CLASS OF 1848

Died, in Roosevelt Hospital, New York city, September 24, 1910, from acute pneumonia, and in the eighty-fourth year of his age, Wentworth Sanborn Butler.

Mr. Butler was for fifty years the wellknown and greatly valued librarian of the New York Society Library, the oldest public library, save one, in the United States; founded in 1754, serving under royal charter granted by George III, and supported by the patronage of the most prominent citizens of the older New York, as shareholders.

Mr. Butler was born September 30, 1826, in Deerfield, N. H. His father was the Honorable Josiah Butler, a conspicuous member of the New England bar, a member of Congress for many years, and judge of the superior court of the state of New Hampshire.

After graduating with honor from Dartmouth, Mr. Butler spent a year at Harvard in special study, and afterward engaged for a term in teaching in a classical school in Maryland. He then, with the purpose of entering the ministry, took a three-year theological course in the Union Seminary in New York city. His delicate health, however, and his unusually cultivated literary tastes turned the current of his preferences to a librarian's career, and he was invited to enter the New York Society Library as assistant to the librarian, Mr. John McMullen; and one year later, Mr. Butler, on Mr. McMullen's retirement in 1857, was appointed by the trustees, librarian in chief. This honored position Mr. Butler filled with special ability and success for the rare period of forty-eight years. In 1897, his .health having suffered from too close application to his work, he offered his resignation, which the trustees refused to accept, and appointed Mr. Butler librarian emeritus, which position he continued to hold until his death.

Born one year later than Ainsworth R. Spofford, the late distinguished librarian of the Congressional Library of Washington (whose native state was also New Hampshire), Mr. Butler lived to be one year older than Mr. Spofford, and his term of service at the head of one of the large and important libraries of the 'land was nearly ten years the longer. In physique and general appearance the two New Hampshire librarians (Butler and Spofford) were strikingly similar, both being tall and spare, and with the same "scholarly stoop," which is apt to belong to the bookworm and student. Each, too, bore the reputation of being a "walking encyclopedia," and better for ready reference than any printed catalogue.

Mr. Butler's specialty was church history, ritual, and polity, and both clergy and laity equally availed themselves of his superior knowledge of these subjects.

His religious affiliations were marked and decided. He was for many years a devoted communicant of St. Michael's church, New York city, though holding no office in the parish; but later in life he became a regular attendant at Grace church, and a friend and admirer of its rector, the late Rev. Dr. Huntington.

But the library was his kingdom, and being a bachelor, "the Society Library" (as an intimate friend expressed it), "was Butler's whole existence!" His days were spent in the alcoves or at his desk, and his wakeful hours at night found him still planning for its interests. Wherever he might be (and his vacations were few), it was the library and its concerns which were uppermost in his thoughts, and the chief topic of his conversation.

In the last months of his life, notwithstanding his fast growing infirmities, Mr. Butler still clung to his desk in the library, and was not content unless engaged in some minor duties of detail, which habit had made necessary to his happiness; and until three days before his death he was at his post, and still performing his self-imposed tasks. On September 21, he developed a slight pulmonary congestion, which quickly passed into pneumonia, and he was taken to Roosevelt Hospital, an institution with which he had been familiar since its foundation, having been an intimate friend of its founder, the late James Roosevelt. Nothing that care and skill could suggest for his relief was lacking; but the end had come, and he sank to rest on September 24 and within five days of his eighty-fourth birthday. His funeral service was performed by the curates of St. Michael's parish, and his remains now rest in Mt. Hope cemetery, in Westchester county.

As above intimated, Mr. Butler never married, and having few family ties, his domestic and social life was necessarily a restricted one. But the record which he has left behind him of rare devotion to his profession, of high Christian character, of lofty aims and useful results, is one of singular dignity and honor.

Mr. Austin B. Keep, in his "History of Libraries in New York"(published in 1908), pays a noble tribute to the "emeritus librarian, Wentworth Butler," and dwells with special emphasis and pride on "his fifty-three years of continuous service." Such a life, too, brings honor to old Dartmouth, where Butler learned his early lessons in the shaping of a career of special usefulness; while to the few contemporaries who still linger in the race which our friend has already finished, his memory will ever remain a golden one.

[NOTE—As the Secretary of Mr. Butler's class (Patterson of '48), has long since passed away, I have ventured to assume the privilege of paying the above imperfect tribute to an old college comrade, and I gladly acknowledge my indebtedness for the above memoranda to Mr. Frank B. Bigelow, the present efficient librarian of the New York Society Library, and the successor of Mr. Butler.