fit to extend, or Bolivia to accept, a direct invitation to participate in the Fourth Pan American Conference, the good offices of several governments brought about a resumption of friendly relations. In 1911, when Colombia, Ecuador and Peru seemed on the verge of going to war over boundary questions, the United States and several Latin American governments united in making representations which helped to prevent an actual conflict. It may also be remembered that when, several years ago, negotiations between the United States and Chile over the so-called Alsop claim were somewhat strained, the informal and friendly suggestions of one or two of the Pan American governments relieved the situation and prevented a possible serious crisis.

JOHN WALKER MAURY, HIS LINEAGE AND

LIFE.

BY WILLIAM A. MAURY.

(Read before the Society, December 21, 1915.)

I have had the honor to be invited by the Columbia Historical Society to prepare a memoir of my father, the late John Walker Maury of this city, and if in complying with this invitation, family pride should seem to lead me too far away from my immediate subject, I shall not apologize for a departure which springs from a desire to give incitement to the present generation of the family.

Mr. Maury's devotion and usefulness to the city of his adoption were such that, I take leave to say, it is fitting that something with regard to his life and services should be placed on the files of this Society and my regret is that the performance of this service to his memory has not fallen to abler hands.

Mr. Maury was born in the County of Caroline, Virginia, on the 15th day of May, 1809. He came of Huguenot stock and his ancestors were among those who fled from France and religious persecution on the revocation of the famous Edict of Nantes, seeking the protection of the British flag in England and Ireland.

Matthew Maury and Mary Ann Fontaine, both refugees, married and soon afterwards emigrated to the then Colony of Virginia. From this union there have sprung a numerous progeny which are scattered throughout the country.

Conspicuous among the children of Matthew Maury and Mary Ann Fontaine was the Reverend James

Maury who was born in 1707 and died in 1769. He is the great Propositus or, as Bishop Meade terms him, the "Old Patriarch" who stands at the head of the Maury Genealogical Chart.

He was a Minister of the Established Church of England but had the courage to take an able and vigorous stand in support of the colonies in their struggle with the Mother Country.

Being an accomplished classical scholar and having a large family to educate he established a school in which Thomas Jefferson was a pupil for two years. In this way began a lifelong friendship between the instructor and his pupil.

In a letter written by Mr. Jefferson four months before his death, the original of which now lies before me, the writer, after reference to his bodily and mental infirmities, makes a feeling allusion to those early school days where he speaks of his preparation "to meet with welcome the hour which shall once more reassemble our antient class and its venerable head."

I turn now to the testimony of Parton and Randall, two of the biographers of Jefferson, to add to what I have said about my progenitor. Mr. Parton, after stating that the first use Jefferson made of the liberty that came to him by the death of his father was to change his school, proceeds as follows:

"Fourteen miles away was the parsonage of Rev. James Maury, a man of great note in his time, and noted for many things; from whose twelve children have descended a great number of estimable persons of the name still living. Of Huguenot descent and genuine scholarship, he was free both from the vices and the bigotry which the refuse of the young English clergy often brought with them to Virginia in the early time. Pamphlets of his remain, maintaining the right and liberal side of questions bitterly contested in his day. He