Amherst Academy Platonic Society notebook of minutes and administrative records, 1834 December 26 to 1836 March 18
Description:
A Platonic Society administrative notebook containing minutes from meetings, lists of members, the society's constitution, and its library records. The Platonic Society was a male student literary society of Amherst Academy which held weekly meetings of society business, declamations, and debates on posed questions. Minutes in the notebook cover society meetings from December 1834 to March 1836 and often include the order of proceedings at the meeting, the results of the meeting's debate, the question proposed for the next debate, other society business such as new members accepted, and occasionally the names and position titles of officers chosen at the meeting. Minutes are often signed by the secretary or scribe at the time. Secretaries who contributed to the notebook include: Alva A. Hurd, William E. Allen, David B. Colton, James S. Parker, Nelson C. Clapp, David G. Davis, Rowland Ayres, John M. Harris, Horace Hutchinson, Lucius Cook, Isaiah C. Thacher, and E.J. Sapis or Lapis. Interspersed throughout the notebook are full lists of names of members. At the end of the notebook are the borrowing records from the Society's library (the Washingtonian Library) and the Society's nullified constitution. In March 1836 the Platonic Society merged with the Franklin Society of Amherst Academy and the resulting merged society was named the Washington Society. Included at the end of this notebook are entries of March 1836 Platonic Society meetings at which the merger of societies and their libraries was discussed.
Entries were made from each end of the book. After 55 pages (through entry dated March 11th 1836), the notebook was inverted and the remaining 23 pages of text were made from back to front. Images with text that appears upside down in the original have been rotated for readability, but the pages were kept in their original physical order.
