of the so- 

 called working members did more or better work, in a quiet 

 and unobtrusive way. His written style was clear, direct, and 

 forceful, but it lacked that flexibility of expression which so 

 often comes from constant practice, and in which specialists 

 are so apt to be deficient. An ineffective delivery and an 

 indistinctness of speech, especially in his later years, detracted 

 much from the interest with which his papers and remarks 

 were listened to ; but their value was at once seen when 

 written out in his clear and beautiful handwriting or trans- 

 ferred to the printed page. 



Like his father, who printed late in life a correspondence 

 with a clergyman of the Church of England on " The Doc- 

 trines of Original Sin and the Trinity," Mr. Appleton was a 

 steadfast Unitarian of the older school — the school of Chan- 



