8 MEETING OF THE EXECUTIVE BOARD OF THE TOWER GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY held at 70 Sorrento Street, Springfield, Mass. A meeting of the Executive Board of the Tower Genealogical Society was held pursuant to the following notice, copy of which was duly mailed to each member of the Board. NOTICE: 70 Sorrento Street, Springfield, Mass., January 22, 1920. To the members of the Executive Board of the Tower Genealogical Society: A meeting of the Executive Board of the Society will be held at the home of the Assistant Recording Secretary, January 31, 1920, to transact the following business: First: To hear reports of officers. Second: To determine the date for the next reunion. Third: To do and transact any other business that may properly come before the meeting. Signed respectfully, ELECTA GREGORY TOWER. The meeting was called to order at 2.40 P. M. by the President, James Wallace Tower. These members were present: James Wallace Tower, Mrs. Electa Gregory Tower, Gilbert Judson Tower, Frank Warren Tower and Walter Lamont Tower, being a quorum. (Your Secretary noted the presence at this meeting of member No. 94, Charles Wesley Tower, of Springfield, Mass., and our Auditor, Herbert Lorenzo Tower, of Springfield, Mass.) These members were absent: John Henry Tower, Florence Estelle Tower, Daniel Nichols Tower and George Warren Tower. The minutes of the meeting of the Executive Board held at the Cooley Hotel, Springfield, Mass., August 23, 1918, were read. MOVED: By Frank Warren Tower and seconded by Gilbert Judson Tower that these minutes be accepted and placed on file. So voted unanimously. The combined report of the Recording and Corresponding Secretary was then presented and read as follows: MR. PRESIDENT AND MEMBERS: Dalton, Mass., December 31, 1919. My report this year may seem very brief in Society affairs accomplished. I must plead my inability to serve two masters. Believing my first duty was service to my state, which claimed nine months of my time during the past year, I have allowed the collecting of genealogical data and all but the most necessary correspondence of the Society to abide its time. It is my purpose during the year 1920 to renew my activities in the collecting of genealogical data along the various Tower branches, and with a special purpose to compile the record of service of descendants of John Tower (1) in the late war. I have but two deaths to report for the year 1919. Member No. 177, Mrs. Edith (Tower) Bowker (9) of Springfield, Mass., died April 1, 1919; and Member No. 362, Miss Addie D. Stevenson (10) of Memphis, Mich., who died September 25, 1919. The Society has received three new members during the year. Your corresponding Secretary has unearthed another sporadic Tower family in the state of Washington which has promising possibilities of filling out another considerable lost branch of the Tower tree. It is probable that this family will prove to be part of one of the many branches which located in the state of New York at, or near, the beginning of the last century. Records of these families the late Quincy Bicknell was unable to follow because of the almost complete lack of official vital statistics in the state of New York prior to 1880. These many recent discoveries of lost tribes lead me to suggest at this time the pressing need of preparing to print a second volume of the Tower genealogy. The present genealogy published in 1891 has 690 pages, and I think that those who have had occasion to use it most will admit that it is too large for convenience. Having had occasion to consult hundreds of other family genealogies, many of them of recent date, I find that the Tower genealogy ranks with the best as to accuracy, brevity, continuity and even size. If it were reduced to about 550 pages it would be ideal. When the Tower genealogy was published some members of the sixth generation were alive; a considerable proportion of the seventh generation were living; and the eighth was the dominant generation with some of its members then unborn. The records of the eighth generation so far as they were completed at that time occupy 197 pages or over 28% of the entire book. The records of the seventh generation were nearly complete; those of the eighth were probably 80% complete; those of the ninth possibly 35% complete; and those of the tenth less than 10% complete. The bulk of all the recorded data in this first volume ended about 1884. There are scattering records up to the latest date, a birth on July 1st, 1890. Here are the arguments. First: Since 1884 two new generations have been born. It required 423 pages or 68% of the entire first volume, exclusive of the indices, to record the statistics of the seventh, eighth and ninth generations so far as they were completed at that time. Allowing for natural increase, and to say nothing of sporadic lines already picked up and completed, it is safe to argue that the unrecorded statistics of the ninth, tenth and eleventh generations will require upwards of 500 pages of the same size and type as used in the first volume." Second: There is a growing demand for some historical records to accompany the cold genealogical facts. With that object in view I have compiled, so far as possible at Washington, the records of the Towers in the Civil War. I am now working upon the service records of Tower descendants in the late war. There are at hand or can easily be obtained some obituary records of prominent members of the family that might be considered worthy of publication. There are also many pictures which are not without value. Let me state right here that it is the firm belief of your Secretary that a genealogy should be just THAT and not a family album. It is obvious that pictures and biography of ALL descendants cannot be published, so where shall the line be drawn without heart-burnings? Third: I said that the present genealogy compared favorably with the best, but it has one vital omission, a complete system of cross indices. An index of places as well as names. Such an index for the first volume might well find a place in the second volume. All of this requires space and as I have now on hand data occupying four files of 400 pages each, wholly unprotected from fire, it can easily be deduced that it may be impossible to print the available data on five to six hundred pages of a volume 61⁄2 by 91⁄2 inches, the size of the present volume. For these reasons I believe that it is time our Society should seriously set about finding ways and means of publishing the data at hand. As neither the Society nor its Executive Board held any meetings during the year 1919, I beg to submit this report for the two offices I hold. Respectfully submitted, Malter Lamont Tower Approved by Executive Board, January 31, 1920. Recording Secretary, MOVED: By Frank Warren Tower and seconded by Gilbert Judson Tower, that the reports of the Recording Secretary and Corresponding Secretary be accepted and placed on file; so voted unanimously. The reports of the Treasurer and Auditor were then read: (See page 23.) MOVED: By Frank Warren Tower and seconded by Walter Lamont Tower, that the reports of the Treasurer and Auditor be accepted and placed on file; so voted unanimously. Discussion of the time and place for the next reunion of the Tower family brought out the fact that the Pilgrim Tercentenary Committee of Plymouth do not intend to hold their proposed pageant and general celebration in the year 1920. MOVED: By Walter Lamont Tower and seconded by Electa Gregory Tower, that the fixing of the date and place of holding the next meeting of the Tower Genealogical Society be left in the hands of the President; and that the next reunion of the Tower family be deferred until the year 1921 and to such time as will best conform with the date of the Pilgrim Tercentenary celebration, this reunion to be held at the Old Tower Homestead in Hingham; so voted unanimously. Free discussion here took place on the point brought out in the Corresponding Secretary's report, that it was time to seriously consider compilation and possible publication of a second volume of the Tower genealogy. The President produced figures to show that the printing and binding of a volume of 500 pages same style as present volume would cost approximately ten dollars per volume for a minimum issue of five hundred copies. MOVED: By Electa Gregory Tower and seconded by Frank Warren Tower, that the President and Corresponding Secretary be empowered as a committee to take up the problem of securing finances for compiling data for a second volume of a Tower genealogy; so voted unanimously. MOVED: By Gilbert Judson Tower and seconded by Walter Lamont Tower, that the following Testimonial be spread upon the records of the Society; TESTIMONIAL The Executive Board of the Tower Genealogical Society (incorportated) of Boston, in meeting assembled at Springfield, Massachusetts, January 31, 1920, adopted the following TESTIMONIAL in appreciation of FRANCIS LEON TOWER, who, in the capacity of Recording Secretary from the day of its incorporation, May 10, 1909, to June 20, 1918, gave to the Society more than nine years of faithful, efficient and meritorious service. RESOLVED: That the sincere thanks of the Society be hereby expressed to FRANCIS LEON TOWER for the unusual ability shown by him as Recording Secretary of the Society during the trying period of its incorporation and the first decade of its growth. Its two hundred and fifty pages of handsomely engrossed records will stand as an everlasting monument to his faithfulness in an office in which he took the utmost pride. We earnestly hope that he may enjoy many happy years of comfort and the blessings which are his due for the faithful service rendered both to the Society and to the Executive Board. Be it further RESOLVED: That this TESTIMONIAL be spread upon the records of the Tower Genealogical Society, and that a copy be suitably engrossed and presented to Mr. Tower. MOVED: By Frank Warren Tower and seconded by Electa Gregory Tower, that as a further mark of appreciation of the services rendered by FRANCIS LEON TOWER he be declared a LIFE member of the Tower Genealogical Society; so voted unanimously. MOVED: By Gilbert Judson Tower and seconded by Walter Lamont Tower, that this meeting of the Executive Board be adjourned sine die; so voted unanimously, and declared by the President at 4.45 o'clock P. M. A notice together with order of business for this Annual Meeting was duly mailed to each member of the Society thirty days prior to the date of this meeting by order of the President, James Wallace Tower. Signed, Malter Lamont Tower Recording Secretary. BUSINESS MEETING: OFFICIAL MINUTES The President, James Wallace Tower, called the meeting to order at 4.30 P. M. ROLL CALL: The Roll Call was omitted as the Secretary had noted a quorum present. READING MINUTES: The minutes of the Eighth Annual meeting were read by the Secretary and upon motion by Herbert Lorenzo Tower, seconded by Charles Wesley Tower, these minutes were unanimously approved. REPORTS OF OFFICERS: No formal report was offered by the President, but he gave a brief talk on the progress of the Society and explained the reasons why a reunion of descendants of John Tower (1) was postponed from 1920 to 1921. The decision of the Plymouth Tercentenary Committee to hold their principal exercises during the months of June, July, August and September, 1921 caused your President to call a meeting of the Executive Board on January 31, 1920, at which meeting it was decided not to attempt to hold a reunion in 1920, but to concentrate every effort to hold a large reunion in 1921 at Hingham, Mass., on such date as your President shall decide. The combined reports of the Recording Secretary and the Corresponding Secretary were read by Walter Lamont Tower and upon a motion by Frank Warren Tower and seconded by Herbert Lorenzo Tower, these reports were unanimously accepted and ordered to be placed on file. (These reports appear on page 8 as reported to the Executive Board meeting of January 31, 1920.) Your Treasurer, Gilbert Judson Tower, asked the privilege of presenting his complete financial report to the President at a later date. On motion by Walter Lamont Tower, seconded by Frank Warren Tower, this privilege was granted. |