In 1790, Boston minister 杰里米·贝尔纳普 proposed a "Plan for an Antiquarian Society" that would actively collect materials to document the history of the new nation. 一年后, 1791年1月24日, Belknap's "Antiquarian Society" became the "Historical Society" when he invited nine like-minded Bostonians to join him in creating what would become the 马萨诸塞州历史学会, the oldest organization in the United States devoted to collecting materials for the study of American history. 同年晚些时候，贝尔纳普起草了一份 历史学会的通函, in which he announced the Historical Society's formation 和 purpose: "to collect, 保存, 和交流, materials for a complete history of this country"--a mission that has remained essentially unchanged for more than two centuries.

杰里米·贝尔纳普是谁?

牧师. 杰里米·贝尔纳普 was born in Boston in 1744, 和 educated at Harvard College. 他成了一名公理会牧师, 首先在多佛定居, 新汉普郡, in 1767, 在19年的服役期间，在哪里, 他抽出时间写了一部三卷本的作品 新罕布什尔州的历史. 在他的研究, Belknap demonstrated a fixed determination to examine primary sources, 在相对孤立的新罕布什尔农村工作, he relied heavily on the collaboration of a wide-ranging network of correspondents to locate 和 verify information for his 历史 这不仅涵盖了勘探, 以及军事和政治历史, but also the geography 和 natural history of the Granite State, 以及当地居民的风俗习惯, 包括印第安人. 美国独立战争爆发后, Belknap traveled to the siege lines around Boston to interview participants 和 gather information about how the fighting began.

杰里米·贝尔纳普于1787年回到波士顿, where he became pastor of the Church in Long Lane-now the Arlington Street Church. 在新英格兰的大都市, 和和他有共同兴趣的人在一起, he set out to apply the concepts 和 procedures for historical research that he had developed in 新汉普郡 on a wider stage. 正如他在给埃比尼泽·哈扎德的信中所说, Belknap acted upon his principles; in what has become a catch phrase for the Historical Society, “保持良好的警戒, 而不是在家里坐等天赐良机, 而是像狼一样四处游荡，寻找猎物.在他的信中, Belknap recounts how he had traveled to Connecticut to collect the manuscripts 和 pamphlets of Governor Jonathan Trumbull, 谁死于1785年. Belknap had no way of knowing that in saving Trumbull's papers from becoming "food for worms,他为后来的一部史诗奠定了基础, seventy-seven-year battle between the MHS 和 the state of Connecticut over whether the manuscripts were Trumbull's personal papers or official Connecticut records. The Historical Society finally-和 grudgingly-returned the papers to the Connecticut State Library in 1921. Belknap's vulpine avarice for documents occasionally borders on the unseemly: he greedily anticipates seeing the head of "our old patriot, S[amuel] A[水坝]“放低, 这样历史学会就能得到更多的手稿.

Ebenezer Hazard (1744-1817) was a Princeton-educated New York City printer 和 post office surveyor, who had returned to Philadelphia in 1782 to become the first postmaster general of the United States under the Constitution. 贝尔纳普形容他是他的“向导、哲学家和 朋友." Hazard shared Belknap's intense interest in history 和 historical documents, 和, in 1792, was the first person elected a corresponding (non-resident) member of the Historical Society.

在1798年去世之前, 通过他自己的贡献和他请求的礼物, 杰里米·贝尔纳普 had developed a substantial base for the Historical Society's extraordinary present-day collections. He also served as the first corresponding secretary of the MHS, 和 through a series of published circular letters 和 notices, 还有他的私人信件, attempted to convey news of the founding of the new organization 和 its purpose "to every gentleman of Science in the Continent 和 Isl和s of America."