JUSTIN WINSOR. 645 



record of all the sources of American history down to the middle of the 

 present century, and he made himself beyond question the first authority 

 on the subject in the United States. In fact, his position among his- 

 torians was recognized by his election as President of the American His- 

 torical Association, just as his standing among librarians had been shown 

 when he was chosen President of the American Library Association ten 

 years before. In the seventies, he had surprised the world by proving 

 himself a great librarian. In the eighties he had become a leading 

 historian, and the first bibliographer of American history. The nineties 

 were to show him in still another light. 



Among the subjects in which he had always been interested, and 

 which he treasured in his note books, was the study of maps, and this 

 in turn was developed until he became the first cartographer of the 

 United States. He applied his knowledge of maps to the subject of 

 the discovery of America, and made himself so distinctly the authorit}- 

 on the geographical questions connected with the discovery and settlement 

 of this country that the government naturally had recourse to him in the 

 controversy about the Venezuela boundary. In a few years he produced 

 four remarkable books, prepared, not as the earlier ones had been, on the 

 co-operative plan, but written entirely by himself. The first of these 

 four books, "The Voyages of Columbus," was i)ublished in 1891; the 

 second, " Cartier to Frontenac,"' appeared in 1894 ; it was followed the 

 next year by his work on the "Mississippi Basin " ; and finally the last 

 of the four on the " Western Movement," was in press at the time of his 

 death, on October 22, 1897. 



Industrious, painstaking, and energetic, Mr. "Winsor accomplished an 

 incredible amount of work in the last thirty years of his life ; for it 

 must be remembered that, although his work at the Boston Public 

 Library was doubtless more arduous than that at Harvard, nevertheless 

 the management of the Harvard Library is no sinecure, and be was 

 managing this with the greatest diligence and efficiency during the very 

 years when he was writing his great works on American history. But 

 although his life became more and more full of labor as the years went 

 by, he did not become aVjsorbed in bis work to the exclusion of other 

 things, — he did not become so pressed that he could not spare time for 

 social intercourse. On the contrary, his solitary habits wore away as his 

 own life grew fuller, and with the increase in his activity and usefulness 

 there developed his genial social side, his warm friendship for his fellows, 

 and his kindliness for younger men. 



A. Lawrence Lowell. 



