The sun., 1919-03-30
The Famous Saturd day Club of Boston

n 70 social organization in America has
IN ever boosted q more distinguished
membership in proportion to the entire
number Of names ON lis rob than the IA
nous Saturday Club Of Boston, whose
early history is narrated in a large and
handsomely illustrated volume, partly
written and wholly edited by DR.. Edward
Waldo Emerson, the surviving son OF the
Concord philosopher.
The mere mention of Boston dining
club brings TO the mind Of every New
England reader the familiar lines:
sSolid men Of Boston, Danish long
rotations!
Solid men of Boston, make no long
orntionsi"
This warning, however, was hardly
needed BY the Saturday Club, although
the characteristic feature Of the erganiza-
ton was an afternoon mead often extend
ing into the evening On the last Saturday
of every month in q dining room at NE
Parker House, the windows Of which
looked out upon the statue OF Benjamin
Franklin in the open grounds Of the City
Hall opposite Although @ths eats," as
our overseas men In khaki would call
them, were excellent and there was no lack
Of drinkables, the predominant clements
of attraction were the feast Of reason and
the fow of soul; and this will become evil
dent when we give the list, in alphabetical
order, of those who may be considered IN
doubleday the original members In the
year 1856. They were: Louis Agassiz,
Richard Henry Dana, Jr, John Sullivan
Dwight, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ebenezer
lockwood Hoar, james Russell Lowell,
John Lothrop Motley. Benjamin Peirce,
Samuel Gray Ward, Edwin Percy Whip
ple and Horatio Woodman, making eleven
in all. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
Oliver Wendell Holmes and Cornelius
Conway FELTON, were admitted In 1857;
$50 we may say" in the words OF DIR.
Emerson, "tEat the club agreed upon as
such by the friends in the informal stage,
1855, 1856 and 1857, numbered fourteen"
In few years it doubled its membership,
some of the notable additions being Will
lam Kicking Prescott and John Greenlef
Whittier, in 1855; Nathaniel Hawthorne,
Thomas Gold Appleton and John Muir
rcy Forbes, in 1859; Charles Eliot Nor
TO in 1860; Charles Sumner, in 1862;
ii, ny James, ST., in 1868; John Albion
An, ew,~ Martin Brimmer and James
Thomas Fields, in 1864; William Morris
Hunt. in 1869, and Charles Francis
Adams, ST., in 1870.
II.
This club Of famous men was brought
into being through the hospitable and So
Gal activity and endeayor OF Horatio
Woodman, who came from New Hamp-
shire to practise law in Boston, and had
bachelor apartments first at the Albion
Hotel and afterward at the Parker House.
"Mr. Woodman loved the society OF men
of letters and was In the position and had
the skill TO bring them together now and
then for cheerful, leisurely dinner at
public house" He would drop in at the
original Old Corner Book Store Of Tick
nor & Fields in the afternoon, where he
was likely to find Mr.. Emerson, who had
come in from Concord to see his publisher,
and other literary friends. They would
accompany him 10 luncheon at some one
@: the excellent hosIelr'es whose table he
colId voueh for; and thus the idea OF a
social dining cub of friends krew up in
hi- mind, and ''Woodman worked grad
ualy toward the realization of this hope,
naturally IN such 2 way as would include
himself" Indeed IL was essential that 1t
should include him, for no such organiza-
ton ever succeeds without the unscliish
aid of a tactful man of the world whose
ohicf reward !. his Gown pleasure in per-
forming the task which he has assumed.
Describing The regular monthly reports