Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 4.djvu/288

272 272 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. putting the new system into operation, for the General Court, March 4th, 1634-35, ** agreed, that the order made in Aprill 1634," should '* forthwith be putt in execucon," ^ and on the first of August, 1637, ordered ** That some course bee taken to cause men to record their lands, or to fine them that neglect." ^ There was much merit in this plan. It provided for double registration. Land records were to be kept in every town, while a transcript was to be placed in the office of the Secretary of the Colony. It was analogous to the system in use in England in the matter of Ecclesiastical Records, that of Parish Records and Bishops' Tran- scripts. Double registration of deeds in both town and county has advocates even to-day in this Commonwealth. Whether this last scheme, if we take into consideration its greater cost as well as the vast increase in the bulk of the records, is now practicable may be doubted, but it would be invaluable in case of the destruc- tion by fire or otherwise of either set of records.^ At a General Court held in Boston 7th day 8""°, 1640, it was ordered that "no morgage, bargaine, sale, or graunt hearafter to bee made of any houses, lands, rents, or other hereditaments, shalbee of force against any other person except the graunter & his heires, unlesse the same bee recorded, as is hearafter expssed ; " and further, that such instruments should be recorded at Ipswich and at Salem for lands within the jurisdiction of those courts, **& all the rest to bee entered " by " the recorder at Boston."* This created three registration districts for the whole Colony, but in 1641-42 it was ordered that the " Gierke of every Shire Court "^ should record all such instruments. It was not until 1643 that the first division of the Colony into counties was made, and not until 1650 that the General Court ordered that " henceforth any graunt, sale, bargan, or morgage of howses, lands, rents, or other heriditaments, recorded by the recorder of y* shire in which such howses, lands, rents, or heriditaments are, shalbe sufficient securitie vnto the purchaser, or grauntee, without any further cer- 1 Mass. Col. Rec, I., 137. 2 73/^., i.^ 201. 8 All the records in the Registry of Deeds, part of the Probate Records, and all the files of the Probate Court for the County of Barnstable, were destroyed by fire Oct. 22, 1827. All the Probate Records for the County of Cumberland, which, although now in Maine, was formerly a part of Massachusetts, were consumed in the great Portland fire of July 4, 1866. The records of several towns and parishes in this Commonwealth have also been totally destroyed in the same way.
 * Mass. Col. Rec, I., 306, 307. ^ Mass. Col. Laws, Edition 1660, p. 2L