and presently the sculptured monument will lift up its front, 

 proud to perpetuate the name of Adams ; all salutary and 

 consolatory to the living, though to him, how vain and un- 

 availing ! 



Mr. President, due honors to the founders of an institution 

 are important, because, in the language of the great Webster, 

 they give hope that the institution itself will prove to be im- 

 mortal. We mourn this day, and we cannot help mourning, 

 the decease of one who had identified himself with our whole 

 history — one who may be said, I believe, to have assisted at 

 its very birth, forty-nine years ago — one who rocked its 

 cradle, if you please, and almost carried it in his arms. We 

 do not, we cannot forget such a man, and it will be my hap- 

 piness, with your permission, to attempt to lay one sprig of 

 laurel upon his grave to-day. 



In making a brief review of the connection of Col. Adams 

 with the Society and Board of Trustees, it must be said that 

 our early records, though generally full and ample, are not 

 quite so explicit upon some points as we could now wish; and 

 it does not appear from them, either that Col. Adams was, or 

 WM not present at the first meeting for organization, on the 

 16th of February, 1818. His name, says our vigilant Secre- 

 tary, first appears in 1820, as one of a committee for raising 

 funds. He was first elected trustee in February, 1823. In 

 1828 he was one of a committee "chosen to procure and to 

 present to Hon. Timothy Pickering, a medal with proper 

 emblems, expressive of the high estimation in which the So- 

 ciety held his services as JPresident, on his retirement from 

 the office." 



He was elected President in X858 and 1859. The 

 iufrequency with which his name appears in our Trans- 

 actions as a contributor to its pages, is in perfect keep- 

 ing with the fact that his tastes and his activities were more 

 consonant with fiQld and out-door movements — a department 

 of vast importance, and yet one not always easy to fill. In 

 this department, whether at the ploughing match proper, or 



