USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Milton > History of Milton > Part 13
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There was nothing in the early Colony laws that prescribed form and pro- cedure for town government,7 yet the town meeting seems to have developed in much the same form in all the towns. The earliest Milton records are scanty and not very literate, but there was a most interesting vote passed in December of 1669, which outlined the duties of our Selectmen :
7. The duties of the various officials were usually specified by law, but towns evidently had con- siderable freedom as to filling or not filling certain offices.
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Town Meeting
1 They had the power to call Town Meetings, but the Town could meet without their call.
2 One Selectman was to "commend" to the Town matters to be con- sidered at the meeting.
3 They had power to fine those refusing service to the Town (refusing to serve when elected to office).
4 They were responsible for seeing that the minister's salary was col- lected and paid to him.
5 They were to maintain the Meeting House and the Parsonage at the Town's cost, but not to spend over forty shillings a year.
6 They had the power to assess taxes and to pay out funds.
7 They were to report annually on the collection and expenditure of all tax money.
8 A final duty is not clearly defined.
In the earlier years of its existence it appears that Milton got along with- out some of the usual town officers. Selectmen and Constables were essen- tial and could operate all the machinery of town government provided they were able to devote sufficient time to it. In 1670 three "commissioners to end small causes" were added to the list of officers elected, and in this same year the Selectmen appointed Fence Viewers, while the first record appears of the Town Clerk, Thomas Holman. The Town also decreed a fine of fif- teen shillings for anyone who refused election to office.
The Dorchester Records for 1671 show that the Selectmen at that period had taken it upon themselves to act as local magistrates in connection with minor infractions of the law, such as idleness, entertaining people from out of town, dissolute living and excessive drinking, and that they levied fines. The Milton Selectmen very probably did much the same.
Shortly before the old charter was lost a new town officer appeared here for a few brief years, the Clerk of the Writs. He was a local town official who could issue legal writs for townspeople which were good in all the courts of the Colony, thus allowing a citizen to initiate a legal action without having to take the time to go to his county seat.
At this period we find Surveyors of Highways elected, but eventually the duty of these officers would be returned to the Selectmen. In 1674 we have a
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History of Milton
record of the offices filled at our Town Meeting: five Selectmen, three Asses- sors, two Surveyors of Highways, and a Constable. There is no mention of the Recorder or Town Clerk, but I am sure that there was one. Sometimes the Town elected and sent a Deputy to the General Court, quite often no- body was sent and the Town fined for its neglect. In 1679 the Pound Keep- er8 first appears in the person of Lanslet Perce, and next year Nathaniel Pitcher, the tanner, became Sealer of Leather, destined solemnly to inspect and pass leather of his own tanning, for he was then the only tanner in Mil- ton so far as I can determine.
In this same year the General Court ordered all Towns to elect Tithing- men and specified their duties, which were not in the slightest concerned with tithes. In Old England a tithing had been a very small unit of govern- ment, a community too small to be a parish or town, and the tithing man was its head man. By the time of the Puritan emigration the office had be- come essentially that of a sub-constable, whose duties were the same, but whose field of endeavor was more limited than that of the constable of the town or parish. The General Court of the Bay Colony assigned the Tithing- men to two major fields of operation, the inspection of all licensed houses of entertainment, including search for and arrest of all drunkards and illegal sellers of liquors, and maintenance of the observance of the Sabbath laws. They were also concerned with all forms of disorder, including dealing with stubborn children. Toward the end of the seventeenth century they were given the added duty of enforcing the Province laws preventing cruelty to animals. Eventually they were to become in effect Sunday constables con- cerned only with the proper observance of the Sabbath, but initially they were junior constables, without the writ-serving and tax-collecting duties. At a little later date they were directed to carry a black staff, two feet long, tipped with brass for about three inches, while by the beginning of the last century their staff was quite long and slender. Milton in 1681 appointed five Tithingmen, and also a Clerk of the Market.
8. The pound was a railed (later stone-walled) area, perhaps six yards square, with a locked gate. Stray animals were caught and impounded in it. The owners could repossess their stock by paying a fee to the pound keeper.
148
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the 10 of march 16812. John Einfly was appointed of the faw dired by the filed men to Bee Place'Es of the market in the course of milton /100.
at a publick Town ming in millon 82 it was then volo !by the crown that surely family in the Town though having warning to help with a hand or from to mand the high ways and if any you were defective it should for gathered by the Constable in the next Town Rate by owar of the filect mon to God disposed of for the Town Of:
John, Tingly wat Chajon!' m4 ng 2 to to the Clerc of the write in the Town of millon: July 82 John Einfly was approfit of the County Court
to for Chich of the wuxits 2. 22.
PAGE FROM MILTON TOWN RECORDS
Notification.
"HE Freeholders and other Inhabitants of the Town of Milton; qualified as the- Law directs, are hereby notified to meet at the Meeting. Houfe on Monday the - 16th Day of May Inftant, at I o'Clock in the Afternoon, then and there to Elect and Depute one Perfon, being a Freeholder, and refident in this Town, to ferve for and neprefent them in a .Great and General Court or Affembly, appointed to be convened, held and kept for his.Majefty's Service, at the Town Houfe in Boffon, upon Wednesday the 25th Day of faid May .- To chufe a Moderator to regulate faid Meeting .- To act upon any, Articles that were referred from laft March Meeting, to the next- May Meeting .- To hear the Reports of the Town's Committees, or Reghefts. - To hear the Regnetts of fone late Collectors .- To fee whether the Town will chufe Men to infpect the Boys on Lord's Days as ufual .- To fee if the Town will build a new Pound .- To fee whether the Town will procure a Number of. Ploughs, to be nfed in mending. High. Ways,-To hear the Petition of the Heirs of the late Oxenbridge Thatcher, Efq; deceafed, relative to the 20 Acres of Land in-D)ifpute between the faid Heirs and the . Town. - To fee whether the Town will act any Thing relating to the Bridge over. the Trench that conduits the Water to the Slitting-Mill .- And to ad upon any .. Thing relative to any of the foregoing Articles as the Town fhall think proper.
MINTONODI BA HILTON
Milton, May 5th. 1774.
By Order of the Select-Men,
AMARIAH BLAKE, Town· Clerka-
-
Town Meeting
If Town Meeting made annual appropriations at this period there is no record of them, other than for the minister's salary. Actually, except for the taxes demanded by the County and the Colony, there was normally little need for additional money. It is my belief that the amount to be spent on roads, schools, and the poor was left to the judgment of the Selectmen. The normal procedure of raising and handling funds was quite simple. The Se- lectmen gave the two Constables, one for the east and one for the west part of the town, warrants specifying how much each taxpayer was to pay. The Constables collected the produce and money, and later paid it out as direct- ed by the Selectmen. In Peter Thacher's time the minister's "rate" was de- livered to the parsonage by each taxpayer, who found a Constable there to receive and acknowledge his contribution. The County or Colony "rate" was collected by the Constables and taken to the treasurer of the unit con- cerned, while the produce and money raised for other purposes would be paid out as directed to the various people concerned. Those who received the payments receipted for them to the Constables. At a later period Town Collectors and Town Treasurers were to take over these duties, but for many years the Constables were the sole financial officers of the Town in ad- dition to their other duties. No wonder that the office was unpopular, and many a good Milton citizen preferred to pay the fine, eventually raised to £5, rather than undertake this burdensome and unpaid duty.
A man elected as constable could avoid serving in either of two ways. He could refuse the office, in which case he was fined £5, equivalent to at least $250.00 today, or he could arrange to hire a substitute to fill the office for him. We find several examples of both of these methods of evading the office in the Milton Records.
The first more or less complete record of a Milton Town Meeting appears under the date 16 February 1682-83. The voters acted on five articles.
1 They raised some money for the support of a pauper.
2 They instructed the Assessors to speed their action.
3 They elected a committee to assign seats in the Meeting House.
4 They elected a Deputy to the General Court.
5 They elected jurymen.
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History of Milton
Then they held another Town Meeting six days later and elected five Tithingmen.
There is a still more complete record for the next year, 1683-84.
1 The Selectmen accounted for last year's taxes.
The voters then :
2 Elected three Assessors-William Blake, Thomas Vose, Ebenezer Clapp.
3 Elected a Constable-Ephraim Tucker.
4 Elected five "townsmen" (selectmen)-Anthony Gulliver, Thomas Holman, Thomas Swift, George Sumner, Ralph Houghton.
5 Elected a Town Clerk-"Mr Holman".
6 Elected two Surveyors of Highways-James Atherton, Teague Crehore.
7 Voted to raise a tax of £65, one-third in money (minister's salary)
8 Voted to raise a tax of £21. 13s. 4d. for Town expenses.
The first mention of Overseers of the Poor is recorded in 1688, when they assessed a poor rate of £ 15.6s.od. on the taxpayers. There is no further ref- erence to this office for many years, its duties normally being exercised by the Selectmen.
In 1689 we find the first record of any salary for a Town officer, when the Towil Clerk was voted ten shillings a year, even in those days a fairly paltry sum. When the Town sent a Deputy to the General Court it appears to have paid him a salary and travel expenses, but for many years the other officers served without pay. Early in the eighteenth century a Town Treasurer ap- pears, and the Constables must have greatly approved his coming.
The March meeting of 1710-11 is completely reported for the first time, and gives us an outline of a normal fully developed Town Meeting of the early Provincial days. One thing we would like to know is lacking, and that is who conducted the meeting. There is no record of electing a moderator, and I presume that the moderator or chairman of the Board of Selectmen took the chair. This meeting did the following :
1 Voted to build a new pound with square posts and sawn rails.
2 Voted that the rear seats in the gallery of the Meeting House should be for the boys.
3 Chose a committee to repair the Meeting House.
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Town Meeting
4 Appropriated money for the care of a pauper.
5 Voted to raise a tax of £68 for Town expenses.
6 Voted to have three Selectmen this year.
7 Elected them-Capt. Gulliver, Ephraim Tucker, Ebenezer Wadsworth.
8 Elected a Town Clerk-Ephraim Tucker.
9 Elected two Constables-Thomas Holman, James Tucker.
10 Elected a Clerk of the Market-Ezra Clapp.
11 Elected three Surveyors of Highways-Joseph Hunt, Timothy Cre- hore, Benjamin Fenno.
12 Elected two Tithingmen-Moses Belcher, Nath. Blake.
13 Elected two Fence Viewers-Peter White, John Hersey.
14 Elected two Haywards-John Kinsley, Thomas Glover.
These last officials derived their name from the English Hedge Warden, but their duties were not the same. They were also known as Field Drivers, and it was their duty to seize and impound stray animals, for which service they received, at about this period, a shilling for a horse or cow, and three- pence for a sheep or pig.
The meeting outlined above decided all matters requiring action except the election of a Deputy to the General Court. This was often, and in the later days always, taken up at a separate meeting. When Andros was Gov- ernor the towns were limited to one meeting a year, to be held in the month of May. The new Charter of 1691 provided that the annual meeting should be held in March, in accordance with the warrant issued by the Selectmen, and all were to be warned to attend by the Constables. This charter decreed no material change, but it formalized the method and procedure of town government which had gradually come into being under the old Bay Col- ony. In 1715 a new act provided that ten freeholders could require the Se- lectmen to insert an article in the warrant, and this has continued down to the present day, as has the requirement, first instituted in this same year, of a poll if seven voters doubt the Moderator's ruling on a voice vote. This act also provided that a Moderator must first be chosen before the meeting could commence.
Scholars have recently become aware of the fact that in Massachusetts in
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1
History of Milton
the period before the Revolution widows who were taxpaying heads of households were allowed to vote, presumably on the same basis as men, but certainly on all town matters. This may not have been general, but the con- dition is known to have existed in at least a half-dozen Massachusetts towns. The right, or perhaps it was more a custom than a true legal right, appears to have been extinguished by the new State Constitution which became ef- fective after independence was gained. Women were allowed, however, to vote in church and parish matters, but this lost much of its importance when the disestablishment of the church took place. We have one very clear bit of evidence that some women were permitted to vote in Milton. At the town meeting of 27 November 1721 twenty-seven voters demanded to have their names recorded in opposition to a certain vote. Included in this group were four women, and reference to the tax lists of the period show that all four were widows who paid a material property tax.
The Milton Town Meeting is a form of local government which is over three hundred years old, and, with the single major exception of substitut- ing representative town meeting members for the entire mass of legal voters, it is operating under rules and form which have continued without basic change for two hundred and forty years. No form of local government could be better than that in which each year the freemen assemble, elect their ex- ecutive officers for the following year, instruct them in those cases in which they see fit, decide how much money shall be spent for various operations, and tax themselves for the total sum. In theory it is simple, sane, and logi- cal, and in practice it has worked for almost three centuries while Milton has grown from a hamlet of a handful of families to a town of many thousands.
The normal operation of any town is easily carried on by the usual offi- cers, but from the very beginning it was realized that the abnormal could best be met by special means. This was the Committee. Dorchester used it in the very earliest period, and it became a normal agency in the furthering of town government. Committees have two major advantages, they avoid placing an additional load on the town officers, and they allow the use of specially qualified people, of those who would not normally be elected to town office, and of people who, not being Town officers, could take a more
15
Town Meeting
detached and judicial attitude. Milton has used committees for everything from determining who should have the best seats in the Meeting House down to being responsible for the design and construction of a school build- ing. One committee, the Warrant Committee, of which I shall speak later, has become a permanent part of town government, but the average commit- tee throughout Milton's history has been appointed for a specific purpose, and usually for only a year, and it has ceased to exist when its purpose has been accomplished.
Town government by the first quarter of the eighteenth century had reached a degree of maturity sufficient to make it needless to describe it fur- ther in detail. Various new offices appear from time to time; a Surveyor of Hemp and Flax in 1736, and a little later, as the result of the Provincial law of 1739, two Deer Reeves, or enforcers of the game laws protecting deer, were elected. It is of interest to note that as early as 1694 there was a six months closed season on deer in all of Massachusetts, which then included Maine, and in 1718 the season was closed entirely for three years on account of the great scarcity of these animals.
At the March 1748-49 meeting a suggestion of tighter control appeared when the Selectmen were directed to itemize the drafts they made on the Treasurer. In 1766 it was voted to pay the Constables £5 each for collecting the taxes, but in the next year a Collector was chosen who presumably took this duty over from the Constables. There is no record at this date as to whether the Collector was paid, but at a slightly later time it was customary to auction off the office to the candidate who would collect the taxes for the lowest salary.
In 1779 Massachusetts re-enacted a law of 1742 which allowed towns to appoint one or more persons to inspect for smallpox, and in that year Dr. Holbrook and Dr. Sprague were appointed a committee of inspection under this law. This can be considered the first appearance of a Board of Health, even though the committee was not continued after a year or two. Thirty years later the Town was to take up the smallpox question in a major and epoch-making way, but this will be described in another chapter.
The requirements of town government had continued to increase, and by
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History of Milton
1810 there were sixty-eight town offices to fill. This compares with perhaps not over eight or ten in the late 1600's, and with the fifty-seven elected offi- cers of today, in addition to which there are a number appointed by the Se- lectmen.
The final separation between the Town and the Congregational Church resulted in the disappearance of an office of long standing; after 1835 there was no further election of Tithingmen and the observance of the Sabbath laws was left in the hands of the Constables.
The Town Clerk's records are quite complete throughout this period, but at best they only include the warrant, the officials elected, and the votes of Town Meeting. There was no other formal record and little detail has been preserved for us. Charles Francis Adams in speaking of Quincy town government might equally well be speaking of that of Milton.
"Prior to 1810 all business had been done in a loose, unsystematic way. The annual appropriations were made by viva voce vote; the treasurer received the money which the constable collected; and the selectmen drew it out and paid it over to the minister, the schoolmaster, and those who cared for the Town's poor. No report or estimates were made; no papers were placed on file. Everything was done on a general under- standing. A cruder, less organized system could not be imagined. All that could be said was that it was natural, and, like most natural things, it worked well under the circumstances."9
For some two centuries almost all of Milton's officials served without any salary at all. The burden of governing was one which all were expected to share, except that those officials who had to devote a very considerable amount of time to the Town's work were, as time went on, paid a relatively small sum. It would appear that in 1751 the Selectmen asked to be paid for their services, but the Town voted that they should receive no pay.
The Town Treasurer in the mid-1700's received an annual salary of from £2 to £5, but, since this was paid in "old tenor" depreciated bills, it did not represent much purchasing power. In 1747 the Surveyors of Highways re- ceived six shillings a day for the time actually worked. In 1770 the Collector
9. Three Episodes in Massachusetts History (Boston, 1892), Vol. II, p. 916.
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Town Meeting
received £8. 15s. od., and the next year the office was awarded to Joshua Vose, who made the low bid of £10. 10s. od., and was duly elected.
Milton's first detailed financial report was prepared for the year 1837-38, and it lists the various annual salaries then paid :
Selectmen $ 25.50 to $30.00
Town Clerk
$ 5.00
Town Treasurer
$ 15.00
Overseers of the Poor
$ 20.00
Constables
$ 15.00
Collector
$238.00 (but only $ 169.96 in 1838-39)
School Committee
$ 5.00 to $8.00
The total expenditures for the Town for this year are of interest.
New Town House
$2835.43
Cemetery improvements
$1070.25
Poor and Highways
$2401.89
Bridges
$ 142.40
New Road
$ 287.00
Sign Boards
29.86 $
Schools
$1799.65
Pay of Town Officers
$ 434.02
Abatement of Taxes
$ 163.34
Refund of Poll Taxes to Firemen
$ 48.00
Miscellaneous
$
72.91
$9284.75
Elsewhere I have described the first appearance of the School Committee as a special advisory committee, its later development into a State-authorized but practically powerless body, and finally its full assumption of control of the schools from the School Districts. Auditors had been appointed or elected at various times and for various purposes over a long period of years, but be- yond making a verbal report to Town Meeting they left no records. Sudden- ly, however, in 1838 the Auditors issued a printed report of the financial ac- tivities of the Town, and this practice was continued each year. Eventually reports of the Selectmen and other officers and committees were included, and the annual Town Report had come into being. The initial reports are merely summaries of funds received and paid out, and one must read be-
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History of Milton
tween the lines, but by about the time of the Civil War considerable addi- tional information has crept into the booklet. By 1880 we would clearly rec- ognize the ancestor of our present report, and twenty years later it would be much like that of today.
Town Meeting would not proceed as smoothly and rapidly as it does were it not for one relatively new innovation in town government. Milton quite properly calls it the Warrant Committee, while other towns call it the Fi- nance or Advisory Committee. Our name is really the most correct, for the committee's basic purpose is the taking over of a duty assigned to the Se- lectmen by Town Meeting in 1669, the duty of recommending to the Town the action to be taken on the various articles in the warrant.
Until about a century and a half ago the Selectmen were the only impor- tant executive officers of the Town, all major operations were in their hands, and they of course were entirely familiar with them. Practically all changes in Town government which have taken place since about 1800 have been in the direction of taking away existing duties and responsibilities from the Se- lectmen, or in case of new duties and powers, of assigning them to new sets of town officers. When we stop to think that since 1800 we have added to the officers of the Town the School Committee, the Board of Health, Park Com- missioners, Library and Cemetery Trustees, Sewer and Water Commission- ers, the Board of Public Welfare, and the Planning Board, we can appreciate with how much relatively smaller a part of the town government the Select- men are now concerned. It naturally follows that, without much additional time and energy, they are no longer intelligently able to recommend to the Town the action that should be taken on many of the articles appearing in the warrant.
As early as 1841 we find the Milton Selectmen advising the Town to es- tablish a "committee of finance" to make estimates of the sums of money necessary to raise the next year. As with many another recommendation no action was taken at that time. The origin of the Finance Committee is ob- scure; Brookline had one by 1893, and it is believed that Quincy originated the idea at least as early as 1887 and probably some years earlier. Milton's March Meeting of that same year established our Warrant Committee, which
156
CO
MEETING.
The Inhabitants of the Town of Milton, qualified to Vote in Town Affairs, are hereby notified to meet at the TOWN HOUSE, in said Milton, on Monday, the thir- teenth day of March next, at One o'clock, P. M. to act on the following articles, viz.
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