Medford Historical Society Papers, Volume 3.

[p. 82] bearing no date of imprint, however, but presumably printed in 1837, as at that time a new constitution was framed, when the shares were made one dollar, and Article 3 of this constitution reads as follows: ‘The price of a share shall be one dollar, each share shall be subject to an annual tax of fifty cents, commencing at the annual meeting, January, 1838.’ Their privileges, in one respect, were at that time the same as in the Public Library of to-day, as in Article 4 we find: ‘Each proprietor may take out two volumes at a time, for each share he may hold, for fourteen days, and if they have been in the library over a year, thirty days.’ From Article 8, after a long list of duties belonging to the librarian, this astonishing rule appears: ‘And if there are any books lost, injured, or defaced, of which the Librarian can give no satisfactory account, he shall himself be answerable for them and bound to make them good.’ With such a rule it is not astonishing that librarians were 10th to have the books long out of their sight. In the early days of this Social Library the duties of a librarian must have been purely a labor of love, as not until 1837, when the library consisted of six hundred and ninety-five books, is there any record of remuneration for services. The salary, from 1837 to 1856, was twenty-five dollars per year. Luther Angier was librarian from 1837-41, S. S. Green from 1841-42, O. Blake from 1842-43, J. J. B. Randall, 1844-46. From 1846-48 Mary B. Barker received, for use of room and as librarian, thirty dollars per year, which would indicate a most remarkable fact that at that time a woman's services were valued the same as a man's. From 1848-56 S. B. Perry acted as treasurer and librarian.

Jan. 1, 1843, was the first receipt from the Turrell Tufts' donation. In 1851 the amount paid for moving the library was fifty cents. Besides the amounts received from shares, which were at one time five dollars, changed in 1837 to one dollar, money may have been sometimes raised by means of entertainments or lectures,