MEMOIR

OF

HENRY WHEATLAND, M.D.

BY WILLIAM P. UPHAM.

AMONG the historical and scientific societies which have done so much to bring honor and credit to our country, one of the most useful and widely known to those interested in such pursuits is the Essex Institute at Salem, Massachusetts. This institution, formed in 1848 by a union of two societies previously existing, has for its object the collection of material and the diffusion of knowledge relating to history, science, and the arts.

With but very slender resources in the way of permanent funds, and depending almost wholly upon the immediate sympathy and interest of the community in which it exists and upon the gratuitous services of its officers, it has built up a library of over sixty thousand volumes and one hundred and seventy-five thousand unbound volumes and pamphlets. It has published twenty-nine volumes of "Historical Collections" and twenty-eight volumes containing, beside the records of its meetings, many scientific memoirs of recognized value. It has held innumerable "field meetings" and horticultural and art exhibitions, and in conjunction with an allied society, the Peabody Academy of Science, has gathered in its cabinets a vast amount of material admirably arranged for the study of science, history, and ethnology, and forming a collection which is open to the public and is examined and studied by many thousands of visitors, annually, from all parts of the country and indeed of the civilized world. Its influence has spread among the people of Essex County, to whose interest it is specially devoted, a taste for enlightened pursuits which gives character to the whole region.