Scope and Content: The state secretary, as record keeper for Massachusetts, was during the early years of the Commonwealth periodically directed by the legislature in various efforts to preserve, arrange, and inventory public records and state papers. The Governor’s address of 1836 proposed an appropriation for arrangement of archives of the Commonwealth. Resolves 1836, c 21 (Mar. 11) appropriated the monies; Resolves 1838, c 69 (Apr. 19), made further appropriation and directed the secretary to prepare a detailed description of the archives. With monies granted by the 1836 resolve, Gov. Everett appointed the Rev. Joseph B. Felt in Apr. 1836 to organize materials from the state’s archives and assemble them into 241 volumes of what is now known as the Massachusetts archives collection. Felt worked on the project from 1836-1846, assisted for a part of the time by an apprentice, and was paid initially an annual salary of
Related Catalog Records:

Archivegrid
OCLC