[369] 1863. At a town-meeting held November 3d the selectmen were authorized to keep on recruiting men, and to pay such bounties as they might think proper. This system was continued to the end of the war. Acton furnished one hundred and ninety-five men for the military service, which was a surplus of thirty over and above all demands. Twenty were commissioned officers. The total amount of money raised and expended by the town for war purposes, exclusive of State aid, was thirteen thousand and seventy-two dollars ($13,072.00). The amount of money raised and expended by the town during the war for State aid to soldiers' families, and which was afterwards repaid by the Commonwealth, was as follows: In 1861, $731.05; in 1862, $2.416.01; in 1863, $2,556.71; in 1864, $1,883.26; in 1865, $1,150.00. Total amount, $8,737.03.
Ashby
Incorporated March 5, 1767. Population in 1860, 1,091 ; in 1865, 1,080. Valuation in 1860, $555,386; in 1865, $508,393. The selectmen in 1861 were Silas Rice, Joseph Foster, Benjamin F. Wallis; in 1862, Joseph Foster, Benjamin F. Wallis, J. S. Jaquith; in 1863, 1864, and 1865, F. W. Wright, J. S. Jaquith, Liberty Wellington. The town-clerk in 1861 and 1862 was Perez C. Burr; in 1863, James M. J. Jefts; in 1864 and 1865, E. Hobart Hayward. The town-treasuer in 1861 was Stephen Wyman; in 1862, 1863, 1864, and 1865, Francis W. Wright. 1861. The first legal town-meeting, to act upon matters connected with the war, was held on the 1st of May, at which the following resolutions, preceded by a patriotic preamble, were adopted:—Resolved, That we, the men of Ashby, heartily approve of the most energetic and active measures to secure and hold the public property and to sustain the Government and laws. Resolved, That we pledge ourselves and our property to sustain the Constitution, the freedom and rights bequeathed to us by our fathers, and we will defend them to the last.
