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M. L .:
GENEALOGY 974.502 P948RE. V. 1
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
GEN
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
m 3 1833 01146 7492 E
1892.]
CITY DOCUMENT. [No. 18.
FIRST REPORT
OF THE
RECORD COMMISSIONERS
RELATIVE TO THE
EARLY TOWN RECORDS.
[Presented March 7, 1892.]
PROVIDENCE "WHAT CHEER ?"
INGO
1832
FOUNDED RPORATED
The Probidente Dress : SNOW & FARNHAM, CITY PRINTERS, 37 Custom House Street. 1892.
REPORT.
1173228
TO THE HONORABLE THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PROVIDENCE.
GENTLEMEN : In accordance with the joint resolu- tion of the City Council, which was approved March 6, 1891, and which reads as follows, viz. :
"Resolved, That Horatio Rogers, George M. Car- penter and Edward Field are appointed record com- missioners, who shall serve without compensation, for the purpose of collecting and printing the early re- cords of the town of Providence, and said commis- sioners are authorized to expend the sum of one thou- sand dollars for collecting and printing said records, said sum to be charged to the appropriation for print- ing," the undersigned respectfully submit a volume of the early records of the town of Providence, which they have caused to be printed. The report presented to your honorable body by the Joint Com- mittee on Education recommending the passage of the aforegoing resolution contains this clause : " On the completion of this volume the commis- sioners will be able to report much more definitely than can be estimated the probable extent and cost of the work, and the city council can better decide when and how far it is advisable to continue." The commis-
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sioners therefore present for your consideration the following report and recommendations.
A brief review of the action taken by this town and city from time to time towards the preservation of its ancient records, will show that much consideration has been given to this subject. The earliest effort in this direction was made Aug. 12, 1678, when Daniel Abbott was elected town clerk, to succeed John Whipple, Jr. At this time Roger Williams and Daniel Abbott were appointed a committee " to take a list of what they received, and to give to ye sayd John Whipple a cleare and full discharge for the same."
This action was taken shortly after the Indian war [1675-76], when the town suffered so severely from its effects, and when the records passed through a se- vere ordeal. The original document, a copy of which is hereto annexed and marked "Appendix A," is pre- served in the files of the Rhode Island Historical Society, and is among the manuscripts of the Foster papers, and from it is derived much information as to the extent and number of the earliest volumes of the town records. From it we also learn how much of the books yet remain intact, and what portions have been lost or effaced during the years that have elapsed since that time. The next account is embraced in a schedule found by the commissioners among a lot of loose papers in the store room at the city hall, and sheds much light on the condition and number of the records nearly ninety years later than the list pre- viously mentioned. It is of peculiar value in many respects, especially in showing the advance and growth
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EARLY TOWN RECORDS.
1892.]
of the town in the number of volumes of land trans- actions which had taken place during these years be- tween the date of the previous list and the date of this schedule.
A copy of this document is annexed, marked "Ap- pendix B." It is to be regretted that certain of the books and papers contained in these lists or schedules are not to be found in the possession of the city, hav- ing doubtless been lost, as too little care was exercised in the preservation of old papers in the early years of the town. The late John Howland, a man of intense fondness for antiquarian research in Rhode Island history, often lamented the recklessness with which the papers of the early settlers of Rhode Island had been destroyed. " From a quantity thrown into the street, which he gathered up and carried to his place of business, he recovered several original letters of Roger Williams," a fact painfully illustrating how lit- tle the value of these ancient papers and documents was regarded in years gone by.
June 6, 1796, a committee was appointed for the purpose of examining the town records and ascertain- ing " what record books it may be necessary to cause to be transcribed, indexed or otherwise amended, and that said committee make report of their proceedings herein at the next town meeting." "Appendix C." That committee reported June 23, 1796, recommend- ing that the work be done, and a resolution was adopted in town meeting authorizing it. "Appendix D." The outcome of this action was the Book of Tran- cripts, so called, which has been used and referred to from that time to this, in place of the earliest books of
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CITY DOCUMENT.
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record, except, perhaps, by a comparative few who wished to examine the original records themselves. This volume is valuable in some respects, although its accuracy is questionable. Of it Judge Staples in his "Annals " says, " It would have been more valuable had the committee who superintended the work, and the clerk who performed it, been a little more careful and a little less anxious to compress it in one volume." The original books from which this transcript was made remained in their worn and mutilated condition for many years without any attempt being made to have them preserved. The inaccuracies of the tran- script and the continued deterioration of the old vol- umes seems to have become a matter of serious con- sideration, and September 11, 1865, a committee was appointed by the common council " to examine the con- dition of the early records of the town of Providence to the year 1800; and the committee was authorized to employ a suitable person to transcribe and print the same, and to take such measures as might by them be deemed expedient for a proper preservation of the records," the sum of five hundred dollars being ap- propriated for this purpose, "Appendix E." No- vember 13th, of that same year, a committee, slightly different in its composition from the previous one, was appointed "to examine the early records of the town of Providence prior to the year 1800, and re- port what in their opinion is the best manner of pre- serving the same, and in case they may deem it expedient to have them printed to report the probable expense thereof." "Appendix F."
In May, 1881, the Library Committee of the Rhode Island Historical Society, in a communication to
.
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EARLY TOWN RECORDS.
1892.]
Mayor William S. Hayward, called attention to the damaged condition of the early records, and urged upon the city council the importance of their preser- vation. In accordance with this recommendation a resolution was approved June 7, 1881, authorizing the recorder of deeds " to cause the first volume of the records of the town of Providence to be suitably re- bound and the leaves to be inlaid in new paper, the expense to be paid from money in the treasury not otherwise appropriated." "Appendix G." In July, 1884, Mayor Thomas A. Doyle in a message to the city council, stated that " By a resolution of the city council, approved June 7, 1881, the recorder of deeds was authorized "to cause the first volume of the re- cords of the town of Providence to be suitably re- bound and the leaves to be inlaid in new paper, the expense to be paid from money in the treasury not otherwise appropriated. The work proposed in this resolution has never been accomplished, and very little progress has been made in regard to it." The city council again passed a resolution similar to those that had previously been adopted, instructing the "joint committee on printing to inquire into the matter of printing the first four books of the records of the town of Providence, with the probable cost thereof and all matters connected therewith, and to report thereon to either branch of the city council." "Appendix H." It will thus be seen that the matter of preserving the public records has had consideration by the authori- ties, and their value and importance have been many times acknowledged by resolutions, recommendations and special messages; but beyond the fact that a few
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of the earliest books of record have been repaired and re-bound, no step whatever has been taken to- wards the only safe means of preserving permanently these priceless writings until the action of the city council in March last, in pursuance of several peti- tions presented by persons and societies interested in this matter.
The subject of preserving ancient records in print is one which has received most serious consideration by many of the states, cities, towns and parishes in- cluded in the thirteen original colonies. The city of Boston, in the year 1875, appointed a commission for this purpose, and upwards of twenty volumes of re- ports have been issued from their hands, bringing the printed records of that city up to the year 1800. The city of Worcester has also given pecuniary encourage- ment to the publication of their town records, and among the smaller towns and cities in New England having a similar object in view, are included Braintree, Cambridge, Danvers, Fall River, Salem, Amherst, Brookline, Dedham, and others that either have the subject under consideration, or have already placed their copies in the printers' hands.
The reason for this care in the preservation of records will be apparent, even upon a brief considera- tion. In the first place these records are highly im- portant as furnishing evidence by deeds, lay-outs, wills and many other documents of the greatest conse- quence, in tracing and proving the ownership and de- scent of property, furnishing material for the history of the towns themselves, and preserving the records of the births, deaths and marriages.
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EARLY TOWN RECORDS.
1892.]
The loss of this material, so extremely valuable if not priceless, would be deplorable, and yet while in many instances these records have withstood the rav- ages of time for more than two hundred and fifty years, they are to-day in greater danger of destruction than they were during that period of their existence when they were kept in the home or shop of their cus- todian without any unusual care on his part to guard their contents. In the report of the record commis- sioner of Massachusetts in 1885, it is stated that some of the public records "have resisted decay for more than two hundred and fifty years, but it is only too evi- dent their powers of resistance are now in many cases nearly at an end, and that the time is not far distant when these records will have entirely disappeared. Perhaps if we had continued in the simple ways of our forefathers, the evil day might have been still fur- ther postponed."
With the modern equipments of public offices has come a new danger, although remote yet still liable to occur at any moment. Steam heat, gas, and electricity are a constant source of danger to public records. Steam heat seriously affects books and papers, and the danger of fire from gas and electricity is not an un- common one; indeed, the probate office for the county of Suffolk, in the city of Boston, has been on fire within the past year from electric wires, but happily in the day time, when it was seasonably discovered. Public records of any character are constantly in dan- ger of destruction, and a long list of such casualties could be enumerated. All the records in the registry of deeds for the county of Barnstable, Mass., were 2
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CITY DOCUMENT.
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destroyed by fire October 22, 1827, and all the probate records for the county of Cumberland, which although now in Maine was formerly a part of Massachusetts, were destroyed in the great Portland fire, July 4, 1866.
In our own state the records of all kinds of the town of North Kingstown were seriously injured, if indeed, not practically destroyed, in the same way in 1870, for their condition now is such that they are of little use. The old records of Newport were so badly damaged during the Revolution that they are well nigh valueless. During the Indian war [1675-6], the records of the town of Providence were in imminent danger of destruction. An attack was made on the town March 30, 1676, and thirty houses were de- stroyed, one of which says Staples "was the house of John Smith, the miller. Mr. Smith was at that time town clerk, and the records of the town were then in his possession. They were thrown from his burning house into the mill-pond to preserve them from the flames, and to the present day they bear plenary evi- dence of the two-fold dangers they escaped and the two-fold injury they suffered. After they were res- cued from the mill-pond they were carried to Newport, and were not returned again to Providence until after the war was at an end."
The Proprietors' Records of Providence were con- sumed by fire in 1888, when the Aldrich House and other adjacent buildings in the city of Providence were burned.
The state of Maine has committed to print their early probate records, including all the wills from 1640 to 1760, and the deeds of York county, from 1642 to
.
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EARLY TOWN RECORDS.
1892.]
1699. The early deeds of Suffolk County, Mass., have been similarly treated. In this connection is presented the following abstract from the report on the dangers to which public records are exposed and the proper method of preserving them, made by the committee of the council of the New England Historic Genea- logical Society, at the meeting of the society held in Boston Jan. 2, 1889 : "Some of our ancient towns," says the report, "have lost all their records by fire, and the same is true of many parishes. Indeed, the loss from this cause alone of town, county or church record is in the aggregate little short of appalling. Under these circumstances it is almost criminal negligence to allow any book of record to exist only in a single copy. Its life then hangs by a single thread. Now what is the remedy for this state of affairs? It is not far to seek, but is made manifest to every thinking man. Not even the crumbling of the paper, the cor- rosion or fading of the ink, not even a sweeping con- flagration can utterly destroy records whose custo- dians have taken proper means to preserve them. How can this be done? In one way only. Simply by the multiplication of copies. The invention of the art of printing has made great changes in the modern world. In no direction has the advance been greater than in this. Copies, instead of being made toilsomely and laboriously by hand, can now be produced almost with the quickness of thought; and the great reduc- tion in the cost of printing of late years has placed it in the power of every town and parish, however poor and feeble, to put into imperishable form its records, at least the earliest of them. And the work cannot
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be begun too soon. Nor is this all. The greater use made of stereotyping now-a-days, for even newspapers are printed from stereotype plates, has given us an additional safeguard. The printed volumes, being widely distributed, could not all be destroyed by fire, and being subject to different atmospheric conditions, could not all crumble to pieces at once. Some would certainly survive. But even if they should not, the stereotype plates would remain. From them other copies could be printed at the mere cost of press-work and paper. This would forever set at rest all fear of a total loss of records, a fate which hangs over most town and county records to-day.
" Where an ancient town has remained intact from its first settlement until now, the necessity of preserv- ing in print records of such great historical value is readily apparent. Yet where other towns have been, in more modern times, set off from an ancient town, the need becomes still more evident. The safety of the records and the convenience of the public alike require it. Some towns have been repeatedly sub-divided. In one instance some seventeen or eighteen towns have been, in whole or in part, formed from the terri- tory granted by the general court to the original town. And other instances equally striking can doubtless be cited. Although the newer municipalities have a history in common with the older towns of which they once formed a part, their records are defective, inasmuch as they extend back only to the time of sepa- ration, the books prior to that date remaining in the hands of the clerk of the parent town. This works serious inconvenience. Matters are continually com-
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EARLY TOWN RECORDS.
1892.]
ing up which necessitates reference to the earlier records, and they are not at hand. Each new town should have a complete set of the records, prior to separation of the original town of which it then formed a part. They belong as much to it as to the other. A new town should not be forced to see such invaluable documents placed beyond its control and in the keeping of officials not responsible to it, sub- jected to all the vicissitudes and dangers which records are continually running. Now the art of printing enables us to obviate all these difficulties. It solves the problem completely. When once the records are in type extra copies can be had merely for the cost of press-work and paper, and each is an exact duplicate of the other. No copyist's errors need be feared where the work is done with such mechanical accu- racy. A printed copy is vastly superior to any manu- script copy that can possibly be made.
" But it must not for a moment be supposed that the people who live in any given town are the only persons interested in its records or concerned for the preservation of them. All of our towns, both ancient and modern, have contributed no small portion of their population to build up and develop the other parts of our rapidly growing country. There is hardly a remote corner of any one of the states and terri- tories of the West where representatives of our New England families are not to be found. They naturally feel a peculiar pride in the place of their birth, and the children of these exiles should be encouraged to keep constantly in mind the home of their fathers. The publication of these records, therefore, interest a
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CITY DOCUMENT.
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much larger number of people than are to be found within the limits of any single town, and these printed volumes reach more readers than we can easily imag- ine."
In the preparation of the volume which is herewith submitted and accompanies this report, the commis- sioners have devoted much personal attention. The commissioners met for organization April 25, 1891, and Horatio Rogers was made chairman, and Edward Field secretary. The work authorized under the reso- lution was at once commenced, and it was determined that the book known as the "First Book " should be printed. This book was evidently the first one used for records by the early settlers, for in it were recorded the earliest orders and votes of the town meetings, though it seems to have been discarded for this pur- pose after a time, and then to have been solely used for the enrollment of deeds, lay-outs of lands and other instruments.
The transcribing of this book and the other cleri- cal work of the commission were intrusted to Miss Huldah D. Sheldon, her services in recording offices for a number of years past peculiarly fitting her for the work in hand.
The commissioners desire to testify to the interest she has manifested, the care with which she has inves- tigated the many perplexing questions involved in copying, and to the general excellence of the work which she has performed. The course pursued in this respect has been to cause to be made a manu- script copy of the original, preserving the orthogra- phy, punctuation, and in fact every feature so far as
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EARLY TOWN RECORDS.
1892.]
practicable that appears in connection with the re- corded matter in the book. Upon the completion of this work the commissioners together examined the written copy and compared it with the book called the Book of Transcripts, made by order of the town council in the year 1800, as well as with the original record. The proof sheets as received from the printer's hands were carefully corrected from the original record, or, where such record was defective, from the Book of Tran- scripts, so called. The pagination of the original has been preserved by placing each of its page numbers in a bold faced type, as the leaves are now arranged in the printed book, in brackets, in that part of the printed page where each page of the original begins ; the pagination of the printed book, however, is the one referred to in the index. The types from which the book has been printed have all been stereotyped for the many advantages which are derived from this course. In the first place fewer copies need be printed, as subsequent editions can be struck off at any time when needed, which effects a saving in many particu- lars. The stereotype plates can be easily corrected if errors are found, which will obviate a list of " errata," so often met with in publications of a similar nature.
Criticism may be directed towards the appearance of the printed pages of the volume submitted, but appearance was not the end which the commissioners sought to attain. It is not within the power of any one to decide which of the several matters appearing in old records is of the most value ; what may be valu- able for a certain purpose to one may be of little or no value to another, and vice versa ; and therefore it is
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important that each item, mark or figure contained in the original should be reproduced or represented. Nothing has been omitted or garbled, and the recorded volume has been as faithfully and accurately repro- duced in type as the most painstaking care the com- missioners were possessed of would enable them to do it. The cost of the books and the amount of time and labor required for their preparation make them too valuable for an indiscriminate distribution. The commissioners would recommend that they be gratui- tously distributed by a method similar to that pursued by the city of Boston. A blank form of request such as is there used, a copy of which is herewith sub- mitted, "Appendix I," might be used, and such per- sons as apply to a member of the city council or to the commissioners should be given a copy of the book, and their names kept on record for subsequent vol- umes, should the city council see fit to have them issued.
Public libraries and similar institutions in this and neighboring states should, of course, be furnished with copies when desired. The indiscriminate free distri- bution of public documents, too often pursued, wastes many copies, for experience has shown that in a short time the book thus distributed is considered of little value, and sooner or later is thrown aside and finds its way into the junk shop and the pulp mill. The course adopted by the city of Boston has been found to work well, and the commissioners are informed that their volumes have seldom been found out of the hands of those who received them or of those who were enti- tled to them.
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EARLY TOWN RECORDS.
1892.]
The commissioners have examined the ancient books, papers and documents relating to the town of Providence in the possession of the city, and submit a statement of their number, kind and condition, which is as follows :
I. The First Book town of Providence.
2. The Old Burnt Book or Book with the Brass Clasps.
3. An ancient book of miscellaneous records in two volumes as now arranged.
These volumes are included in the Book of Tran- scripts, heretofore referred to, inaccurately transcribed and unreliable, and contain all of the earliest meas- ures adopted by the town, besides a vast amount of information of the greatest value. By authority of the city council they have been bound and inlaid in heavy paper, and are now in the custody of the re- corder of deeds.
Vol. I. Town Council Records, 1692-1714, con- taining seventy-two pages.
Vol. 2. Town Council Records, 1715-1732, con- taining seventy-eight pages.
Vol. 1. Town Meeting Records, 1692-1715, con- taining one hundred and two pages.
Vol. 2. Town Meeting Records, 1716-1721, con- taining sixty-two pages.
These volumes are rapidly becoming worn and mu- tilated, the edges of the leaves being broken and torn by handling for many years, and each day only adds to their liability to destruction. Save the fact that they were cheaply bound many years ago, nothing has ever been done to preserve them. 3
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Will Book I [so called,] 1670-1716, containing two hundred and eighty pages.
This book is in the custody of the clerk of the Mu- nicipal Court, and is the first book now known to be in existence which was particularly used for recording documents relating to the estates of the first inhabi- tants of the town. There was a book of an earlier date than this, and it is mentioned in the schedule of 1678 "Appendix A," but as no reference is made to it in the schedule of 1755 "Appendix B," the book was evidently lost or destroyed between those dates. This book has been repaired from time to time, and is in as good condition as these many years of usage would leave it.
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