Page:History of Barrington, Rhode Island (Bicknell).djvu/679

BARRINGTON PUBLIC LIBRARY. 553 of the century, bv that loyal and devout son of Barrington, Rev. Samuel Watson. He was quick to see that an educated ministry must aid in making an intelligent people, and one of the outcomes of his useful labors was the organization of a Library Society to which the General Assembly gave a charter of incorporation under the name of " The Barrington Library Society," in February, 1806, as follows : "Whereas, Josiah Humphreys, Junior, of Barrington, in the County of Bristol, hath represented unto this Assembly, that he and thirty others have associated themselves into a Society, in the town of Bar- rington, which they have denominated The Barrington Library Society, and that they have subscribed a considerable sum of money for the pur- pose of procuring a library of useful books ; and whereas the said Society have made application to this Assembly for a Charter of Incorporation, and this Assembly approving so laudable a design, and willing to give it all the assistance and encouragement which it so justly merits, Do enact that Samuel Watson, Joshua Bicknell, Josiah Humphreys, Solomon Townsend, Amariah Lilley, Nathaniel Smith, John Short, John Humphreys, Elkanah Humphreys, Nathaniel A. Martin, Ebenezer Peck, Nathaniel Heath, Kent Brown, Samuel Barnes, Benjamin Martin, Jabez Bullock, Nathaniel Smith, Jun., Ebenezer Tiffany, Joseph C. Mauran, Frances Adams, Matthew Watson, Josiah Kinnicutt, Rebecca Bosworth, Elizabeth Bicknell, Comfort Stanley, William Allin, Calvin Martin, Sylvester Viall, and Samuel Allen, and all others who shall be admitted by them members of their Society, be and are constituted a body politic and corporate subsisting at all times forever hereafter in deed and in name by the name of The Barrington Library Society." This Society could hold property not exceeding six thousand dollars. Power was granted to assess each share in said library not to exceed one dollar a year. The officers recognized by the Charter were a librarian and treasurer, and such others as the Society might determine, to be elected annuallv. The first election was held on the first Monday of May, 1S06, in Barrington. This library contained a valuable collection of the standard works of the day, and its catalogue, in the solidity if not in the readability of its volumes, would put to blush many catalouges of a later date. History and theology were the body of the library, and into it were allowed no books of fiction, which the fathers believed " worketh abomina- tion and maketh a lie." The library was at one time kept at the par- sonao'e, and the minister was the librarian, but later it fell into com- plete disuse and its volumes, if they have not been sold for junk, cumber the garrets of the older houses of the town. If I am rightly informed. Rev. Francis Wood was the last librarian, and it is quite possible that his former roof shelters some volumes of the first Bar- rington library. The present public library owes its existence primarily and mainly to the efforts of Mr. David A. Waldron, who labored in season and out of season, among his friends in town, out of town, and everywhere, to