Слике страница
PDF
ePub

Reuben G. Thwaites, and having compared them with the accompanying treasurer's statement (Schedule A) and the vouchers, find all correct.

W. A. P. MORRIS, Chairman,

HALLE STEENSLAND,

FREDERIC K. CONOVER.

B.

REPORT OF FINANCE COMMITTEE.

To the State Historical Society of Wisconsin:- Your committee on finance respectfully submit their annual report of funds. received and expended during the past year, which by a careful examination of the treasurer's books, papers, and vouchers, securities, and cash on hand, we find correct for the year ending November 30, 1895. There has been received from

The annual State appropriation....
Interest on mortgage loans, secured..
Rent of Draper house at $30 a month..
Less repairs $2.05, and insurance $24.00.

$5,000 00

1,350 69

$360 00

26.05

333 95 190 00

Annual dues from members.

Life membership fees..

Sale of duplicates.....

Total net cash receipts (1895).

To which add cash balance Dec. 13, 1894.

Total cash.....

From which has been paid to the corresponding

secretary, the annual appropriation.............

14.00

63 74

$6,952 38

5,562 94

$12,515 32

$5,000 00

[blocks in formation]

Of the securities, the interest has all been paid with the exception of three instances,-one of $70.12 and one of $28, due the first of this month; and that of J. Schoonmaker, unpaid since July 22, 1893, the present owner offering to deed the premises for our claim, and the premises thought to be worth about an equal amount. The Thompson land near Black River Falls, standing at $1,207.39, is, from the most reliable information to be obtained, worth only about $800 taken on mortgage foreclosure, the loan having been made in December, 1886, by the former treasurer.

[blocks in formation]

$27,244 32

Net gain, irrespective of real estate.... $15,636 56
Assuming the Draper house worth
$6,000, the gain there, additional,
would be $3,621.86, and the loss on
land $407.39, leaving a balance of...

Making an actual net gain of....
December 12, 1895.

3,214 47

$18,851 03

N. B. VAN SLYKE,
Chairman.

C.-TREASURER'S REPORT, DECEMBER 1, 1895.

Report of the treasurer for the fiscal year ending November

[blocks in formation]

1895.

By sundry payments to R. G. Thwaites, secretary..

5,000 00

[blocks in formation]

Nov. 30. To interest receipts....

To rent receipts (Draper home).......
To one-half annual-membership dues..
To one-half of sales of duplicates....
To one-half life-membership fees....

The Treasurer, Cr.

1895.

Feb. 9. By paid repairs to Draper house...
Mch. 1.

By paid insurance, Draper house....

Nov. 30. By paid R. G. Thwaites, chairman of library committee, as per resolution of exec. com., Jan. 15, 1891 .....

Nov. 30. By balance

1895.

Dec. 1. To balance...

Antiquarian Fund.

The Treasurer, Dr.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

[Submitted to the Society at the Forty-third Annual Meeting, December 12, 1895.]

SUMMARY.

It is with no small degree of satisfaction that we are enabled to announce to the Society, that the fiscal year now brought to a close has been one of the most memorable in the history of the institution. In the annual report presented January 2, 1885, Secretary Draper briefly reviewed the ever interesting story of the Society's growth. The fitful career of the initial organization, formed January 30, 1849, he styled the first epoch; when the Society was reorganized in January, 1854, with himself as its executive officer, and began a truly active life, he considered that it had entered upon its second epoch; the third epoch opened when, in January, 1866, the institution was removed from its old quarters in the basement of the Baptist church, to rooms assigned it in the then new Capitol. But the apartments

considered in 1866 ample, and indeed luxurious, had in eighteen years become hopelessly overcrowded; with a library of 109,000 books and pamphlets, the Society, in December, 1884, entered upon its fourth epoch by removing into the present quarters in the new south wing of the Capitol. "This epoch," wrote Dr. Draper, "will probably extend to the period when the annual expansions of the Society's collections will necessitate another removal." Although deploring the fact that the Society had not been separately housed in a fire-proof building, on "an ample plot outside of the Capitol grounds," he was clearly of the opinion that the contemplated removal, inaugurating the fifth epoch, would be many years hence, but meanwhile confidently trusted "in the wisdom, foresight, and liberality of the next generation to make the needful provision. " The fifth epoch, however, seems nearer at hand than dreamed of by the one whom we may fitly call the Founder. In a measure sharing in the general prosperity of the State, although always sadly harassed for funds, the acquisitions of the Society have of late years far exceeded the ratio of a decade ago; and only eleven years later we find ourselves cramped for room in the Capitol, unable to properly accommodate our rapidly-increasing constituency of readers, and within our slender shell iving under the ever-present shadow of danger from fire or structural collapse. During eight of these eleven years, we have most persistently called the attention of the legislature to the inevitable, until at last an aroused public sentiment has compelled the law-makers of our own day to make "the needful provision," which our ever sanguine Founder saw only as a possibility of the dim future.

[ocr errors]

The generous gift of the regents of the State University, of eight full lots of land, a tract 264 feet square, and worth fully $40,000,- has assured for the Society's new home a noble site; and the State appropriation of what practically amounts to $180,000 is a guaranty that we are at last to have a building worthy of this institution and of the commonwealth which it

serves.

In more immediate acquisitions, the year has brought to the Society the usual healthful gains; the library, museum, and porIn report for January 2, 1883, Wis. Hist. Colls., x., p. 14.

« ПретходнаНастави »