Mercantile Library Association (Boston, Massachusetts)

Barrett, Thomas Gorham, James T. Blanchard, Lynde M. Walter, Charles J. Johnson, Edward Codman, Henry A. David and Samuel W.

After a decade of minimal growth, the association engaged in a successful fundraising effort in 1835, expanding its revenue and membership.

In 1842 "the Boston Marine Society deposited with the Association their extensive cabinet of curiosities, containing about two thousand rare and valuable specimens.

"[9] In 1849, Horace Mann addressed the association’s 29th Anniversary with a, “A Few Thoughts for a Young Man.”[10] Other speakers included Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.;[11] poet Park Benjamin Sr.; George S. Boutwell; Thomas Greaves Cary; Rufus Choate; Caleb Cushing; George Stillman Hillard; William F. Sturgis; and Robert Charles Winthrop.

According to one historian, after 1881 "the Association, deprived of its library, entered upon a steadily less successful career as a social club that came to a dusty and inglorious end in 1952.