[
97]
town-treasurer for said
Medford is hereby required to give unto said town, at said meeting, a particular account of the disposing of the said town's money; and whatsoever else may be needful, proper, and necessary, to be discoursed on and determined of at said meeting.
Hereof you may not fail, as you will answer your default at the peril of the law.
Dated, in said
Medford, Feb. 14, 1702, in the fourteenth year of His Majesty's reign.
By other of the selectmen of said
Medford.
Among the oldest records existing, we have proof of what we have said, as follows:--
The first Monday of February, in the year of our Lord 1677, Goodman John Hall was chosen Constable by the inhabitants of Meadford for the year ensuing.
Joseph Wade, John Hall, and
Stephen Willis, were chosen Selectmen for ordering of the affairs of the plantation for the year ensuing.
John Whitmore,
Daniel Woodward,
Jacob Chamberlain, John Hall, jun.,
Edward Walker,
Walter Cranston,
Patrick Hay,
Andrew Mitchell, and
Thomas Fillebrown, jun., took the oath of fidelity.
This was probably the simple organization of the civil government of
Medford soon after our ancestors found themselves planted in their new homes.
A more complex form of municipal agencies was not needed; especially as the celebrated
Rev. James Noyes preached here a year, and established that church discipline which, in those days, took care of every body and every thing.
March 8, 1631: “It is ordered that all persons whatsoever that have cards, dice, or tables, in their houses shall make away with them before the next Court, under pain of punishment.”
April 12, 1631: “Ordered that any man that finds a musket shall, before the 18th day of this month (and so always after), have ready one pound powder, twenty bullets, and two fathom of match, under penalty of 10s. for every fault.”
Absence from public worship, 5s. for each time.
To be a freeman was a high object with every man. Several of the inhabitants of
Medford took the entire oath, and could therefore vote in the election of Governor and Assistants.
At a session of the General Court, May 18, 1631, it was thus voted:--
