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[17]

Chapter 3: civil History.

  • First Constable appointed.
    • -- Deputies to the first General Court. -- monthly meeting. -- no houses to be erected without permission, nor outside of the town. -- all houses to be covered with slate or boards, not with thatch, and to “range even.” -- trees not to be cut down and left in the highways. -- cartway. -- Windmill-hill. -- timber not to be sold out of the town. -- first Constable elected. -- surveyor of highways. -- lots not improved to revert to the town. -- first Townsmen or Selectmen. -- Surveyors of lands.
    The New Town seems never to have been incorporated by specific act. It was originally set apart by the government for public use; and it was from the beginning recognized as a distinct town. As early as June 14, 1631, the Court provided for the making of a canal or “passage from Charles River to the New Town,” and, in ordering a tax of thirty pounds, Feb. 3, 1631-2, to defray the expense of a “pallysadoe about the New Town,” assessed one tenth part thereof on that town, as related in Chapter II. There is no recorded evidence, however, of any municipal transactions by the New Town until March 29, 1632, when the Town Book of Records was opened; since which time a continuous record has been preserved. The first transaction recorded was the “agreement by the inhabitants of the New Town, about paling in the neck of land.” Six weeks later, the Court appointed a constable for the New Town, and selected two of its inhabitants, with a like number from other towns, “to confer with the Court about raising of a public stock.” 1 The first named record, March 29, 1632, has been fully quoted in the preceding chapter. The next in order, Dec. 24, 1632, provided for regular meetings of the inhabitants for the transaction of business. The record is mutilated somewhat, and the words supposed to have been worn off are here inserted in brackets:—

    An agreement made by a general consent, for a monthly meeting.

    Imprimis, That every person undersubscribed shall [meet] every first Monday in every month, within [the] meeting house, in the afternoon, within half [an hour] after the ringing of the bell;2 and that every [one] that makes not his personal appearance

    1 Mass. Col. Rec., i. 95, 96, May 9, 1632: “Mr. Edmond Lockwood was chosen constable of New Towne for this yeare next ensueing, and till a newe be chosen.” On the same day, “It was ordered that there should be two of every plantacon appointed to conferre with the Court about raiseing of a publique stocke;” — “Mr. Lockwood and Mr. Spencer for Newe Towne.”

    2 It is observable that the hour of meeting was thus early announced by “the ringing of the bell.” Johnson represents that, in 1636, a drum was used, because the town “had as yet no bell to call men to meeting.” —Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., XIV. 18. It seems unlikely that “Mr. Hooker's company” transported their bell, across the wilderness, to Connecticut, and the story perhaps was inaccurately reported to Johnson. The day of meeting was changed to the second Monday in the month, Oct. 1, 1639, because “it was ordered” by the General Court, “to prevent the hindrance of the military company upon the first Monday in the month, that no other meetings should be appointed upon that day.”

    Boston. Houghton and Mifflin. 1877.

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