8 



Annual Address. 



patriotism, or by labors of more lasting usefulness, than 

 was Kobert R. Livingston. 



Around this grand central figure was grouped a body of 

 men not unworthy to be associated with him. Among 

 those whose names are enrolled in the charter of 1793 as 

 corporators, or who appear in our early annals as pro- 

 moters of its objects, were Simeon DeWitt of whom more 

 will be said hereafter ; John Stevens, one of the earliest 

 and most persevering laborers in the cause of steam navi- 

 gation, and in whose family inventive and constructive 

 genius has been hereditary : associated with Livingston in 

 his earlier experiments, he afterwards prosecuted them 

 independently, and was enabled very soon after Livingston 

 and Fulton's success, to follow it with a boat of his own 

 construction. There was Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill, dis- 

 tinguished for his varied learning and his rare attainments 

 in almost every department of natural science ; and Ed- 

 ward Livingston, a near kinsman of the chancellor, of 

 world-wide fame as a legislator, as a statesman, and as a 

 diplomatist. There, too, were George Clinton, and John 

 Jay, and Matthew Clarkson, and John Watts, and Philip 

 Van Cortlandt, and Richard Yarick, and Josiah Ogden 

 Hoffman, and Jeremiah Van Rensselaer, and Stephen 

 Lush, and James Duane, and David Ogden, and Samuel 

 Bard, and David R. Floyd Jones, and others, all repre- 

 sentative men of that day, distinguished for intelligence, 

 influence, and large interests identified with the develop- 

 ment and improvement of the country. The custom of 

 having annual addresses before the society was early 

 established, and the first was delivered by Dr. Mitchill and 

 was marked by the learning and ability which was charac- 

 teristic of him. It may be of interest that I should men- 

 tion that in 1796 one was delivered by James Kent, then 

 recorder of New York, but afterwards known and to be 

 known as long as jurisprudence shall last, as the great 



