Skip to main content

Search the Special Collections and Archives Portal

ent001334-030

Image

File
Download ent001334-030.tif (image/tiff; 59.89 MB)

Information

Digital ID

ent001334-030
    Details

    Publisher

    University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Libraries

    fcefcicatoRy service op the aBBot memoRial Library THREE-FORTY-FIVE O?╟╓CLOCK Ross Cannon, d.d., Chairman of the Library Committee, Presiding REMARKS Dr. S. Justus McKinley President of the College ACCEPTANCE Esther R. Darker Librarian ACCEPTANCE FOR THE STUDENTS Frank E. Sansone, Jr. President of Student Government PRAYER OF DEDICATION Dr. Richard D. Pierce Dean of the College The Abbot Memorial Library is the generous gift of Miss Elizabeth Abbot Smith, a corporator of the College, in memory of her great-great grandfather, The Reverend Abiel Abbot, D.D. (1765-1859) of Peterborough, New Hamp- shire. After graduating from Harvard College in 1787, Dr. Abbot taught at Phillips Andover Academy and Harvard College; from 1795 to 18 n he was minister of the First Church of Coventry, Connecticut, and from 1811 to 1819 he acted as principal of Dummer Academy at Byfield. Returning again to the ministry after a brief period of farming and private teaching, he was settled over The First Congregational Church (Unitarian) of Peterborough, New Hampshire, from 1827 to 1848, and died at West Cambridge, now Arlington, Massachusetts, on January 31, 1859, at the advanced age of ninety-three. Dur- ing his residence in Peterborough, he started about 1830 a proprietory library based upon an annual payment of fifty cents and in 1833 he founded the first free public library to be supported by public taxation in the world. In 1848 the Bos- ton Public Library was established and in 1850 the ?╟ú Libraries Act ?╟Ñ was passed in England but Dr. Abbot?╟╓s library at Peterborough is older by fifteen years. The Abbot Memorial Library at Emerson College perpetuates in the City of Boston a name distinguished in the annals of library history. Through the generosity of Josiah Floyd Buzzard, M.D., L.H.D., the second floor reading rooms have been fitted up and furnished in memory of his wife, Edith Walton Buzzard, ?╟╓13. Three seminar rooms have been established, of which one has been given by Stanley P. Blish in memory of his grandmother, Carolyn Nicholson Payson, ?╟╓95, and one by alumni subscription in memory of Harry Seymour Ross, ?╟╓97, Presi- dent of the College 1932-1945.