Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/969

 Amei'ica 959 in the public documents of the individual states. This first issue com- prises the material relating to Maine. The state of New Hampshire will issue about August i, through the department of the editor of State Papers, the first volume of New Hampshire Probate Records, covering the period from Captain John Mason's will in 1635 to about 1720. Every will is to be printed in full, except the preamble, and followed by careful abstracts of all other docu- ments connected with the case. The registers of Essex, Middlesex, Suffolk, and Old Norfolk counties in [Massachusetts, and York county in Maine, have been thoroughly searched for New Hampshire material. The entire publication of these probate records will extend to three or four volumes, and is in the hands of Mr. Otis G. Hammond, the assistant editor. Mr. Batchellor, the editor-in-chief, is devoting his time to the second volume of Neiv Hampshire Province Lazes, one volume of which, covering the period from 1679 to 1702, has already been issued. Mr. Robert T. Swan, Commissioner of Public Records of Massa- chusetts, has issued his Nineteenth Report on the custody and condition of the public records of parishes, towns, and counties. There are numerous useful suggestions in regard to the care to be taken in the making of the records as well as in their preservation. There is a circular of specific directions to city and town clerks, and another ex- plaining the method of dating prior to 1752. An appendix contains a summary of the laws relating to the public records. The ninth volume of the Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, which will contain a check-list of all the Boston news- papers from 1704 to 1790, with indication of numbers in various libraries and with elaborate notes by Mr. Albert Matthews, is now all in type. It is expected to be issued in July. The Essex Institute Historical Collections continues in the April issue the " Salem Town Records. 1659-1680 "', and prints, among other things, " Extracts from the Interleaved Almanacs of William Wetmore of Salem, 1774-1778", from the originals now in possession of Hon. George Peabody Wetmore of Newport, R. I. Mr. D. B. Updike (the Merrymount Press, Boston) announces a new edition, in two volumes, of Updike's Narragansett Church, first pub- lished in 1847. The new edition is being prepared under the editorship. of Rev. Daniel Goodwin, D.D., and, in addition to numerous annota- tions by the editor, will contain much additional matter, including a large number of portraits. Mr. Charles Warren Lippitt, formerly governor of Rhode Island, prints in a small pamphlet (pp. 38, xxx) with the title The Rhode Island Declaration of Independence, May 4. IJ76, an address intended to prove that Rhode Island was the first colony to declare itself independent of Great Britain. Under the title of A Sketch of the Life and Public Services of lames Mitchell J'arnum of Rhode Island, James M. Varnum of New