USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Professional and industrial history of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, Volume III > Part 4
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THE TOWN AND TRADE.
The jurisdiction of the town over the business affairs of the freemen and inhabitants was necessarily more limited than over the streets and highways, but not inconsiderable. In 1648 the General Court incor- porated the shoemakers of Boston, also the coopers of Boston and Charlestown, giving them a monopoly of their trades, and virtually the character of guilds. This arrangement appears to have failed under the greater individual liberty exercised in a community where nearly everybody was a freeman, who helped directly in electing and defeat- ing governors, and was himself, at least in theory, a part of the Gen- eral Court. But the system of apprentices was formally adopted by the town. In 1660 a town meeting ordered that "no person shall henceforth open a shop in this town, nor occupy any manufacture or science, till he has completed 21 years of age, nor except he hath served seven years apprenticeship, by testimony under the hands of sufficient witnesses; and that all indentures made between any master and servant shall be brought in and enrolled in the Towne's Records within one month after the contract made, on penalty of ten shillings to be paid by the master at the time of the apprentices being made free" (2 Bost. Rec., 156). Under this order the selectmen of 1667-8 told John Farnum that he could not set up his son in the cooper trade, unless he had served the apprenticeship of seven years, " on penalty of 10 shillings per month " (7 Bost. Rec. Comm., 39), In this case the complaint was made by the coopers, but the authority relied on was
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the town order, and the selectmen acted, claiming at the same time the doubtful right of inflicting a cumulative penalty. In other words, the town was treated as the only corporation, and the selectmen were supposed to be its executive officers. But the principle of free-trade, as then understood-every man to practise the trade he thought best- asserted itself beyond all legislative regulations before the colony ended. Boston began as an aristocracy; but the democratic principle triumphed over all obstacles; and the aristocracy yielded, except in social matters.
Before the founders left England, they considered the importance of iron works in the new world (1 Mass. Rec., 28, 30). Here the town of Boston led in the enterprise. In 1643 the town gave to John Winthrop, jun., and his associates, "three thousand acres of the common land at Braintry, for the encouragement of an iron worke, to be set up about Monotocot river" (2 Bost. Rec. Comm., 77). The General Court fol- lowed with a generous act of incorporation (2 Mass. Rec., 61, 125), and the enterprise had the benefit of Thomas Foley's advice and capital, Foley being one of the great English iron masters of his time. Gov- ernor Winslow, of Plymouth, was likewise interested in this undertak- ing, which has never died out, the Boston selectmen having chosen the best ground in all Massachusetts. They contributed also to the first ship built in Boston, the "Trial," which was built in 1641, and made her first voyage to the Azores, the second to Spain. The builder was Nehemiah Bourne, and the selectmen contributed the value of sixty acres that had been alienated by Brother Wright, of Braintree, who was fined £3 10s., to be paid to Bourne. The selectmen had no right to lay so heavy a fine; they probably relied on the fact that they were the guardians of the town lands, and that they were bound to put these lands to the best uses. The town did not object, and the proceeding stood (? Bost. Rec. Comm., 58, 59). In 1645 the General Court opened all harbors of Massachusetts to " all ships from. any of the ports of our native country or elsewhere, coming peaceably " (3 Mass. Rec., 12). The law remained until 1661, when it was repealed, possibly under the influence of the English navigation law passed in 1651, the influence of which is still felt.
In 1667 all sea-going vessels not owned in Massachusetts were re- quired to pay tonnage dues whenever they entered a Massachusetts port, and a year later a customs tariff on imports and exports was adopted, to take effect on March 1, 1668-9. Boston and Massachusetts
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had learned that commerce was apt to be so profitable as to bear tax- ing. By a certain inconsistency the navigation act then gathered the tax on commerce largely of home merchants. The navigation act known as 12 Carol., ch. ? , was formally adopted by Massachusetts in 1677 (5 Mass. Rec., 155), and in 1681-2 a naval office was established at Boston .. James Russell was the first naval officer, and his commis- sion was dated March 12, 1681-2 (5 Mass. Rec., 337-8). Within a year the General Court ordered that " the port of Boston, to which Charles- town is annexed, and the port of Salem are and shall be lawful ports in this colony, where all ships and other vessels shall lade or iin- . lade any of the plantations enumerated goods, or other goods from foreign parts, and nowhere else, on penalty of the confiscation of such ship or vessel, with her goods, tackle, etc., as shall lade or unlade else- where " (5 Mass. Ree., 383). Russell's successor was Samuel Nowell. Arrivals in the port of Boston reported at Castle Island, the fortifi- cations of which were originally intended to protect Boston from foreign enemies. Indeed Boston had chiefly paid for the " castle." If the navigation acts, the naval officer, and the custom-house of later days, injured Boston and her merchants, the town remained silent. In truth, the laws were not strictly enforced, and commerce did not suffer. Boston commerce appeared to depend on the wants of the people, and the enterprise that supplied these wants.
As early as 1633-4 Boston was made a market town. The market was held where the old State House stands, and Thursday was market day, when the people from the country could sell their goods to the people at Boston without difficulty, and take in return what merchan- dise was for sale. In 1648 Boston received authority to hold two fairs a year, in June and October (? Mass. Rec., 257), which led at the next town meeting to the election of two " clarkes of the market." A fair was simply a market of two or three days; but a market was in those times the only chance of every comer to enjoy free trade in the full sense of the term. Clerks or superintendents of the market have been elected ever since, and the Market Department of the Boston city gov- ernment may justly boast of being the first of all such departments here established. It dates back to March 12, 1649. By a quaint anomaly the market department has become a source of great revenue to the city, when the characteristic of the old markets was that they should be entirely free. This freedom from expense, even rent, was expressly guaranteed when the first town house was built in Boston, and the
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lower part of it reserved for market purposes: "The place underneath [the town house, which stood on pillars] shall be free for all inhabitants in this jurisdiction, to make use of as a market for ever, without pay- ment of any toll or tribute whatever " (4 Mass. Rec., part i, 327). It deserves notice, also, that the first department established in our town government should have slipped away from the selectmen, as far as the administrative work of this department is concerned. The power so lost they have never regained ; neither have their successors, the alder- men. Very likely the selectmen of 1649 were not aware that the elec- tion of clerks of the market by the town meeting was the first marked step toward reducing the management of all town prudentials by selectmen. In time they were to lose more.
FINANCES, TEMPERANCE, SCHOOLS.
In the matter of finance, the town bore heavy burdens from the be- ginning, and always proceeded with good judgment. Since 1885 the financial officers of the city are the appointees of the mayor, and not re- sponsible to anybody but him. Even the auditing of accounts is con- trolled by the executive head of the city. The selectmen of colonial Boston were too prudent to ask for such power. They assessed all taxes, but in making valuations of property for assessment purposes, they had the assistance or supervision of a special commissioner elected in town meeting. This arrangement began in 1646, and lasted to the end of the colonial period (3 Mass. Rec., 87, 116). The taxes, or rates, were always collected by constables. But the selectmen generally chose the town treasurer, the town appointing committees for the ex- amination and auditing of accounts. The report of this committee in 1685 (7 Bost. Rec. Comm., 175) is a good illustration. The town tax usually exceeded the " country rate," as it was called, though the latter was high. The country rate, or State tax, paid by Boston, amounted in the five years from 1675 to 1679 to £10,776 5s. 2d. Of this total, £10,353 5s. 2d. went to John Hull, the treasurer of Massachusetts, who gave Thomas Brattle, the treasurer of Boston, a full discharge (? Bost. Rec. Comm., 153). The amount was occasioned mainly by King Philip's war. The ordinary town expenses, at the end of the colonial period, were about 400 pounds a year, mostly fixed charges for schools, for the poor, for highways, and for rents and repairs. To obtain this sum, about 600 pounds was the sum committed to the constables for col- lection. An interesting account of the town budget, from Edward Wil-
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lis, town treasurer, is preserved in the Town Records of 1686 (7 Bost. Rec. Comm., 187). The number of polls, in 1684, was returned at 1,447, but included all males of the age of sixteen and above (1. c., 194). This fixes the population for that year at more than 5,000, a small number of whom lived in Muddy River or Rumney Marsh. Then, as now, the tax laws were made by the General Court, and the town officers were required to collect both the State tax and the town money. The colonial selectmen discharged this duty with ability and integrity.
The liquor laws of the time were not radically unlike those of the present time. The town simply recommended persons that might be trusted to sell intoxicating drink, and supervised the proper adminis- tration of the law; but did not issue licenses, and did not receive the revenue connected with the liquor business. This revenue consisted in import duties, license fees, and excise, and went to the colony. In 1681-2, when Boston had three churches and three schools, it was al- lowed six wine taverns or wholesalers, ten innholders, and eight retail- ers, who sold liquor to be drunk in the homes of the people. Intem- perance was greater than now. On the whole, the people had very little to do with the regulation of this traffic, local option being a mod- ern growth, and opinion increasingly sensitive. The seleetmen of col- onial Boston were the overseers of the poor. They needed an alms- house, but did not succeed in getting it, while their expenses for the poor were very considerable. Most of the bequests made to early Bos- ton were for the poor of the town, and in most cases it was necessary to pay out the principal; so urgent were the necessities of the select- men.
The school system of Boston, now its most democratic institution, had its beginning in the establishment of the Latin school and Harvard College. But the people at large never intended to go to college or study Latin. To supply the wants of the plain people, who are the town, a school with Latin in it, and looking to the ministry, did not answer. On December 18, 1682, a public meeting of the inhabitants appointed a committee, including the selectmen, to " consider of and provide one or more free schools for the teaching of children to write and cipher, within this town " (? Bost. Rec. Comm., 158). The com- mittee voted that two such schools should be established; that the town should allow £25 for each; and that parents might improve the teach- ers' lot by paying tuition. On November 24, 1684, the selectmen en- 6
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gaged John Cole to keep a free school for instruction in reading and writing, his pay to consist in £10 in money, and £20 in country pay. When the colony ended, Boston had the Latin school, and two schools for reading and writing English. The care for these schools did not fall altogether upon the selectmen, though they had to supply the larger part of the money. The care of the schools gradually drifted away from the selectmen, and in modern days became an independent branch of our municipal government. The selectmen and their suc- cessors never managed the schools. Indeed, the free school is the work of the people, and the people have generally preferred to control the free school more directly than by a general town or city govern- ment.
RESULTS.
The colony government, under the patent of 1629, ended in May, 1686. The Province government, under the charter of 1691, began in May, 1692. The interregnum was brief. President Dudley and his council served less than a year, and Sir Edmund Andros was swept away, together with Edward Randolph, in the revolution of April 20, 1689, when the colony resumed its former methods of doing business, and so continued until the arrival of Sir William Phips and the begin- ning of the Province government. In the sixty-two years of its history under the colony, the town of Boston had become the most influential town in New England and America. Since 1680-81 it was the only town that had three deputies in the General Court (5 Mass. Rec., 305). The colony had enjoyed complete self-government, and enabled the towns of Massachusetts to enjoy the same privilege in all prudential affairs of a municipality. No town made better uses of this opportunity than Boston. It laid the foundations of a municipal government which has rarely failed the community in its reasonable expectations, and on historic occasions pointed the way to the highest duty and honor. Nearly everything that makes the government of Boston attractive or instructive, has its root in the high endeavors and hopeful ambition of the colonial period. As late as 1685 the town instructed its officers not to collect a fine of £100 lawfully ordered by the county authorities. It had previously defied a king; it was to defy another. Boston has never defied Massachusetts. Yet it was Boston that prevented the coun- ties of Massachusetts from being a power between the town and the commonwealth. It was Boston that insisted upon direct dealings be-
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tween the commonwealth and the towns that gave the commonwealth its character and strength. It was Boston that gave the town and town government a superior dignity that has been admired by many great minds, and rarely criticised by any mind. Colonial Boston began as an aristocracy ; it ended as a pure democracy. This interesting transition entitles the people of colonial Boston to enduring honor ; for the change was made almost imperceptibly. The more the whole community was fit for municipal self-government, the more it had. Special praise, however, is due to the early leaders. They never sought to defend the aristocratic institutions in church and state they had brought with them from England; but helped bravely and wisely to elevate the entire community to a reasonable understanding of what was best calculated to build a good town and a free commonwealth. A commonwealth like Massachusetts, and a community like Boston, are not a natural growth, nor the result of evolution and happy environment, but the work of reasoning and highly ethical generations, who know what is best, and always make for moral and political freedom, whatever the sacrifice.
After two centuries of political experience it is easy to point out where the Colony failed: It did not separate the powers of govern- ment. With equal justice the founders may be charged with not hav- ing been logical. But it is a mistake to estimate the seventeenth century by the nineteenth; the true business of the historian is to show how the present resulted from the past. We should not forget that the seventeenth century was emphatically a theological age, when dogmatic theology ruled supreme. Our time is emphatically untheo- logical, and not kind to dogmatic theology. Whether this is really a gain, may be open to doubt; it is not doubtful, perhaps, that a scien- tific or science-making age is not the best qualified to judge a time when religion reigned supreme and the ideal interests of mankind had a theological cast, as if the highest hopes could not be separated from the eternities. We of the present are not given to theology ; but the ideal- ism of Massachusetts and its capital began with the theological founders. Whatever our opinion of dogmatic theology, it is an ideal pursuit; and it is the special honor of Boston and Massachusetts that, in the midst of practical labors, they have always evinced a marked interest in the ideal concerns of mankind. Scholarship has never lan- guished in Boston ; here is the cradle of our national literature; fine art has made Boston a home; Boston artisans have ever tried for the best.
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This whole continent owes a debt to Puritan Boston. But the eminence of Boston in practical government and the ideal life began in 1630. In the days of the Puritan colony it was supreme. Liverpool and Glasgow have no such story to tell; neither have Hamburg and Marseilles. In the seventeenth century they were strangers to ideal pursuits; Boston was not.
The colony passed easily and very early from a government by free- men to representative institutions, or government by the representa- tives of freemen. The town of Boston was anxious to take a like step, but was prevented by the sister towns as represented in the General Court. A preference of town government to incorporated cities is still the dominating creed of Massachusetts, although a city is nothing but a town with representative institutions. The same sentiment attributes to towns certain prescriptive powers or rights, which are denied to the city, as though a city had only enumerated rights, ex- pressly conferred, while towns are sometimes thought to have all municipal powers not expressly denied. The early selectmen proceeded on this latter theory, and it is due to them that our aldermen's powers cannot be enumerated. Meanwhile it is odd, and illustrates the con- servative force of tradition, that public opinion in 1893, as in 1650, looks upon representative government in the State as safe and neces- sary, in municipal matters as apt to be fraught with mischief and a loss of popular rights. In truth, the founders of Boston reasoned deeper and better on town government than this century does on city govern- ment. It is safe to add that the early selectmen of Boston vindicated their rights more effectually than did the city officers of two centuries later. So well did the early selectmen manage as not to invite the in- terference of the General Court, or even of the town meeting; a later age goes to the State House when it wishes to govern Boston. Nor should it be forgotten that municipal self-government must vindicate itself. Had the constitution of Boston from 1630 to 1692 been ill ad- ministered, the General Court would have been glad to offer relief; but no relief was needed; Boston took better care of itself than did the commonwealth. For this we are indebted to the early selectmen ; they taught a lesson for all time.
Yet who can deny that the constitutional law of colonial Boston and Massachusetts was ill-defined? The colonists constantly spoke of the magistrates, who were the "assistants," or board of directors, sur- rounding the Governor. They were intended by the patent to be ex-
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ecutive officers; they turned out to be a branch of the General Court, and judges from whom litigants could appeal to the General Court. The weakness of the system lay in the jealousy with which the execu- tive power was scattered, while the assistants wielded great power in legislation and as the chief judiciary of the country. This waste of ex- ecutive power, accidentally enhanced by the establishment of a council (1 Mass. Rec., 361), still affects the Commonwealth; in colonial times it led the selectmen of towns to assume much executive power, an ap- peal lying, not to a superior executive who could have acted, but to magistrates or the General Court who would deliberate. The county officers never had much executive authority, and the Governor less. Hence the executive power of towns had to be exercised by special of- ficers or committees; as a matter of fact, the selectmen soon became a standing committee of the town for all executive purposes and for the prudentials. In short, while the executive officers of the common- wealth were intentionally deprived of power, the selectmen became general executive officers in town affairs, partly from necessity, but mainly from choice. They were the best executive product of the time. This outcome is certainly remarkable; for the patent intended the Gov- ernor to be an executive of real power, assisted but not limited by the assistants. He became a respectable figure head; the assistants be- came judges and the higher branch of the General Court, while the town, relieved of conrt business, and too busy for making many by- laws, evolved the selectman, whose duties were almost altogether ex- ecutive or administrative. But being men of energy, the selectmen of the colonial age exercised many powers never conferred upon them by the town, much less by the General Court.
PROVINCIAL PERIOD, 1692 TO 1776.
The Province Charter was signed October 7, 1691; but the govern- ment under the new charter did not begin until May 14, 1692, and the first act of the General Conrt in the Province period was not passed un- til June 14, 1692. It is proper, therefore, to treat the colonial period as ending in 1692, and to consider the Andros interregnum, from 1686 to 1689, a mere episode, the effect of which upon the town government of Boston was very slight. Indeed, the town government was so well established, and Andros as well as Randolph so little appreciated its importance, that they scarcely made an impression upon the organiza- tion of the town which led in their overthrow. The Province period
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ended in 1776. If a day may be named, it should be July 4, although the Revolution began much earlier, and was complete in Massachusetts as early as 1774. Great Britain, on the other hand, did not formally recognize the independence of Massachusetts and the United States un- til November 30, 1782, and the definitive treaty recognizing the United States was not signed until September 3, 1783. July 4, 1476, was acknowledged beforehand by the Boston town meeting as Independence Day, for it resolved on May 23, 1776, that " If the Honorable Conti- nental Congress should, for the Safety of the Colonies, declare them In- dependent of the Kingdom of Great Britain, they, the Inhabitants, will solemnly engage with their Lives and Fortunes to support them in the Measure " (18 Bost. Rec. Comm., 235), It is the honor of Boston, as a municipality, to have taken a leading part in defending American in- dependence against both Andros and Gage.
The freedom of a state is indicated by the self-government it enjoys, and political maturity is indicated by municipal self-government. The Massachusetts Colony governed itself, and expected each town to do the same. The Province indicated a marked decline from the freedom of the colonial period. The Colony chose its own governor; under the Province charter the crown appointed the governor, the lieutenant-gov- ernor, and the secretary. The Colony made its own laws, and the only recognized test of these laws was that they must not conflict with the patent of 1629. The Province was required to submit its laws to the privy council in England for review, and they were subject to nullifica- tion on the part of the privy council within three years after receipt. The charter, then, did not encourage freedom, and did not contemplate municipal self-government, except that the subjects of the Province were supposed to have the liberty, and immunity of natural born Eng- lishmen. The towns were incidentally recognized by the charter, but the writers of the charter probably did not know a Massachusetts town. When the crown learnt from Boston the meaning of town and town meeting, Governor Gage was instructed not to let any town meetings be called without his knowledge and consent; to which the Boston selectmen replied with grim humor that they had no need of calling a town meeting, for "we had two now alive by adjournment " (23 Bost, Rec. Comm., 225). For the validity of this proceeding they relied on the law of the Province, which had the approval of the privy council.
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AREA AND POPULATION.
The Province inherited Boston a flourishing town of about six thousand inhabitants, and including the present towns of Brookline, Revere and Winthrop, as well as the city of Chelsea. Suffolk county included Boston, Roxbury, Dorchester, Milton, Braintree, Weymouth, Hingham, Hull, Dedham, Medfield, Wrentham, Mendon, and Oxford. Before long, Woodstock was added, being settled by emigrants from Roxbury, and originally called New Roxbury. It passed to Connecti- cut about 1749, though the Province never gave up its claim. In 1205 Brookline was set off from Boston, and in 1739 Chelsea became inde- pendent of Boston. The town of Boston had sold, also, its lands in Braintree. From 1739 to. 1804, then, when South Boston was added, Boston was small in area. In 1742 it boasted of 16,382 inhabitants; in 1771 it was supposed to have 1,800 dwelling-houses; but on July 4, 1976, it had less than 3,000 residents, many being absent on account of the war and the smallpox then raging in Boston. A few months later, 901 men from Boston were reported to be in the service of the country against Great Britain. Meanwhile Suffolk county had been greatly reduced, notably by the establishment of Worcester county, in 1431, when Mendon, Woodstock, Oxford, Sutton, and Uxbridge were set off. For in 1730 the county of Suffolk comprised the following towns: Bos- ton, Roxbury, Dorchester, Hingham, Braintree, Dedham, Medfield, Medway, Weymouth, Milton, Hull, Wrentham, Mendon, Woodstock, Brookline, Needham, Sutton, Oxford, Bellingham, Walpole, Stoughton, and Uxbridge. On July 4, 1776, Suffolk county comprised . Boston, Roxbury, Dorchester, Milton, Braintree, Weymouth, Hingham, Ded- ham, Medfield, Wrentham, Brookline, Needham, Stoughton, Stough- tonham District, Medway, Bellingham, Hull, Walpole, Chelsea, and Cohasset. But the power of the county was small; its chief importance lay in the administration of justice, which was wisely kept from town control and from all town officers.
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