Hon. Charles Hicks Saunders
By Charles D. Elliot.
Honorary member of this society, was born in Cambridge, Mass., November 10, 1821, and died there December 5, 1901. He was descended from Martin Saunders, who came from England to Boston in 1635, and also, from John Hicks, a member of the Boston Tea Party, who was killed in the battle of Lexington. He was educated in the public schools of Cambridge, and in the Hopkins Classical School. He early became connected with the Suffolk Bank of Boston, soon after entering into business on his own account, from which he retired at the age of forty-two. He was an alderman in 1861 and 1862, and was active in his efforts for the soldiers of the Civil War.In 1868 and 1869 he was chosen with great unanimity mayor of Cambridge, and held public offices and honorary positions in that city for many years.
As local historian he had few, if any, superiors. It was through his efforts that the many historic spots of Cambridge were marked with appropriate tablets. He was first president of the Sons of the American Revolution, and for many years of the Cambridge Lyceum. He was a member of the Bunker Hill Monument Association, of the Shepard Memorial Society, of the Cambridge Club, of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, and honorary member of the Somerville Historical Society.
He married, September 18, 1849, Mary Brooks Ball, who, with four children, survives; him, among them Charles R. Saunders, chairman of the election commissioners of Boston.
Mr. Saunders' tastes were not alone antiquarian; he was equally interested in the events of to-day, and the questions of the coming century; as he once said to the writer, he ‘enjoyed living in the past, the present, and the future.’ Of the past he has been a faithful recorder, in the present an honored actor, and the future will respect him as a true man, a faithful official, and a model citizen.
