28 



immediate vicinity, a few rods in one direction, is the 

 birthplace of Bowditch, and about the same distance in 

 another that of Hawthorne — three brilliant constellations 

 in the fields of history, science and letters. 



Aside from these considerations there is one, which 

 cannot be passed over in silence, that should induce us 

 on this occasion to tender to you our most grateful ac- 

 knowledgment, and to express to you the pleasure we all 

 feel in having you as our guest, this evening. The 

 nucleus of the Institute, around which cluster the various 

 departments, as now constituted, was the Natural History 

 Society, organized some forty years since by a few per- 

 sons, some scarcely out of their teens, devoted and 

 humble workers in the cause of natural history, and de- 

 sirous that a taste for its study should be diffused 

 throughout the community, and that a complete record of 

 all the natural productions of this section of our state 

 should be made and printed. Many of these early pio- 

 neers have now passed to the better land ; a few remain — 

 a connecting link between those daj^s of small things and 

 the present. Your writings, having contributed so much 

 to the promotion of those objects which we have so long 

 been striving to accomplish, will always make us your 

 debtor, and for which we cannot cease to extend grateful 

 acknowledgments. 



Dr. Wheatland next called up Mayor Cogswell, who 

 said : — 



It gives me great pleasure, Mr. President, to unite with 

 you in doing honor to the distinguished guest of this 

 occasion, and in behalf of the inhabitants, and in their 

 name, to bid him welcome to the city of Salem, where he 

 comes not as a stranger, but only to find that here as else- 



