284
��TJie New Eiiglajid Town-House.
��[May,
��with respect to Such Part of the s^. Tract as has been formerly reserved for the Indians, but for a Long time has been wholly Left, & is now altogether unim- prov'd by them, And all other things which this Hon^e ; Court in their Wis- dom & justice Shall See meet to appoint for the Regulation of such Plantation or Town.
And Yo^ : Humble : Petitioners as in Duty Bound Shall Ever Pray &c.
��Gershom Procter Samii. Procter John Procter Joseph Fletcher John Miles John Parlin Robert Robins John Darby John Barker Saml : Stratton Hezekiah Fletcher
��Josiah Whitcomb John Buttrick Will"! : Powers Jonathan Hubburd Wm Keen John Heald John Bateman John Hey wood Thomas Wheeler Sam'l : Hartwell, jun"" ; Samll : Jones John Miriam
��In the House of Representatives June 6: 171 1. Read & Comitted. 7 . . . Read, & Ordered that Joa. Tyng Esq"- : Thorns : Howe Esqr; & Mr; John Sternes be a a Comittee to view the Land mentioned in the Petition, & Represent the Lines, or Bounds of the severall adjacent Towns bounding on the s^i. Lands and to have Special] Regard to the Land granted to the Indians, & to make report of the quantity, & circumstances thereof. Sent up for Concurrence.
John Burril Speaker In Council
June 7. 171 1, Read and Concurred. Isa: Addington, Secry.
[Massachusetts Archives, cxiii, 602, 603.]
The committee, to whom was referred this subject, made a report during the next autumn ; but no action in regard to it appears to have been taken by the General Court until two years later.
��THE NEW ENGLAND TOWN-HOUSE.
By J. B. Sewall.
��A RECOLLECTION of my boyhood is a large unpainted bamlike building standing at a point where three roads met at about the centre of the town. When all the inhabitants of the town were of one faith religiously, or at least the minority were not strong enough to divide from the majority, and one meet- ing-house served the purposes of all, this was the meeting-house. To this, the double line of windows all round, broken by the long round-topped window midway on the back side, and the two-storied vestibule on the front, and, more than all, the old pulpit still remaining within, with the sounding- board suspended above it, bore witness. Here assembled every spring, at the March meeting, the voters of the town, to elect their selectmen and other town
��officers for the ensuing year, to vote what moneys should be raised for the repair of roads, bridges, maintaining the poor, etc., and take any other action their well-being as a community de- manded ; in the autumn, to cast their votes for state representative, national representative, governor of the State, or President of the United States, one or all together, as the case might be.
Many such town-houses, probably, are standing to-day in the New England States, — I know there are such in Maine, — and they are existing witnesses to what was generally the fact : towns, at the first, when young and small, built the meeting-house for two purposes ; first, for use as a house of worship ; second, for town meetings ; and when in pro- cess of time a new church or churches
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