Your letter of the 17th inst. saying you had received no answer to yours informing me of my appointment as Secretary of Oregon is received and surprises me very much—I received that letter accompanied by the commissions in due course of mail, and answered it two days after, declining the office and warmly recommending Simeon Francis for it. I have also written you several letters since, alluding to the same matter all of which ought to have reached you before the date of your last letter. Your Obt. Servt. “A. LINCOLN.” SOCIETIES THE NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY The 100th anniversary of the founding of the Society was celebrated on Tuesday evening, Nov. 22, 1904, by a banquet. The president announced that Mr. Henry Dexter, a fellow member had presented to the Society the sum of $150,000, and in addition the granite for the entire front of the central portion of the new building, Central Park West, 76th–77th Sts. A medal in bronze and silver has been struck to commemorate the founding of the institution. At an annual meeting (Jan. 3d, 1905), of the Society, the following officers were elected for the ensuing year: President, Samuel V. Hoffman; first vice-president, Frederic W. Jackson; second vice-president, Francis R. Schell; foreign corresponding secretary, Archer M. Huntington; domestic corresponding secretary, George R. Schieffelin; recording secretary, Acosta Nichols; treasurer, Charles A. Sherman; librarian, Robert H. Kelby. At a stated meeting held February 7th, Mr. A. Emerson Palmer, Secretary of Board of Education, read a very interesting and instructive address on “A Century of Public Schools in the City of New York,” with stereopticon illustrations. The Society resolved to take measures to celebrate in 1909 the ter-centenary of the discovery of this part of North America by Henry Hudson, the 200th anniversary of that event having been celebrated by the Society on September 4th, 1809. RHODE ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY