Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 2.djvu/237

 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS IN HOPKINTON.

��221

��WEIGHTS OF BRASS

��Jr., William Little, Joseph Stanwood, Matthew Harvey, Andrew Leach, Moses Gould, Ebenezer Dustin, Timothy Chandler, Stephen Darling, and James Huse. The operations of this bank seem to have been exceedingly bungling during the short term of its existence, and it finally settled with its creditors at ninety cents on a dollar. The Franklin Bank occupied the building now used by the Hopkinton Public Library.

The standard of quantities to be re- cognized in commercial transactions has, from remote times, been a subject of legal regulation. The weights and meas- ures first used in this town were the standards of older communities. In a record made in the year 1 804, the town of Hopkinton declared the local stand- ard to be as follows :

WEIGHTS OF IRON.

I I I I

I I I I I I I I

For the use of the above weights the town recognized "two small scale beams with brass dishes," and also "one large scale beam with boards, and strung with iron wires." The wooden dry measures were specific as 1 half-bushel, 1 peck, 1 half-peck, 1 two-quart, and 1 quart ; while the copper liquid measures were started to be 1 gallon, 1 two-quart, 1 quart, 1 pint, 1 half-pint, and 1 gill.

By legal requirement, the standard of weights and measures is regulated by a town sealer to this day, such officer being chosen anuually at the town- meeting in March, but the modern improvements and facilities for determ- ining quantities have made a practically dead letter of the present law requiring his selection.

For many years a public hay-scales

��56 lbs 28 lbs 24 lbs

7 lbs.

�4 lbs 2 lbs 1 lb. 4 lb.

�2 oz.

�I oz. 4 oz.

�k oz.

��occupied a site in the rear of the Congregational meeting house. It was simply an immense scale beam and platform, the whole apparatus being covered with a roof. It long ago passed away to give place to the modern hay- scales.

POLITICAL.

In the earlier history of this town, politics and religion were closely related. For many years the affairs of the legally established, or Congregational, church were arranged by vote of the town. The intimate relation existing between the church and the town made the meeting-house and town-house at first identical. The earliest town-meeting held in the first meeting-house was on the 2d of March, 1767. Previously, town-meetings had been held at private houses. Town-meetings continued to be held in the church till 1799, when use was first made of the old Hills- borough county Court House, the annual meeting of that year being held in the upper room of the county edifice. Town-meeting has since been held annually on the same spot.

At the time of the incorporation of the town, in 1 765, annual town-meetings were legally held only on the first Mon- day in March. In the year 1S03, the State legislature fixed the date of annual town-meetings at the second Tuesday of the same month. Till the year 18 13, when the State established a. law re- quiring the use of an alphabetical list of voters at town-meetings, public legal gatherings in town had been conducted with less formality than has been main- tained since, but the regard for parlia- mentary proprieties had been sufficient to prevent any disorder or unskillfulness of a serious nature.

The instincts of the people of this town have always largely partaken of a Democratic character. There has been a prominent jealousy of individual rights. This feature of local political life was exhibited in the very earliest times, when individuals frequently ap- peared at the moderator's desk to record their names in opposition to some measure or other passed by the majority.

�� �