The long-anticipated third volume of Patriot-Improvers brings to an end the important work of Dr. Whit Bell, who started in 1997 to put together “biographical sketches of members of the American Philosophical Society elected between 1743, when Franklin proposed it, and 1769, when it was established on its present foundation by the union of several earlier institutions” (Patriot-Improvers, Volume One, p. xiii).