Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 11.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

[531] made in our report last year, and ‘have not only paid the last dollar of our old debt, but have in our treasury the nucleus of a permanent endowment fund.’

We are gratified also to say that there is a wider interest in our work than ever before, and every promise that by wise management and vigorous effort we shall be able to realize at no distant day our most sanguine expectations, and to put the Society on a basis which shall insure the successful prosecution of its work long after its present friends have passed away.

The past two years

we regard as the most successful in our history.

In November, 1881, your Committee had to face a crisis which threatened the suspension of our publication, the loss of our archives, and the very existence of the Society. An old debt, which had lapped over from previous years, threatened to engulf us.

But we went to work vigorously to meet the emergency. Old friends stood by us and new ones have rallied to our help—so that we are enabled now to report that we have regularly issued our Papers, paid $2,600 on account of old debt, reprinted missing numbers to make complete sets at a cost of $726.50, expended $734.53 on account of extra binding and other necessary extra expenses; and are still able to report $4,633.42 deposited in the savings bank to the credit of our special fund, besides $255.19 due it by our current fund. Besides these important pecuniary results, the canvass we have made has extended the knowledge of our work over a large territory where it was before comparatively unknown—added largely to our membership, raised us up active friends, secured most valuable material for our archives, and given promise of much larger results in the future.