ST. BOTOLPH WAS FOUNDED in a golden epoch of the City of Boston. Arts, literature, music, architecture, clubs and public affairs, as well as the vast commercial, shipping and professional empires that supported them, were all experiencing a great flowering. Many of the eminent individuals connected with all these were original members of our Club. A "Committee of Ten" had sent out invitations to several hundred friends and colleagues, and upon receiving an enthusiastic response, founded the Club on January 3rd, 1880. And, as one of our Club historians has put it, "all the stars of the morning, the very early morning, sang together."
After much contemplation, at the organizational meeting, under John Quincy Adams' temporary chairmanship, the name of St. Botolph Club was chosen, after the VIIth century abbot around whose monastery in the fens of East Anglia Botolph's Town, later corrupted to Boston, sprang up. Botolph thus became patron saint of Boston England and his spirit latterly migrated to the new city in Puritan New England. He was known for his kindly spirit and good humour which attributes we continue to celebrate at number 199 Commonwealth Avenue.
The founders for those days were a diverse lot. Some were luminaries of letters, such as William Dean Howells and John Boyle O'Reilly. There was Henry Cabot Lodge then better known as author and editor than for his political career; publishers Henry Houghton and George Mifflin, editors/writers John Bartlett and the many faceted Edward Henry Clement. Artists there were then and later: Frank Hill Smith and John Singer Sargent, whose famous portrait of Mrs. Gardner was exhibited at the Club amid some little stir; Daniel Chester French, sculptor of the Abraham Lincoln statue. H.H. Richardson was among the architects; even the clergy were represented by the enthusiastic Phillips Brooks, though we lost the great preacher Edward Everett Hale who withdrew to find "more congenial company" when the Club (providentially) refused the W.C.TU.'s request that we embrace teetotalism. Men of affairs were there: Henry Lee Higginson, Leverett Saltonstall, and James Storrow; for Academia there were Charles W. Eliot of Harvard and the great historian, Francis Parkman who became our first president.
The early years began weekly meetings and monthly suppers and, especially after we arrived at our great house at 4 Newbury St with its magnificent gallery, art exhibits. There were shows for many artists, including some of our own members. This custom has continued to the

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