A prized memento of the early days of the Association is the ceremonial gavel. This handsomely decorated object, bound and decorated by richly engraved chasings, bears the following rubric on the central band of gold encircling its head:
This gavel is presented to the American Historical Association by Samuel Macauley Jackson, Boston December 28, 1899. It is made of the five following woods, four of which forming the head consist of the maple of Conn. the ash of Penn. the red birch of NH. and the oak of NY State. The gold band upon which this is engraved is from Cal. Upon the two silver bands are the words “From Nevada”. The handle is made of the vermilion of Kentucky. Tiffany 18k Solid Gold
The donor, Samuel Macauley Jackson (DD, LLD, 1851-1912), was a founding father of our affiliate, the American Society for Church History, and in 1899 was the secretary of the Church History Section of the AHA. Founded in 1888 as an independent organization the American Society for Church History elected to merge with the AHA as a Church History Section in 1896. The relationship was not an entirely easy one. Among other problems, the Smithsonian Institution, which by law publishes the annual report or the AHA, early in this century declined to print the papers delivered in the Church History Section part of the Association’s annual meeting. As a result Jackson and other members of the section left the AHA a few years later.
Jackson himself was a noted scholar of Protestant history. His 1901 biography of Zwingli was reprinted in 1969 and again in 1972, and he was the compiler of a major Bibliography of Church History in America 1820-1893 and obviously a gentleman of means. He lived at 692 West End Avenue in New York City. During the halcyon period of membership in the Association, he presented our gavel to President James Ford Rhodes at the annual meeting in Boston in 1899. It was recently appraised at over $1800.
