MARYLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY. The, was first proposed as a project by John H. B. Latrobe in 1835, and was organized in his law office on 27 Jan. 1844, largely (through the zeal and execution') of Brantz Mayer. It was incorporated in 1845, and, joining with the Baltimore Library Company, a proprietary li brary founded in 1796, solicited gifts for a building to be called the Atheneum, a solicita tion so successful that the organizations re moved to permanent quarters therein on 23 Oct. 1848. In 1852 the Baltimore Library Com pany disbanded, giving its books and its share in the building to the Society. The Mercantile Library Company occupied a part of the Atheneum on a lease from the beginning until about 1880. In 1916 Mrs. H. Irvine Keyser gave the Society, as a memorial to her husband, the former residence of the late Enoch Pratt, at the corner of Monument and Park streets in Baltimore, and erected on the rear of the lot a fireproof library and art gallery. The buildings were opened with suitable exercises 18 Feb. 1919. The Society has about 800 mem
bers. Its presidents have been Gen. John Spear Smith, 1844 to 1866; Col. Brantz Mayer, 1866 to 1871; John H. B. Latrobe, Esq., 1871 to 1891; Severn Teackle Wallis, Esq., 1892 to 1894; Rev. John G. Morris, D.D., 1895; Albert Ritchie, Esq., 1896 to 1904; Mendes Cohen, Esq., 1905 to 1914, and Hon. Edwin Warfield, 1914 to the, present, The Society possesses a valuable collection of books and manuscripts, including the Calvert Papers, purchased from a descendant of the last Lord Baltimore. It has published a series of publications from a fund given by George Peabody, and now prints the quarterly Maryland Historical Magacitte. As agent for the State it has supervised the print ing of 38 volumes of Maryland archives, deal ing with the Provincial and Revolutionary pe riods of the State's history, most of which volumes were edited by the late Dr. William Hand Browne.