Teleology is dangerous, and spoilers often irritating. But observant readers will have figured out that John Gallison (1788-1820) couldn’t have lived too long after his work on the Missouri Compromise memorial and the address to the Peace Society in 1819. To disclose how it all turned out, we present Gallison’s final journal entry. We cannot know if his terminal illness was already plaguing him. His handwriting did get increasingly erratic as the month wore on, although it may be an extension of a trend past his more fastidious youth.
In any case, it is a grand send-off. We have notes on his family and social life– in both Marblehead and Boston– extensive notes on Sunday sermons, an enthusiastic spectator’s comments on the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention, and an afternoon of civilized conversation at former President Adams’s home in Braintree.
Adams, of course, was quite retired from public life by this time. His anointment as president of the convention was an act of homage only, which he gratefully acknowledged before surrendering the post to a younger man.
As an additional bonus, we enclose Gallison’s index for the final volume. Along with page numbers and marginal notes, he often added these to each volume in order to make his future study more productive. For one volume, he even tried a method recommended by John Locke. This is a bit simpler, and it leaves a decent overview of his other topics for the year.
His death came on Christmas Eve, almost exactly a year after his Peace Society address in 1819. His symptoms, as detailed in Channing’s lengthy obituary, are consistent with viral meningitis, although some sleuthing in his final year’s journal entries might turn up other causes. In any case, his friends and colleagues did their best to honor him. Not just Channing, but Josiah Quincy and others left generous acknowledgement, and the Massachusetts Supreme Court bar wore crepe for the rest of their session. He had no descendants that we know of. His father lived a few more decades and left a decent estate to his stepmother, which kept her comfortable in Marblehead. And his summary of the First Circuit Court cases was reprinted several times through the 19th century.