USA > New York > Twenty-fifth anniversary of the New York genealogical and biographical society, February 27th, 1894 > Part 3
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But there are better things than the material elements of human existence, for Goethe spake true when he said: "No greater good can befall a city than that there should dwell therein a body of educated men whose ideas are similar as to what is good and right."
And so it has been good for New York that its unparalleled growth as a commercial and industrial center has brought to it, not alone vigor of action and acuteness of business perception, but has also drawn to it an element that has so stimulated its religious activities. It is indisputable that the human heart now throbs here as never before in tenderest sympathy for the helpless and unfortunate, and the labors of love, consideration and charity keep pace with the dne and growing necessities of the time and occasion.
But man is not alone to dominate the forces of nature, to exploit the most distant regions of the earth, nor is it only his destiny to bind up the wounds of the unfortunate or to turn his mind continually to the contemplation of even the most sacred truths. We acknowledge and should pay our indebtedness to the world in its various forms, as the head of a family, as good neigh- bors, as patriotic citizens, and as men in the countless activities that are incumbent on every inhabitant of a great city. But after due exertions to insure the welfare of the state and nation, the security of the citizen, the prosperity of the city and the happi- ness of the home, there arise other longings which look to intel lectual development and the acquirement of knowledge. In that too brief leisure which comes to American men and women, there is the necessity for most of us to supplement our vocation by an avocation. Not only do the days come and go more pleasantly when an agreeable occupation fills up our hours, but such con- genial labor accumulates a body of interesting information, while it also conduces to mental gratification and the happiness of the individual.
Under these circumstances, it is fortunate when onr avocation is of such a character as to bring us in contact with cultured, edu- cated persons, whose lines of thought and intellectual effort run
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Anniversary Address by Gen. Greely.
parallel to or converge with our own. It is not to be expected that the special line of research and diversion most in consonance with our personal tastes should find a responsive echo in every man's heart. Indeed, if it did, we should feel that our own being was marked with a feeble individuality. If, however, we do not seek for universal commendation of our intellectual occupations. yet, on the other hand, we should be so liberal and broad-minded as to listen without vexation of spirit to unsympathetic com- ments. It is characteristic of many men, even men of individu- ality and standing, to view with a certain distrustful air those sciences with which they are unacquainted, or are ignorant of, and to sneer at such accumulations of knowledge as lie beyond the narrow range of their sympathies. Fortunately the world at large, with its conflicting and often hostile opinions, plays but a small part in the intellectual pleasure and happiness of the indi- vidnal. It is true that the lives of most of us derive their pleasures from the action and mental attitude toward us of a com- paratively small number of people, whose sympathetic and con- genial relations afford us more pleasure than do all the world, while their converse and their criticisms give strength and tone to our ideas and principles.
It seems hardly necessary before this distinguished Society to dwell on the value and importance of the specific objects for which it was organized, those of genealogieal research and bio- graphical compilation. There are many standpoints from which these labors are valuable; and in accumulating vast stores of otherwise inaccessible historieal data, your Society in the past twenty-five years has done a work of great value, which from year to year will be more appreciated by seientilie investigators and historical writers. 1 deem it fortunate for many of you that your researches have turned in so agreeable a direction. The business affairs of our daily life demand, to a hitherto unequalled degrees ability, earnestness and application, in which the mind is held to the strietest sequence and is pitched often upon a very high key. Under such conditions our avocations should harmonize best with such investigations of an intellectual character as demand less exacting thought and permit of interrupted action. Researches of a genealogieal character have, fortunately, an inconsecutive- ness, which may not inaptly be considered to enhance their special charm and fascination.
Results have justified the prescient judgment of the organizer
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The New York Genealogical and Biographical Society.
of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, that the time was ripe for such an organization in this metropolis city of onr greatest State. It is evident that at the present time there is an unprecedented and steadily growing interest in investigations of the character to which you devote the energies of your leisure hours. The invaluable work that this Society has done, in gathering up and preserving the perishing and scattered records of family, local and state history, is beginning to be recognized; and doubtless you have exercised a powerful influence in stimu- lating hundreds of others to work of like character. The difficul- ties always attendant on the collation of very early records and manuscripts have been enhanced in your case by the fact that such papers are in a tongue unfamiliar to the ordinary student; so every historical investigator whose researches lead him to early colonial records feels a double debt of gratitude to the members of this Society.
American genealogy is like all other lines of American investi- gation, broad and comprehensive in its scope. It is not strictly confined to the antecedent history of such families as have attained distinction, acquired wealth, or held high official posi- tion, but it ranges on the broader lines of accumulation, preservation and collation of accompanying data that illustrate the actual conditions of the early days of the feeble colonies, and their stages of growth to an unequalled power among the nations of the globe.
It is not alone a mere tabular record of the names, dates of birth, marriages and deaths of particular families that you have tabulated and given to the world, but you have supplemented them with a vast accumulation of well-arranged and interesting facts pertaining to family affairs, local government, religious mat- ters and political administrations. This material is simply inval- nable for the future historian who shall weave the historic web whereon shall appear in fitting colors the wonderful story of the past three hundred years of the Empire State. It is pleasant to note that a part of your labors have borne welcome fruit in the extremely interesting memorial history of this city, lately given to the world through the efforts of your distinguished president.
Quite vanished, even from European countries, is the practice of pampering family pride by manufactured pedigrees, which have as their bases the paid imagination of the searcher or the grossly exaggerated if not wholly fabulous traditions of family
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Anniversary Address by Gen. Grecly.
servitors. The day has long since passed when such genealogical perversions are credited by any intelligent individual, and at no time were they accepted by any serious student of history. If some such find place in works called authoritative, they only serve to bring discredit on the editor and ridicule on the family.
Contrary to the generally accepted opinion, genealogical asso- ciations do not tolerate the perpetuation of idle fables, but their researches usually result in shorn honors, and their phases of higher criticism have exploded hundreds of family traditions, mich to the chagrin of those interested, but, in American re- search, and in this distinguished Society especially, the truth and the truth only is sought. Its intelligent and well-directed labors confirm the verdict of history that birth, rank and fortune are neither incompatible with nor do they monopolize talent and genius, and that in America, of all countries, the qualities im- planted by God in the children of the poor and lowly not infre- quently develop to the credit of the individual and the glory of the State. All families had humble beginnings, and the nobility and merit which elevate men here find their recognition in an en- lightened public opinion instead of in the exigencies of politics, the caprice of a monarch or the judgment of a premier.
Take the most illustrious name in American history, Washing- ton, whose antecedent lineage is problematical beyond his great- grand father, the English pedigree being, as an acute and judicial Marylander assured me after examination of it, incapable of proof. And of the family of Washington, the people near a secluded hamlet, where the young surveyor made his earliest reputation, speak to-day as of plain or at least ordinary origin, since he sprang from the settlers of the Rappahannock and not from those of the James.
Research shows that the fortunes of families have their flow of success and ebb of disaster, and unchanging conditions only ob- tain among those of extreme caution and conservatism. The tale runs that King James, in journeying from Edinburgh to London, tarried for the night with a baron, who, vaunting of his nobility to his majesty, said that for four hundred years he and his ances- tors had held unchanged, neither diminished nor increased an acre, the family estate. To the baron's chagrin, witty King James promptly queried : " What, neither a wise man nor a fool in the family in all these generations ?"
In genealogy, as in all other lines of study and research, the
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The New York Genealogical and Biographical Society.
old order has given place unto new. Year by year the countries are becoming more restricted, if indeed any now there be, in which purity of lineal descent plays any special indispensable part in qualifications for priestly or other public functions. With the march of time privileges of caste have faded, always diminishing, never expanding, and now disqualifications on the score of rank, wealth, religion or race are so rare as to be a matter of surprise. As an illustration may be mentioned the provision in the Constitution of Massachusetts requiring the Governor to be seized in real estate to the amount of one thousand pounds at the time of his election-a provision which curiously abided to this decade, and would have disqualified ex-Governor Russell had he not incidentally learned thereof a week before election. The recognition of this antiquated proviso was its death, and the property-holding qualification was at once eliminated from the Constitution of the old Bay State.
It seems hardly necessary before this distinguished Society to dwell on the value and importance, from many standpoints, of its specific objects, biographical and genealogical research. From the beginning of recorded history, pride of ancestry and hope for one's posterity have gone hand in hand as attributes of the human race. "Human and mortal though we are," said Webster, "we are nevertheless not mere insulated beings, with- ont relation to the past and future."
A not unimportant effect of historic genealogies is the vivify- ing action on history and historical personages, which become instructively interesting by their forceful individualities, sug- gestive picturesqueness or tender personality. The shadowy forms of history become actual personalities, with the effect of indneing an interest otherwise unknown in the story of the period and subject under consideration.
Doubtless there are many problems connected with the trans- mission and development of physical, mental and moral qualities that demand the aid of the genealogist for their satisfactory solu- tion. Such data, supplemented with information as to environ- ment, should shed a flood of light on many mooted questions that concern the welfare of mankind, and in this scientifie age it should be only a question of time when legislative enactment will restrict intermarriages along lines that promise only deforma- tion, disease and insanity. There seems, for instance, no more serious objections to a carefully guarded law specifying a nubile
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Anniversary Address by Gen. Greely.
condition dependent on health than in one resting on age alone.
We all believe in an aristocracy of some kind, and even the most democratic can scarcely object to the theory that, as a rule, the descendants of well-mated husbands and wives, whose phys- ical, mental and intellectual qualities are of the highest order, will be, the conditions of life being equal, mentally, morally and physically superior to those of the ill-mated, feeble and indiffer- ent. A most striking illustration of the first-named class is the Le Moyne family.
Among the very earliest settlers of Hochelega, now Montreal, was the son of a Norman innkeeper, a young French lad of fifteen, Charles Le Moyne, who came to this Indian village in 1641. He gained such a knowledge of the possibilities of the country, such an insight into Indian character, and such a wealth of vigorous manhood as enabled him to acquire during his life an estate that was princely. He did better than this; he married a woman worthy of him, whose family is hardly known, Catherine Tierry, an adopted daughter of Antoine Primot.
In all American families there is none that has as distin- gnished and brilliant a history as the twelve sons and two daugh- ters, born of this French peasant and the son of a Norman inn- keeper in the forests of Canada. The two daughters married nobles, and, of the twelve sons, nine live distinguished in history; three of them were killed in the service of France, ten were ennobled, and four-Iberville, Serigny, Chateaugnay and Bien- ville, the younger -- played important parts in the founding of Louisiana.
But what would not the student of heredity give to know the ancestral history of this man and this woman, and of other remarkable and kindred examples, for nature teaches in every way that the best is a growth, a development, an evolution.
There is no need at this late day to insist on the influence of ancestry on the individual. Heredity, whether in man or in the lower species of living organisms, is an acknowledged force. To what extent it dominates man is, however, a matter of dispute. It is unquestionable that physiological heredity obtains as a gen- eral rule. The offspring show, more or less clearly, the marked physical peculiarities of their parents or grandparents, not only as to internal structure and external appearance, but also as to idiosyncracies. In size of bones, shape of cranium and other parts, in facial appearance, height, figure, complexion, abnormal
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The New York Genealogical and Biographical Society.
number of teeth, fingers, etc., the children betray in many cases their parentage even to the least observing. The transmission of longevity, of musical gift or of personal idiosyneracies are like- wise quite well established in the annals of heredity. These views are so generally accepted that we hail as true the saying, ascribed to Holmes, I believe, that the training of a child should begin a hundred years before it is born. We cannot get away from the divine law set forth in the Mosaic code, that God will "visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and the fourth generation," and we may add our faith that the virtues also have their transmitted effect.
From the physiological standpoint, Richard Jeffries described with appalling realism the extreme view of heredity, when he said : "Our bodies are full of unsuspected flaws, handed down, it may be, for thousands of years, and it is of these that we die, and not of natural decay. **
* The truth is, we die through our ancestors; we are murdered by our ancestors. Their dead hands stretch forth from the tomb and drag us down to their moldering bones."
It is not my intention to enter on the debatable ground as to how far the mental and moral qualities are inherited, nor to what extent any inherited characteristics are modified by environment. Instances innumerable exist where powers of imagination as poet, painter or musician, acuteness of intellect in science or philos- ophy, and sensibility, passion and will qualities, have character- ized to a marked degree generations of the same family, and the permanence of character in certain nations or races is unques- tioned. It is only needful to here point out the great value of reliable genealogical researches to future investigators, who shall hereafter apply the more rigorous scientific methods to the study of heredity, for the tendency of the day is to insist more and more on direct evidence of individual data.
It is only in late years that the value of genealogical re- searches to certain branches of scientific investigation has been realized.
Among the publications of late years wherein genealogical research was an indispensable handmaid to scientific investgation, is that most valuable study by R. L. Dugdale, of the pathology of ¿ social disorders, entitled "The Jukes." This study, while an important contribution to penological science, is also of extreme interest to students interested in heredity.
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Anniversary Address by Gen. Greely.
It is well to recall for those nnfamiliar with "The Jukes," that it is the veritable social history of Max Jukes (an assumed name) and his decendants for five generations in all, whose idleness, pauperism and crime cost, in seventy-five years, the estimated sum of 81.308,000. With inter-marriages they num- bered some twelve hundred individuals, the best known to the general public being Ada, often called " Margaret, the mother of criminals." While only 709 of the family could be followed in their careers, yet the social condition of the family may be judged from the following percentages: children, 23.5 illegitimate; marriageable women, 52.4 unchaste; all families, 29.0 paupers, 79.4 without trade and 56.5 diseased, malformed or injured. The data relative to intemperance and crimes against property or person are equally startling.
The study, as outlined by Mr. Dugdale, was one of historico- biographical synthesis united to statistical analysis, a method enabling him to estimate the cumulative effects of any condition operating through successive generations. Heredity furnished the original characteristics of the individual, and environment provided events and conditions that contributed to shape the individual career or deflect its primitive tendency. The principal forms of heredity, consanguinity and crossing, and the opposing phases of environment that tend to moral elevation or debasement are considered under the unusual conditions of an unchanged habitat.
The history of the Jukes family appears to indicate that heredity is the preponderating factor in limiting and determining the mental and physical capacity of the individual, and thus definitely shapes the career,-this condition being most assured when the organization is structurally modified or organically weak, as in many diseases.
Dugdale ventures the generalization "that environment is the ultimate controlling factor in determining careers, placing heredi- ty itself as an organized result of invariable environment. The permanency of ancestral types is only another demonstration of the fixity of the environment within limits which necessitate the development of typal characteristics." (P. 66).
A most interesting addition to medical lore, wherein the argu- ment depended on genealogical studies, formed a valuable paper presented several years since, in 1885, I think, to the National Academy of Sciences by the distinguished inventor and scientist,
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The New York Genealogical and Biographical Society.
Alexander Graham Bell. It showed quite conclusively. by the aid of a genealogical chart, the cumulative and deteriorating effect towards deaf-mutism arising from intermarriages among those affected as to speech, hearing or eyesight. It so chanced that the families under investigation resided for generations on certain islands, which rendered easier the genealogical researches and also continued the descendants under practically the same environment as prior generations, and thus facilitated the com- plete development of inherited physical defects.
In passing it may be said that the intricaey and number of the degrees of blood, between the individuals under consideration, were such that Mr. Bell was obliged to determine their consan- guinity mathematically, and in connection therewith devised a working plan, which was also presented to the Academy by him, under the title of "A Notation of Kinship." The notation ap- peared so simple and satisfactory that I have urged that it be given to the public, and Mr. Bell has promised to do so at an early day.
Perhaps in no branch of literature has the spirit of modern progress wrought a greater change than in the line of biography. In ancient times, and indeed until a very recent period, biography was confined almost entirely to rulers, priests and soldiers, whose careers furnished opportunities of associating therewith the striking historical events connected with their country and period. The historical sequence was rigidly adhered to, the character rarely analyzed, and the inspiring motives or ultimate objects of the man's life and ambition infrequently dwelt on. As the king was the state, so were the various activities of the people inextricably interwoven into the life and history of their ruler, be he the king himself or the power behind the throne, oft so potent and ill-concealed. In short, the biographers of olden time wrote strictly of the king or warrior, the priest or the philosopher, the orator or the saint, as the case might be, but never simply of the man. When Vasari wrote his " Lives of the Painters," his writ- ings formed an epoch in biography ; but he was still far from the modern conception of this line of historical research, which de- pends upon the obvious truth of the saying that the highest study of mankind is of man himself. With the development of the American idea which raised individual man to the dignity of the true political unit, the world has come to realize that the his- tory of individual man furnishes the most fruitful field for the
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Anniversary Address by Gen. Greely.
divination of the spirit of the age, both as regards its evolu- tionary changes and as to the subjective motive of its aspirations and ideals.
The new school of biography is scarcely a century old, and may perhaps be not inappropriately said to have been created by the philosophic and reflective writings of Goethe, the startling confessions of Rousseau, and the gossiping but intensely interest- ing memoir of Johnson by Boswell. From that period, biography may be considered to have gradually developed into its present essentially humanitarian phase, wherein we declare it to be excel- lent only so far as it treats of the man himself. This line of treatment, a century since, was not considered as being real contributions to history, which then consisted, practically, of a list of the kings and queens and their parasitic followers, supplemented by a record of treaties made and broken, and of battles lost and won.
The extraordinary poverty of history as formerly written was only obvious when Macaulay, with his unusual literary knowl- edge, put forth his history of England. Its success was assured from the commencement, and its circulation has never been equalled. His method of intermingling accounts of great and public affairs with personal descriptions of historical figures, and overlaying all with a wealth of detail as to the common life of other centuries, was freely declared by the old school to be un- worthy of a historian's pen and to detract from the dignity of history itself. It was, however, the true method, for history has little or no excuse save for the lessons it teaches and the ideals it inspires. The value of any history, as indeed of biography of any other book, depends upon its being put to use. The reading class, which to that time had depended largely for its stock of history upon scandalous memoirs of the court, or on so-called historical romances, turned with a sense of relief to this history into which was interjected such an extraordinary wealth of mat- ters pertaining to man. At home in English and foreign litera- ture, familiar with administrative affairs, versed in political lore, with a versatile and omnivorous mind stored with vast quantities of antiquarian lore, Macanlay lost no opportunity of illuminating therewith his historical essays. If in later years his style is criti- cised, his statements questioned and his judicial qualities dis- trusted, yet there remains an unquestioned debt to Macaulay for his innovation in historical methods which has culminated in a
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