LIBRARIANS OF HARVARD COLLEGE.
Boston bar joined in a laudatory address to him on
his departure. In 1762, having been obliged to re-
turn to Milton chiefly from lack of money, he
appealed to the Lords of Trade for his salary, which
had been denied him by three successive sessions
of the Assembly because his commission had not
been granted during good behaviour. Mr. Prat
went back to New York, however, and in June
the Lords of Trade declared in an address to the
king that " had it not been for the disinterested
zeal of Mr. Prat, the administration of Justice
had totally ceased in the Province." As a partial
settlement of the dispute the Chief Justice's salary
was paid out of the quit-rents, as suggested by
Lieut. Gov. Golden. At first many felt a preju-
dice for Mr. Prat as a stranger, but before his
death, which occurred 5 January, 1763, his ability
began to win recognition. He attempted to stop
corrupt practices and extortion among the lawyers.
Says Mr. Golden : " He was received with contempt
& displeasure. He died beloved and regretted as
the greatest loss the Province ever suffered."
Chief Justice Prat was buried under the chancel
in Trinity church. John Adams pictured him as
"wit, sense, imagination, genius, pathos, reason,
prudence, eloquence, learning, and immense read-
ing, hanging by the shoulders on two crutches,
covered with a great cloth coat."
Besides his ability as a lawyer and a judge ("he
was," says Hutchinson, " of the first character in
his profession"), he wrote poetry, which in those
not too critical days was highly esteemed.
His wife was a daughter of Judge Robert Auch-
muty. His daughter Isabella inherited the prop-
erty at Milton Hill.
AUTHORITIES: Mass. hist. soc. Proceedings, 1864, p. 35. History of Hingham, 1893, iii. 116. O'Callaghan, Colonial History of New York, vii. Winsor, Memorial hist, of Bos- ton, 1881, ii. 430, iv. 575-7.
1743-1748.
Matthew Cushing, the son of Solomon and Sarah (Loring) Gushing of Hingham, was born 4 April, 1720. His father, a tanner by trade, was a selectman and a deacon. Matthew graduated from Harvard in 1739. The winter after he was granted his second degree, he was chosen (21 February, 1742-3) Librarian. On the following Commencement (6 July, 1743), the Corporation passed this vote : "That Mr. Gushing Library-keeper be call'd to an Account with Respect to his Absence from the Library to Day Whereby the Overseers & Corporation were hindred from going in." It is to be presumed that he was able to give a satisfactory excuse for this negligence, as he seems to have served as Librarian for five years.
Of Mr. Cushing's later career but few details are to be found. In September, 1749, the town of Charlestown granted him permission to keep a private school in that place, and the next spring, when the town voted to maintain two public schools, he was appointed master of the Latin school with a salary of ₤60 a year. Here he taught a year, until the summer of 1751, when the two schools were merged into one. Five years later we find him teaching school in Plymouth for two years, 1756-1758, and then again we lose all trace of him, until in 1763 he was chosen master of the grammar school, then newly established in connection with King's College (now Columbia University), in New York. The next year that college gave him the honorary degree of A.M. The grammar school does not appear to have been a success, for in a few years reforms were thought necessary and the expenses were reduced. One of the two teachers was dismissed, but whether it was Gushing or his colleague, Alexander Leslie, does not appear. As a new master was not appointed until five years after the former's death, it would seem probable that it was the latter who was retained in the school. In this case, the last dozen years of Mr. Cushing's life are a blank to us. He died in New York, 8 January, 1779.
AUTHORITIES : Columbia College, Catalogue of officers and graduates, 1754-1888, p. 34. Gushing, Genealogy of the Cushing family, 1877, p. 29. Historical sketch of Columbia college, 1876, pp. 24, 28. History of the town of Hingham, 1893, ii. 157. Mass. hist. soc. Collections, 2d series, iv. 90, 95. Wilson, Memorial history of New York, 1893, iv. 592. Winsor, Memorial history of Boston, 1881, ii. 321. Wyman, Genealogies and estates of Charlestown, 1879, i. 254.
1748-1750.
Oliver Peabody, the oldest son and second child of Rev. Oliver Peabody, minister at Natick, Mass. , and missionary to the Indians, was born 15 January, 1725-6. His mother was Hannah Baxter, daughter of the Rev. Joseph Baxter of Medfield. Oliver graduated in 1745 and became Librarian in the year in which he received his second de- gree, 1748. In September, 1749, he was reelected for one year, and the following fall he was chosen pastor of the First church in Roxbury, where he was ordained 7 November, 1750. As no record appears of the appointment of a successor to him at the Library until the election of Marsh as Li- brarian pro tempore in April, 1751, it would seem either that he continued during the first few months of his pastorate to carry on the duties of Librarian or that there was no " Library- keeper" during that time. After less than two years of labor in this parish, Mr. Peabody died, unmarried, 29 May, 1752, at the age of 26. The
