The Titanic Passenger Remembered During the Society’s Roll Call

If you have ever attended a Society meeting and were been present during Roll Call, you likely remember hearing the name Charles Duane Williams at its conclusion:

The name of Charles Duane Williams, descendant of Benjamin Franklin, who died on the S.S. Titanic, April 14, 1912, to save the lives of others, as representative of all those who, since the signing of the Declaration, have given their lives for their countrymen, shall be carried forever on the roll of the society and be called whenever the names of the signers be read.

Roll Call for the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, DSDI, Inc.

Upon hearing this, you may have wondered who Charles Duane Williams was–besides a DSDI member who was a passenger on the ill-fated Titanic–and why his name and the previous sentence is read every time we complete Roll Call at our meetings. It is due to a resolution that was passed during a DSDI meeting in 1912. President General Nancy McBride Wark discovered the pages from those minutes where the resolve occurred while scanning minutes from the Society’s historical minute books. The resolve begins in the last paragraph of the first image and continues at the top of the second image.

You can read more about Charles Duane Williams at https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic-victim/charles-duane-williams.html.