162 ADDENDUM. 



J. FRANCIS FISHER TO THE SECRETARIES OF THE 

 AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. 



(Read in Committee, November 13. 1840.) 



To THE SECRETARIES OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL 



SOCIETY. 

 Gentlemen, 



Before you make a report on M r DuPonceau's 

 communication & mine relative to the early History 

 of our Society, I would wish merely to state, that in 

 giving the year 1744 as the earliest to which it could 

 carry back its history, and naming the Am. Phil. Soc 7 

 then instituted as the eldest of its two parents, I had 

 no other object than to give D r Franklin all the hon- 

 our possible as our Founder. There is little doubt that 

 he was the Projector of that Society. Of the Society 

 for promoting Useful Knowledge he clearly was not 

 the founder & could hardly be considered a member 

 as he never was present at a meeting nor seems to 

 have been in any communication with it & was only 

 elected first a member & then its President a short 

 time before its union with the Am. Phil. Soc y after 

 that union was projected & probably with a view to it. 

 It does not appear to me that he took any part in 

 the negociations for the union & tho' elected the first 

 President of the united Society can in no way be con- 

 sidered its parent unless we go back to the year 1744 

 & take the Society of that year as our oldest ances- 

 tress. Tho' it became dormant for more than twenty 

 years he was still considered a member on its revival ; 



