Mr. T. W. Silloway will today read before the Boston Genealogical Society, a paper on "Benjamin Woodbridge, Harvard's First Graduate." A full report of the paper will be printed in the afternoon Traveler, copies of which can be had at Amee's and at Memorial. Mr. Silloway said on this subject: "While in England, not long ago, I went to the place where Woodbridge labored and died, and from the records and other sources have obtained, I think, about all the facts that are obtainable in regard to Woodbridge. Up to now, save the work of Mr. Sibley, in the history of the first graduates, I know of no biography of Woodbridge, nor does Mr. Sibley. Wood, in the "Athenae," of course treats of him, but in a very limited manner. There is a lamentable ignorance among even Harvard's graduates concerning this their first one. I am at a loss to give extracts of my paper, for it is in itself a synoptical biography of the man, being not only his history, but an account of his life-work, his contentions and strange experiences, his death, etc., and all along, running through the statement, is an analysis of his nature, etc,. The paper was prepared, not for reading at the society's rooms, but for publication in a small volume, to which would be added a like biography of his distinguished grandfather, Robert Parker, the father, almost of the English nonconformists. Notes, also, have been prepared to each department, giving a condensed synopsis of the lives of all the principal bishops, etc., with whom these men came in contact, and so were influencing to them, one way or another, in the extreme."
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English VI.