1897. Jan. 21. _The Boston Globe_, _Herald_, and other papers contained reports concerning the formation of the Society. _The Springfield_ (Mass.) _Republican_ said: “The American-Irish Historical society, organized at Boston yesterday with a remarkable list of officers and the assurance of a charter membership as noteworthy, will prove without question a body of real public importance.... Among those present at the meeting mostly from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, was Edward A. Hall, of this city, whose history of the Irish in Hampden county has grown into a history of the Irish in western Massachusetts, where, in fact, they settled a great number of the hill towns, and their descendants live to this day.... It will be the work of the Society to show what a vast influence the Irish element had in building our free commonwealths whose alliance made the first great country of the people, in which with all its faults reposes the hope of the progress of the world into a world of the people instead of one of warring dynasties and vicious religious hatreds, setting nation against nation. We look to this Society for active, earnest, ardent work for the enlightenment, brotherhood and unity of this people first, and of all other peoples in the long event. God hath made of one blood all the nations of the earth.” 1897. Jan. 21. Rev. Edmund B. Palmer, Jamaica Plain, Mass., writes a congratulatory letter to Treasurer-General Linehan. Mr. Palmer states that he is a great-grandson of Barnabas Palmer of Rochester, N. H., who was born in Cork or Limerick, 1725, and who emigrated from there with two brothers, and enlisted under Sir William Pepperill. Barnabas sailed from Portsmouth, N. H.,—one of the force of 3,000 men, 1745, and on the Isle of Cape Breton, under Fort Louisburg, left his right arm. Subsequently, he settled in Rochester, N. H., married, had fourteen children, and was a member of the general court of New Hampshire that ratified the Constitution of the United States.