MEMOIR

OF

ABNER CHENEY GOODELL, A.M.

BY

ANDREW MCFARLAND DAVIS

THE skeleton of events which must furnish the frame for a memoir of Abner Cheney Goodell, or Abner Cheney Goodell, Junior, as he often signed his name, seems at first sight so free from adventure or exciting incidents as to make it seem incredible that with such means at hand, the bearer of the name should have been able to inscribe on the portals of fame a record which will compel recognition by all future students of Massachusetts history. Nearly all of Goodell's life was passed in Salem, and while he held at the hands of his fellow citizens various official positions which testified to the popular appreciation of his character and capacity, it was not to this local reputation that he will owe his recognition in the future, but to the patient, persistent, accurate, and learned work which he bestowed on the publication of the Province Laws.

In the performance of this work he not only sought to bring forth a complete record of the laws themselves, but also to lay before the student, through copious annotations, copies of the General Court records, bearing on the subject under consideration; reproductions of papers taken from the archives illustrative of the causes for legislation; transcripts from papers filed in the Superior Court of Judicature of the Province, and in the Rolls Office in London, and of such other material, especially if the same were inconspicuous or not easy of access, as would help form an idea of the social and political conditions affected by the legislation to which these notes were appended.

It is then as a helper, one who lifts the veil from a historical period, which has not been adequately brought to light, that he will appeal

through his work to those who may hereafter be tempted to explore the paths of our provincial history.

To us who knew him personally, who watched him as he ransacked the archives in search of contributory material; who noted the patient industry with which he pursued the clues suggested by the research upon which he was engaged; who saw him as he laboriously eliminated errors from the printers' proofs submitted to him, until at last even his critical taste was satisfied, was also given the privilege of that individual touch with the man, which made so grateful to the visitor the cheery, affectionate greeting of this unobtrusive, erudite student.

The curious combination of an almost boyish look with the conspicuous signs of culture and study depicted upon his ruddy countenance, his bright hazel eye now sparkling with pleasure as he solved some hidden point in the work on which he was engaged, and anon flashing with quick impatience if he conceived that some person had wilfully interposed obstacles to the progress of the publication in which he was interested, all bring before us a picturesque personality utterly unlike what the dry-as-dust character of his work would naturally suggest.

Mr. Goodell's life was practically spent in Essex County. He was born, it is true, in Cambridgeport, on the first day of October, 1831, but when he was a child of six years of age, his father moved to Salem, and thenceforward claimed Salem as his home. There Goodell received his education in the public schools, graduating from the High School at the head of a class in which he had as classmates the brothers William G. and Joseph H. Choate. The conspicuous careers of these classmates furnish an opportunity to measure the intellectual endowment of one who could surpass them in a boyhood competition.

After two years spent in his father's machine shop, Goodell entered the law office of an uncle at Ipswich, and finally finished his study of the law in Salem in the office of Northend and Choate, being admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1852. It will be seen that at graduation from the Salem High School his career apparently parted from that of his friends and classmates, the Choates. They pursued their education by going to Harvard, while Goodell, though busily occupied in mechanical work, did not abandon his education

at this point, but in private carried on certain of his studies. It is not to be supposed that this individual pursuit of learning was for him the full equivalent of a college course, but knowing the man as we do, it may at least be said that the gain that he derived from it was fully equivalent to the benefits acquired by many students from their collegiate career. The same year that he was admitted to the bar, the two Choates graduated at Harvard, the one the first scholar in the class, the other the fourth. What a triumph it would have been for the Salem High School, if the boy who had led those two scholars in that school, had carried the contest on to Harvard!

Mr. Goodell entered practice at Lynn, where he is said to have established a good business during the five years that he remained there. He was, however, diverted from active practice by the appointment in 1856 as Register of the Court of Insolvency in Essex County, a court then newly established. To this office he was elected the next year, and after the consolidation of the Insolvency and Probate Courts in 1858, he was elected Register of the joint courts consecutively for twenty years. He served the City of Salem as alderman in 1865, having been elected to that position by a unanimous vote. He was actuated in seeking this office by a desire to aid in the establishment of a water system for the city.

In 1865 he was appointed one of a commission to prepare for publication a complete copy of the statutes and laws of the Province and State of Massachusetts Bay from the time of the Province charter to the adoption of the Constitution, including all sessions acts, private and public, general and special, temporary and perpetual, passed from time to time by the General Court, all incorporations of towns and parishes, and all other legislative acts of historical importance, appearing on the records of the General Court, with suitable marginal references to the statutes and decisions of the Province and Commonwealth, the orders of the king in council, and such other authorities as in the opinion of the commissioners might enhance the value and usefulness of the work, and to append to the same a complete index.

The commission appointed under this resolve, consisted of John H. Clifford, Ellis Ames, and Abner C. Goodell. The transcript copies of laws, records, and references prepared by them is now on deposit in the archives.

In 1867, the printing of one volume of the Laws was authorized, and Mr. Ames and Mr. Goodell were appointed a commission to supervise its progress. This step marks an epoch in the life of Goodell, for although he did not at once take on his shoulders the burdens of editorship, nor assume responsibility for procuring annually the legislation needed for the continuance of the work, still his interest was stimulated by the problems submitted to the commission, among which was the method of annotation to be adopted in the forthcoming volumes. Marginal references as suggested in the original resolve, were seen from the beginning to be inadequate, and with the acquiescence of the Governor of the State, the system of annotation was adopted which was made use of in all volumes of the series until 1896.

When this publication began, Goodell was still Register of Probate and Insolvency in Essex County, and in addition had in 1865 become President of the Salem and South Danvers Street Railway Company. This latter position he filled for nineteen years, and by judicious management converted a practically bankrupt road into a flourishing company of great earning capacity.

Beginning with 1879, Goodell is said to have made the editorship of the Province Laws his chief work. Up to that time he had received no salary for his services, and thereafter what he did receive was meagre and inadequate. He served not for the salary but from pure delight in the work itself.

The third volume of the series was issued in 1878, coincident with the close of his career in the Registry. His connection with the presidency of the Street Railway was terminated in 1884, and with the exception that he served as president of the New England Historic Genealogical Society from January, 1887, to June, 1892, he seems to have subordinated all other occupations to the work of preparing copy for the forthcoming volumes of the Province Laws and ransacking the records both in this country and in England for material in illustration of this legislation, and to the supervision of the publication of such material. The commission which had the work in charge was reorganized in 1890, and the oversight of the work was in 1896 put in the hands of the Governor and Council.

Up to the time that this latter action was taken, Mr. Goodell had remained in active association with the work, and during the last

seventeen years his whole thought had been to place this edition of the Province Laws at the head of all similar publications, for the value of the illustrative material which it should contain. To effect this purpose all of his energies and activities were put forth, and during the latter part of the time he had no local or personal occupation which interfered with his movements.

The progress of the publication of the Province Laws had not been uniformly rapid during this long period of thirty years which measured his connection with the work. The State had not at its command buildings enough to house the various commissions that were created from time to time, and the orderly arrangement of the papers under consideration was interfered with no less than thirteen times by changes of the editorial staff from room to room, made at different intervals. Moreover, as time went on, opposition to the publication itself arose, based in the minds of some upon doubts as to the practical value of the work, while others insisted that undue time was being wasted in seeking for and perfecting the material used in the annotations. In fact, through this opposition there were delays in the passage of the necessary appropriations, and the continuity of the work at such times was maintained solely by the temporary assumption on the part of Mr. Goodell of responsibility for payment of clerical services.

He himself estimated that the various interruptions to the work on the Province Laws actually reduced the time given him to the preparation of those volumes to which his name is attached to less than nineteen years of actual work. However that may be, as time went on dissatisfaction with the slow progress of the work increased, criticism of the great expense of the publication accumulated, and opposition to its continuance had to be overcome each year when the necessary appropriations were sought for from the legislature.

In spite of the hostility to the copious system of annotation adopted by Mr. Goodell, appropriations were secured from year to year, adequate to carry on the work, until 1896, when the control of the publication was placed in the hands of the Governor and Council, and the amount left at the disposal of the Treasurer for application to this work was not large enough to meet the clerical services of the office force.

Up to this time the story of the vicissitudes of the Province Law