USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 2 > Part 23
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TOWN OFFICERS
it was "Ordered that no person shall dig any grave or make any coffin on the Lord's Day without the approbation and allowance of two of the selectmen for the time being, on pain of forfieting the sum of twenty shillings; nor shall any person keep open their shop or cellar that they manage or keep their callings in, on the evening preceding the Lord's Day, or on the Lord's Day, on pain of forfieting the sum of five shillings for every such offence, to be paid by the occupier of such shop or cellar."
In attending to the particular business of town administra- tion the town was characteristically careful, and passed routine financial legislation with due deliberation. For in- stance, the town grants the selectmen the right to borrow in anticipation of taxes, and to authorize the investment of town funds by letting out money in amounts of not over a hundred pounds per person at five per cent on satisfactory or personal security. The constables shall receive three pence on the pound for collecting the rates. Later the tax collectors shall receive nine pence on the pound and ultimately this was increased.
They were an exclusive lot, these Bostonians, they did not encourage strangers to come among them without credentials, for the very good reason that they found the care of the poor an especially heavy proportion of town expenses. Hence is it "Ordered. That no person Inhabiting in this Town, Shall Receive, Admit, or Entertaine, in any of their Houses or Tenements, either Tennants or Inmates, any person being a Stranger, or New Comer here, not being Admitted by the Selectmen as an Inhabitant of the Town, other than such Strangers as become apprentices to any of the Free-holders of the Same, without giving Notice in writeing under their hands within the Space of Thirty dayes next after their so receiving or entertaining Such Stranger or New comer ... " The penalty for breach of the edict was twenty shillings.
TOWN OFFICERS
The town government and its functions can be easily esti- mated by a list of its officers and functionaries.
At the first town meeting of the eighteenth century (March
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10, 1701) the following offices were filled: Moderator, nine Selectmen, Town Clerk, Town Treasurer, ten Constables including one assigned to Rumney Marsh (Chelsea) and one to Muddy River (Brookline), five Overseers of the Poor, five Surveyors and one each for Rumney Marsh and Muddy River, six Market Clerks, three Sealers of Leather, five Scavengers, six Hogreaves, three Measurers of Board and Timbers, three Town Criers. The town voted also to choose nine Assessors. The custom of the town on the choice of assessors varied. At times it voted to choose separate func- tionaries and at other times it authorized the selectmen to perform these functions.
The moderator was always a man of great local influence. He presided at the meetings and if his rulings were not impar- tial he might do great harm. The office was as honorable a one as any within the public gift. Among those who held it were Elisha Cooke, the earliest local political leader of the time of which we write, Thomas Hutchinson, John Phillips, James Otis, Samuel Adams, John Hancock and Thomas Dawes.
These hard-headed men who made up the Town Meeting were all financially responsible. They had to pay the taxes. They paid considerable attention to the town expenditures. The needs of the churches were strongly borne in mind as well as the temporal needs of the municipality. The town appro- priations were made in these meetings.
A few items selected from various reports will show how they acted and what some of their problems were: For forti- fications £800; for the services of the town treasurer £15, toward the meeting house at Rumney Marsh £100; for paving the road over the neck when in danger of being washed away £100; for the support of the ministry £8000; for the support of the town watch £300; for fortifying Roxbury neck £1000, and so on.
The selectmen were always a responsible group. The board at the opening of the century includes Joseph Prout, Daniel Oliver, Robert Gibbs, Eleaser Holioke, John Marion, Jr., Timothy Clarke, James Barnes, Isaiah Tay, John Barnard. The selectmen who saw the century out were Charles Bulfinch, David Tilden, Russell Sturgis, Joseph Howard, Ebeneazer Hancock, William Porter, William Sherbourne, John Tileston
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POLICE AND MILITIA
and Ebenezer Oliver. Between these worthies, were some of the strong men of the town, including Edward Hutchinson, Edward Oliver, Elisha Cooke, Thomas Cushing, Samuel Adams the elder, Edward Bromfield, Thomas Hutchinson, then (1736) Junior, Jonas Clarke, Thomas Hancock, Paul Dudley, John Scollay, Samuel Sewall, Samuel Pemberton, Oliver Wendell, John Pitts, Thomas Greenough, Ebenezer Seaver, Samuel Cabot and William Scollay.
POLICE AND MILITIA
The local body to enforce order was the Town Watch, who were organized on the lines of the London Watch. They were on duty from ten o'clock at night to daylight-except in win- ter, when their hours extended from nine at night to eight in the morning. The town was divided into five wards each with a watch master and watch house in each. This body, which cost the town twelve thousand pounds a year, was equal to keeping order in ordinary circumstances and in general emer- gencies, but a good healthy Guy Fawkes rough-and-tumble was often beyond their power to quell.
The great public relaxation, one which combined business, and very stern business, with pleasure, was the spring and fall training. In Massachusetts, according to the Frankland diary, 32,000 names were on the training list. The martial exercise was inspiriting, yet seriously planned. It included target practice and maneuvers and was entered into with serious purpose, though the repressed holiday mood made itself felt on these occasions.
The Acts and Resolves of the Province, on page after page, bear evidence of the seriousness with which the state provided for defense. Hence the following elaborate equipment of the foot soldier under these Province laws: "A well fixed fire- lock musket of musket or bastard musket bore, the barrel not less than three and one half feet long, or other arms to the satisfaction of the commissioned officers of the Company; a Knapsack, a collar with twelve bandoleers or cartouch box, one pound of good powder, twenty bullets fit for his gun, and twelve flints, a good sword or cutlass, a worm or priming wire fit for his gun." The horse soldiery must have a mount
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worth five pounds, fourteen hands high, with all equipments, a carbine, a sword or cutlass, the necessary ammunition and "a good pair of boots and spurs." The military display, the refreshments at the booths erected for the day, and the relaxa- tion of the spectators did not conceal the sturdy purpose of "training," and it was to prove its value in the North under the colors of the king.
SCHOOL GOVERNMENT
Perhaps the earliest suggestion of a Boston school committee comes from the town meeting of Dec. 19, 1709, when it was : "Voted: That a Committee be chosen to consider the affaires relating to the Gramer Free School of this Town & to make report thereof at the Town meeting in March next." It was also voted that the town pay for a master's assistant until the next annual town meeting. The committee was a distinguished one, consisting of Wait Winthrop, Samuel Sewall, Elisha Cooke, Elisha Hutchinson, Isaac Addington, John Forster and Ezekiel Lewis. Of these the first four were in the very fore- front of town life.
When the committee made its report it complimented Mr. Williams on "a good Inclination to the worke, and his resolu- tion to devote him Selfe thereto, If the Town please to Encourage his continuance therein by allowing him a compe- tent Sallery, that he may Support his family, and Granting him as assistant." Thus was the master of Boston's Public Latin School in that day supported and encouraged, though it is evi- dent that he himself must have stirred the matter up and that his protests caused the creation of the committee.
It was this same committee which advocated the appoint- ment of a committee to consist of "gentlemen of liberal education" and some of the ministers, to be "inspectors" of schools, to "Visit ye School from time to time, when and as Oft, as they shall think fit to Enform themselves" of methods and proficiency. The ministers were further "by turns" to "pray with the Schollars, and Entertain 'em with Some Instructions of Piety Epecially Adapted to their Age and Education." This committee was originally created for the Grammar School in School Street but its province was
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quickly made to cover all the schools existing. This system continued for many years. After a time the yearly vote named the selectmen and those whom they should invite to form this committee, always including the necessary clergymen. The selectmen made the most of their authority of invitation; and whether appointed by the town or its executive servants, this committee was always a large and formidable one. The name of practically every man with any claim to eminence in town life is to be found in these committee lists at one time or another.
According to A Chronology of the Boston Schools by the late George A. O. Ernest, once a valued and able member of the Boston School Committee, the modern school-committee system came into being by town vote in 1789 and from then on the administration of the schools was in its hands.
TOWN COURTS
The early local courts functioned much as they did in Eng- land. The slight duties of the officer at present known as Justice of the Peace are the barest inheritance from the func- tions of the Justice of the Peace in the eighteenth century. He had the full panoply of the magistrate. In small matters he was the court of first resort. He was not often a lawyer, but he was usually both shrewd and sound.
Next above was the Inferior Court of Common Pleas es- tablished in each county in 1699. This court was given juris- diction of all common-law actions arising in the county, pro- vided that no action for less than forty shillings could be initiated in it, unless it concerned freehold. The decisions of the Justice of the Peace were appealable to the Court of Com- mon Pleas.
Roughly speaking, just as the Superior Court of Judica- ture of the eighteenth century corresponds with the Supreme Judicial Court today, so the Court of Common Pleas held the position in the judicial structure of the present Superior Court; and the Justice of the Peace parallels the District or Municipal Court today.
There is one difference however. The Common Pleas Court was a county court, not a court trying "in and for"
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the county. The Court of Common Pleas in Essex, for in- stance, had nothing to do with that of Suffolk; but the Su- perior Court gave down the law through its decisions to each.
There were few great judges or eminent lawyers on the bench; but although laymen generally may believe that all law is written down categorically in black and white, the fact is that law springs from the sense of right and justice in the public mind and is interpreted in decisions. That automatic pressure made the intelligent and justice loving laymen of New England render decisions of substantial fairness along lines long since permanent.
FIRE PROTECTION
Built principally of wood, Boston suffered often from fire. More than once was the Town House injured and once it was practically gutted. Disastrous conflagrations in the town are noted in 1676, 1690, 1711, 1747, and 1760. The town was divided into districts under fire wards in 1711. By 1733 there were seven hand engines for extinguishing fires, distributed at convenient points such as Court Street, the Dock, the North Watch House and the Town House. Regulations seeking to minimize the danger of fire were adopted by the town in the first year of the century. These regulations demanded that a fire upon a vessel at or near a wharf should be extinguished at 10 P. M. and not be lighted before 5 A. M. They regu- lated the keeping of gun powder and the burning of casks by coopers ; and made it incumbent on every householder to have a pipe, hogshead or tierce of water on the premises.
The service of the hand engines was voluntary and there was no remuneration for the firemen; but here we see the first germ of that rivalry between companies, which in some in- stances in the nineteenth century led to reprisals on one another's apparatus while the fire was allowed to spread. Five pounds were allowed to the company first to get to work at a fire.
The Fire Society was organized in 1718 "for mutual aid in case it should please Almighty God to permit the breaking out of fire in Boston where we live." This society was followed by many others. One club instituted in 1753 had among its
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DEFIANCE OF ROYAL GOVERNMENT
members James Otis and John Cotton. This society dined well at its quarterly meetings. One bill from the Bunch of Grapes Tavern, for over fifteen pounds, showed that only three pounds went for edibles and the rest for madeira and the immortal alliterative trio-port, punch and porter. Little in the Boston of that time was individual. Except for its insistent church- manship, which it shared with other Massachusetts towns, one might well have lived in a lesser London.
DEFIANCE OF THE ROYAL GOVERNMENT
The intent of the citizens to control as far as they could their officers, no matter though one be the Royal Governor, crops out as early as 1731 when the Town Meeting instructs its representatives against legislating a regular salary for that officer, lest it make him more independent of the citizenship. The instructions recommended that raising money be done in a way "Consistant with the safety of this Province, and the Preservation of our rights and Priveledges; and in as much as the charter gives the Great and General Court full power to Support the Government. Here by Enacting such Laws and Ordinances as they in their Great Wisdom Shall Judge best Adapted to Subserve the true Interest of His Majesty's Good Subjects of this Province a complyance with His Majesties Instructions would Enevitably Clash with the Power of mak- ing Laws, and Deprive this People of one of the most valuable Priveledges Held and Enjoyed by the Charter."
And the meeting further directs these representatives to oppose "any bill for the supply of the Treasury . . . That may in the Least Bear upon Our National Rights and charter Priveledges which we apprehend giving in to the King's Instructions would Certainly do."
More and more comes the strain in the relations between the colonists whom Sam Adams led and the conservatives at home and the King's ministers abroad. For instance in 1764 the instructions direct the town's delegation to use its power to maintain "the invaluable rights and Priveledges of the Prov- ince as well as those rights which are derived to us by the Royal Charter, as those which being prior to and independent on it, we hold essentially as Freeborn Subjects of Gt. Britain."
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"What still increases our apprehensions is, that these un- expected Proceedings may be preparatory to more extensive Taxations upon us. For if our Trade may be taxed, why not our Lands, and Produce of our lands, and in short everything we possess or make use of? This, we apprehend, annihilates our Charter Rights to govern and tax ourselves. . . . If Taxes are laid upon us in any shape without our having a legal repre- sentation where they are laid, are we not reduced from the Character of free Subjects to the miserable State of tributary Slaves?"
And at last: "As his Majesty's other Northern American Colonies are embarked with us in this most important Bottom, we further desire you to use your Endeavors that their weight may be added to that of this Province; that by the united Applications of all who are Aggrieved, all may happily attain Redress." Here we see the hand of Adams, although Dana was chairman of the committee with Adams next in order. His original draft is still in existence. It antedated Patrick Henry's "Virginia resolutions," taking similar ground by a year. It was Adams' first great public paper.
BOSTON IN THE CRISIS OF 1766-1769
But the Stamp Act came. The protests are loud and fre- quent ; but on April 21, 1766, the meeting provides for celebra- tion of the repeal as soon as "certain advice" of the action is received by the selectmen. In the same year Otis, Hancock, Samuel Adams and Cushing are chosen representatives and instructed to "openly profess duty and loyalty to the King . . . being at the same time vigilant and Jealous, of our Just rights and liberties and privileges."
Throughout this period the meeting sends frequent letters, addresses and acknowledgments to the English friends of America of whom Colonel Barre is the evident favorite. Soon the meeting is protesting against the proposed quartering of troops in the town; then in 1769 the representatives are in- structed to vote no money for the support of the troops. In the resolves, addresses and instructions the strong men of the town upon the side of resistance have part: not only Otis, Samuel Adams, Hancock and Cushing but John Adams, War- ren, Dana, Quincy and Church.
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ADAMS IN BOSTON TOWN MEETING
BOSTON MASSACRE ORATIONS (1770-1771)
The spontaneous town meeting after the Massacre has already been referred to. On each year thereafter for many years, until the establishment in 1783 of July 4 as town oration day, the town held a meeting to listen to an oration on March 5 "to perpetuate the Memory of the horrid Massacre, per- petrated on the Evening of the Fifth of March 1770-by a Party of Soldiers, under the Order and Eye of Capt. Thomas Preston of the 29th Regiment." The order is always nearly identical and Captain Preston, defended by John Adams and acquitted by a Boston jury, is always mentioned. The formali- ties bring a smile to the lips of a reader of these old minutes. The meeting convenes. A committee previously appointed soberly reports the name of the orator known to the town for a long time. The town acts immediately and favorably upon this report. On motion another committee is appointed to solicit the consent of the orator, whose oration, long since prepared, is ready. The meeting adjourns from Faneuil Hall to the Old South. The committee reports the acquiescence of the orator. The oration is delivered. The orator is thanked for his "elegant effort" and a committee is appointed to solicit from him a copy of the oration for publication and the meet- ing adjourns ; but not without, sometimes, taking up a collec- tion for "Mr. Christopher Monk, a young Man now languish- ing under a Wound he received in his Lungs, by a Shot from Preston's Butchering Party of Soldiers." This was often done, though the town itself refused the young apprentice or his master the direct aid for which the latter petitioned.
SAM ADAMS IN BOSTON TOWN MEETING (1760-1775)
The most striking figure in Boston Town Meeting during the eighteenth century is one Sam Adams. His mind was constantly at work; a fire burned resistlessly within him. He saw and worked for that which in the 'sixties would have shocked his co-workers. He had vision; and like few men with a great dream, he knew his time and how to bide it. It is easy to find superficial sources of comparison between Abra- ham Lincoln and other great Americans. Few can stand that comparison as well as Samuel Adams. Both were men of the
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people. Both men were of tremendous importance to great epochal causes : Adams to national liberty, Lincoln to union and personal freedom. Both were acute politicians with states- manlike outlook. Each had a secret hope, which he did not disclose early enough to have it overwhelm him.
Their early beginnings were widely different. Adams was a man of the town, Lincoln a son of the forest. Yet Lincoln at Philadelphia, February 22, 1861, expressed a willingness to "die by" his convictions, and in fact did die because of them, and Adams would have laid down his life for his convictions.
As a politician Adams dominated the town meeting. He worked much in the open. When he marched from the Town House to the Town Meeting at the Old South on the day after the "massacre," his "both regiments or none," spoken to the crowds which lined the way, was open enough. But he did have the politician's understanding of preparing the way for things he advocated. Little by little he planned and put his followers in possession of his plans, and each knew what he was to do.
Out of this combination at last came the caucus. It rose out of the Merchant's Club and the Caucus Club of Adams' friends and followers. Two parties of opposite faiths operated in the Town Meeting. The party which Adams led never entered the meeting vaguely. They were prepared. Adams's second cousin, John Adams, wrote a classic description of the caucus of that period: "This day learned that the Caucus Club meets at certain times in the garret of Tom Dawes, the adju- tant of the Boston regiment. He has a large house, and he has a movable partition in his garret, which he takes down, and the whole club meets in one room. There they smoke tobacco till you cannot see from one end of the garret to the other. There they drink flip, I suppose, and there they choose a moderator who puts questions to the vote regularly; and selectmen, assessors, collectors, wardens, fire-wards, and repre- sentatives are regularly chosen before they are chosen in the town. Uncle Fairfield, Story, Ruddock, Adams, Cooper, and a rudis indigestaque moles are members. They send commit- tees to wait on the Merchant's Club, and to propose and join in the choice of men and measures."
Samuel Adams was not only a man of the highest patriotism,
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which burned so brightly within him that perhaps the flame of fanaticism was kindled by it; he was a skilled puller of in- visible wires. But he knew well on occasion how to confine the crowd in the open, although he was "no orator as Brutus is." That he never lacked resource was shown, for instance, at the time when Boston merchants were urged to abstain from handling British goods. A Scottish born importer insisted on carrying the commodities. Samuel Adams rose in public meeting, with two thousand citizens present and the great majority in agreement with him, and with a grim humor moved that those present resolve themselves into a committee of the whole to wait upon the recalcitrant shopkeeper. The poor Scotsman could not capitulate too quickly. He rushed to the front and made his agreement immediately and in- sistently vocal, and then took refuge under Adams' wing.
BOSTON TOWN DURING THE REVOLUTION (1775-1776)
The last meeting in Boston proper, before the seige began and civil administration was suspended, was held on April 3, 1775. In about a fortnight Earl Percy was to march over the neck, follow the route of Dawes on the night before, rescue Smith and return to Boston hurried and harried, to be shut up in the city for almost a year.
One Boston Town Meeting was held beyond the limits of the town. The citizens transacted no town business ; but they kept the continuity of Massacre orations unbroken and, as a Boston Town Meeting observing all the forms, they listened to Peter Thacher's oration on March 5, 1776, at Watertown.
March 29 of that year the regular order was resumed within Boston Town, to continue uninterrupted until the city charter went into effect. The resolutions of May 30, 1776, brought to its local fruition all that for which Samuel Adams had first secretly and then publicly labored. Concerning King George the meeting resolved "loyalty to him is now Treason to our Country" and the meeting looks forward to the time when Congress in its wisdom "Shall dictate the Necessity of Making a Declaration of Independence." Thus the old patriot saw the wheel come full circle.
During the Revolution the Town Meeting carried the busi-
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ness of the town along with prudence and it had relations not only with the state but with the Federal Congress. That the town was still prudent, farseeing and patriotic is to be found in its recommendation of December 5, 1776. Congress is making a levy of three-months men for the army, but the Town Meeting looks the war and the facts in the face, and de .. liberately recommends a three-year enlistment.
Boston did not feel altogether safe during the years after the siege, albeit the seat of war was elsewhere. Not only was there fear of attack by sea but also that it would be assisted by British sympathizers still in the city and by the prisoners of war quartered in the town. The meeting therefor asks for necessary arms and accoutrements and the appointment of com- missioners to be empowered to remove from Boston "any Person or Persons in this town" whose presence "is inconsist- ent with public peace and safety."
BOSTON'S ENLARGEMENT OF IDEAS (1776-1791)
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