pany with that lover of rural scenery, the botanist
Kalm--an occurrence not unlike the interesting one of the excursions of
Linnaeus with Hans Sloane, in the Royal Gardens, near London. Here, too,
the wild pigeon was taken in great abundance; while in the Common (now
Park) those primitive inhabitants of the city, the Beekman family, with
the old doctor at their head, shot deer and other game in their field
sports. But enough at present of the locality where this anniversary is
held.

The history of the American periodical press, if given with any thing like
fidelity and minuteness, would occupy several hours; it is a noble
specimen of our triumphs as a free people, and of our determination so to
remain; it has demonstrated the progress of knowledge, and the intrepidity
of New-Yorkers, as much as any one series of facts or occurrences we could
summon for illustration. Everybody within this hall is aware that William
Bradford was the first in time of the newspaper publishers of New-York.
His gazette made its earliest appearance in October, 1725, four years
after James, the brother of Benjamin Franklin, began the _New England
Courant_--this being seventeen years after the commencement of the _Boston
News Letter_, the first regular newspaper commenced in North America. I
advert to this circumstance because we possess the completed file of that
earliest of the journals of our land now in existence. The copy in the
library of the Massachusetts Historical Society was presented that
institution by the famous antiquary, Dr. Eliot; that in our own Historical
Society is the file which was preserved by Professor McKean, of Harvard
University, who bequeathed it to the Rev. T. Alden, from whom I purchased
it and deposited it where it now remains.

From Franklin's representations, Bradford was a sorry individual, of low
cunning, and sinister; yet I must not deal harshly with him. His, I
believe, was the first printing press set up in New-York: he published the
laws, and other state papers, and he was the grandfather of Bradford,
afterwards Attorney-General of the United States; and as from his loins
proceeded Thomas Bradford, the adventurous and patriotic publisher of
Rees's _Cyclopaedia_--the most enterprising of the craft, and our greatest
patron of engravers--I desire to hold him in grateful memory. Our second
newspaper was the _New-York Weekly Journal_, commenced about three years
after Bradford's. John Peter Zenger, its proprieto