so effectually was this done, that Dr. Felt adds, "Curiosity has preserved no residuum of the bills, as the repository of the Royal Artillery at Woolwich has of the Bank-of-England notes, in a case of glass, for the examination of visitors." This remark would lead us to suppose that the notes were now very rare, and that this specimen might be almost unique. The production of it on this occasion, however, might lead to the discovery of others. It is written with a pen, not engraved; and the seal of the Province is very inartistically drawn. One might almost suppose it to have been a mere draught of the design for the notes, rather than one of the notes themselves. But it is indented and signed and countersigned. The signatures are evidently original; and the bill is numbered 4980 on the face, and No. 62 on the back. Perhaps these notes may be less rare than has been imagined; but, as Dr. Felt stated that he himself had never seen one, this may by chance be the only surviving ancestor of the growing family of American paper-money. Mr. C. ROBBINS communicated a Memoir of the late Hon. William Appleton, which he had prepared in compliance with a vote of the Society. MEMOIR OF HON. WILLIAM APPLETON. BY REV. CHANDLER, ROBBINS, D.D. IN the year 1635, SAMUEL APPLETON came from Little Waldingfield, in Suffolk, Eng., with his family, and settled in Ipswich. Descended from an ancestry of good repute in his native country, he became the progenitor of a highly respected race in the land of his adoption. The beautiful Memorial of him published in Boston in 1850 renders it superfluous to renew the familiar account of his lineage. Whoever will refer to that volume, will find that in every period, from that of his remotest known ancestor, John Appulton of Great Waldingfield, who died in 1414, the family name has never failed to be worthily represented. Not only the commemorative tributes of this Society, but the annals of our State and National legislatures, the records of various institutions of learning, charity, and religion, the public eulogies and private encomiums of the citizens of Boston, and even the commercial and industrial prosperity of New England, bear testimony to the honorable manner in which it has been sustained in the thirteenth generation. |