Joshua Bates donates $50,000 to buy books for the Boston Public Library.

The former Boston resident, by now a British banker, subsequently writes a letter to Mayor Benjamin Seaver citing the reason for the bequest as being “My own experience as a poor boy . . . having no money to spend and no place to go, not being able to pay for a light or fire in my own room, I could not pay for books.” He makes the gift with three stipulations: that the city pay for operating the library, that the building be “an ornament of the city” and contain a reading room big enough to accommodate more than 100 people, and that it be free to all. Bates later donates another $50,000 to buy more books.