Acadiensis/Volume 1/Number 1/Joseph Wilson Lawrence
Jospeh Wilson Lawrence.
Joseph Wilson Lawrence.
On the 9th of September, 1874, Joseph W. Lawrence, Gilbert Murdoch, William R. M. Burtis, Robert W. Crookshank (3rd), Thomas W. Lee, William P. Dole, Alfred A. Stockton, George U. Hay, W. H. Dimock, and James Hannay, met in the director's room of the Mechanics Institute, for the purpose of considering the advisableness of forming an Historical Society.
Mr. Lawrence had for many years been an assiduous collector of pamphlets, documents and other data relating to the history of the Province of New Brunswick, and it was largely at his instigation that the meeting just alluded to was convened.
The result of the meeting was the organization of the New Brunswick Historical Society, at a meeting held at the same place, on the 25th of November, 1874. At this meeting, Mr. Lawrence was elected President, which position he continued to hold until the time of his death, which occurred on the 6th of November, 1892, at the age of seventy-five years. His widow, Anna C. Bloomfield Lawrence, survived him by only six months, passing away on the 21st May, 1893.
At the organization meeting, Mr. Lawrence read a paper entitled "The First Courts, and early Judges of New Brunswick." From the first number of Volume V. of the Maritime Monthly, published January 1875, which contains a copy of Mr. Lawrence's contribution, the following lines, which formed the prelude to the sketch, are taken:
"In organizing the Historical Society to-night, our object is to supply one of New Brunswick's wants. At the preliminary meeting held a few weeks ago, you delegated to me authority to fix the time for organization. I should have called you together before, but my desire was to have an historic day for that event. The 22nd of this month—the anniversary of the formation of the Government of this Province—is the one I should have preferred. Its fallling on a Sunday, necessitated the adoption of another day. I have, therefore, chosen this, the 25th of November, one of the Red Letter days in the New Brunswick Calendar, for on it, ninety years ago, our Supreme Court of Judicature was established.
The paper before me, I offer as the first contribution to our Historical Literature. To ourselves, it may possess little that is new; but to those of a generation hence it may be otherwise, for historic papers, often like the works of old masters or ancient coins, grow in value with age."
This paper, together with others, which Mr. Lawrence from time to time prepared and read before the Society, and including his volume of over 120 pages, entitled Footprints, published in 1883, does indeed form a valuable foundation stone for the superstructure of New Brunswick Historical Literature.
Mr. Lawrence was a corresponding member of the New England Historical and Genealogical Society, an Honorary Member of the Quebec Literary and Historical Society, and an Honorary Member of the Worcester Society of Antiquity.
Though not himself of Loyalist descent, he always exhibited a keen interest in preserving the memory of those brave and resolute men, the founders of the City of St. John, who faithful to the principles they had maintained, and the Empire to which they belonged, came to what was then the wilderness of Nova Scotia.
To the energy of Mr. Lawrence, St. John was largely indebted for the able manner in which was carried out the Celebration, in 1883, of the Centennial of the Landing of the Loyalists at the city.
The Souvenir Volume, published in this year, contained a record of all the inscriptions upon the gravestones in the "Old Burying Ground," between Sydney and Went worth streets, St. John. The compilation and publication of this record was carried out under the personal supervision of Mr. Lawrence, and much valuable data, which might otherwise have been lost to posterity, was permanently recorded. Of a sense of the value of this record, we become year by year, more deeply impressed.
And now, as we stand upon the threshold of a new century, does it not seem a propitious time, that we, who knew him personally, who shared in his labors, and are, we might say, almost daily reaping the fruit thereof, should erect to his memory, some tribute of our affection and esteem?
The matter has already been laid before the Historical Society and the Loyalist Society, of New Brunswick; a joint committee from both societies has interviewed the relatives of Mr. Lawrence, in order to ascertain their ideas as to the most suitable place in which to erect a memorial; it now remains for the citizens of St. John to provide the necessary funds, in order that the work should be properly carried out.
At a formal interview between the wardens and the vestry of Trinity Church and the joint committee, the necessary consent for the erection of a memorial in that Church was obtained.
A brass tablet, mounted upon a slab of polished marble, bearing a suitable inscription, was decided upon at the conference, as the most appropriate form which the memorial might take.
It is felt by the members of the committee, that contributions of small amounts not exceeding five dollars, would be desirable, in order that as many persons as possible, might unite in the undertaking.
The total estimated cost of the tablet is the sum of one hundred dollars.
The joint committee appointed were Messrs. Alfred A. Stockton, from the Loyalist Society, and Clarence Ward, from the New Brunswick Historical Society, with the writer, who is a member of both Societies.
Subscriptions received by any member of the committee, will be acknowledged through the columns of this Magazine.