Page 172

138

Superintendents Annual Report
To the Pacific Grove Retreat Assn.

Brethren,
I have to report a comparatively uneventful
year in my administration. No matters [?????t]
have come up for my decision.

The event of most far reaching importance to Pacific
Grove in the year was the death of Mr. F.S. Douty.
He was the embodiment of the genius of Pacific Grove
and in this sense the loss seems beyond repair.
All of the institutions of the Grove were either of his own
creation or so had come up under his eye that he
had a familiarity with them that cooperation in them
with him was a delight. His character was fine, his mor-
al [interests] right, and he was the soul of business
honor, his intelligent and sympathetic apprehension
of our peculiar interests was a strong bulwark for
their defence. Genial, generous, able, broad minded,
ready, courteous, all of the representatives of the Asso-
ciation who had to do with him keenly miss him.
Mr. Richard Derby has been selected as his success-
or. The acquaintance thus far formed justifies large
expectations from him; he has already entered into
hearty sympathy with our work and plans and
promises to be equal to all claims we shall make
upon him. It has been easily the most success-
ful of the history of the Grove in every [line]; the [?]
for the first time had a travel extensive enough
to give hotels and boarding houses a paying pa-
[tronage].. Several of these report fairly meeting
current expenses.