Scope and Content: Resolves 1829, c 83 (1830) authorized the governor of Massachusetts to purchase land for the construction of a lunatic hospital and to appoint a three-person board of commissioners to oversee its construction.  (The institution was established as the State Lunatic Hospital per St 1832, c 163, and is presently known as Worcester State Hospital.)  The commissioners, empowered to make contracts and to appoint agents to superintend construction, were to present their accounts to governor and council for auditing and payment.
Notes: Formerly part of: Miscellaneous collection, box 2
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Scope and Content: The state secretary received summaries of the activities of the Massachusetts State Police.  These monthly and year-to-date summaries document type and number of offenses and numbers and status of those charged.
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically by month
Notes: Formerly part of: Miscellaneous collection, box 46. Summaries are from June 1929-June 1931, but file is incomplete
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Scope and Content: The state secretary, serving as the governor’s secretary, kept a record of testimony taken before a federal commission to examine Massachusetts’s claims for funds expended for coastal defense, pursuant to a Congressional resolution of July 26, 1866.  Testimony investigates expenditures of funds for purchase or manufacture of ordnance, building and equipping of steamers, and erection of fortifications required for coastal defense pursuant to St 1863, c 118, which authorized the governor to enter into arrangements with the federal government for reimbursement of such expended sums.
Notes: Provenance unclear; item stamped: Third Auditor’s Office, State & House Claims Division, Nov. 8, 1883
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Scope and Content: In 1979 the state secretary surveyed municipal clerks of Massachusetts for information to be submitted to the state archivist regarding time capsules in each locality of the Commonwealth, to ensure that such capsules and their contents were not overlooked when stated removal time occurred.  Series has been created to tabulate survey and later pertinent reports.
Arrangement: In two subseries: (1) Affirmative (2) Negative; arranged within each subseries alphabetically by locality
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Scope and Content: For the compilation of a state map, each town in Massachusetts (including those in the five eastern counties now part of Maine) was required by Resolves 1794, May Sess, c 101 (June 26, 1794) to make a town plan based on a survey no more than seven years old, to be submitted to the state secretary’s office. Rivers, county roads, bridges, courthouses, places of public worship, and distances of the town center to the county shire town and to Boston were to be included, drawn on a scale of 200 rods to the inch. Resolves 1795, May Sess, c 45 (June 24, 1795) repeated instructions and fines for those who had not yet submitted required plans. A map of Massachusetts proper and one of the District of Maine were compiled by Osgood Carleton from these plans and printed in 1802.  The Massachusetts map is included in: Maps and plans ((M-Ar)50), no. 1616, 1617, 1617A and the map of Maine in no. 1618, 1618A.  Three sets of these maps were sent to each of the states pursuant to Resolves 1794, c 77.
Notes: Maps numbered and bound as part of an overall system ordering Archives maps by date.  Collated: 1886-1891
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Scope and Content: For the compilation of a more accurate state map, each town in Massachusetts (and the city of Boston) was required by Resolves 1829, c 50 to make a town plan based on a survey no more than five years old, to be submitted to the state secretary’s office.
Notes: Maps numbered and bound as part of an overall system ordering Archives maps by date.  Collated: 1886-1891
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Scope and Content: As regulated by successive legislation from St 1784, c 23 onward, local tax assessors compiled valuations for the state secretary (see also Resolves 1784, May Sess, c 36; Resolves 1785, Feb 1786 Sess, c 91), then for the state treasurer (St 1785, c 50), who provided printed forms (St 1823, c 138 (1824); St 1828, c 143 (1829)), and again for the state secretary (St 1861, c 167), who was replaced in this function by the tax commissioner per St 1908, c 314.  Such valuations were lists of taxpayers, resident and then nonresident, with a valuated description of real and personal property (e.g., livestock), and the number of polls (adult males) and ratable (taxable) polls in each household, for the purpose of assessing local poll, property, and highway taxes, and, on occasion, county and state taxes. Valuation lists thus constitute a variety of personal and agricultural census data.  Aggregates consist of totals of each category of data.
Arrangement: In two subseries: (1) Valuations (2) Aggregates; arranged within each subseries chronologically by year, thereunder by locality, and then alphabetically by taxpayer
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Scope and Content: The governor was authorized by Resolves 1845, c 3 and Resolves 1846, c 76, to procure original documents or transcripts of them from public offices in France, in order to illustrate the colonial and other history of the Commonwealth.  Benjamin Perley Poore was commissioned to carry out this task, apparently under the direction of the state secretary.  This series contains the results of his work.
Arrangement: In two subseries: (1) Historical documents (2) Maps; arranged within each subseries chronologically.
Restrictions: Originals are restricted; access by permission of state archivist or curator of Massachusetts Archives only
Notes: Collated: 1845-1847.  Deposited in Archives, Jan. 1, 1849. Also known as: French collection; French documents; French maps; Maps collected in France. Vol. 1 lacks no. 18-20, 38, 48-49; vol. 2 lacks no. 18-19, 67-68, 70. English translation of some documents available in Archives reading room
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Scope and Content: Publication of the complete and annotated set: The acts and resolves, public and private, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, including the years 1692 to 1780, and popularly known as: Province laws, was authorized by Resolves 1865, c 43 and again by Resolves 1867, c 87.  (See also Resolves 1893, c 12; St 1894, c 387; and St 1899, c 477.)  Under the mandated direction of the governor and council, the twenty-one volumes were issued between 1869 and 1922, with materials relating to the project being deposited with the state secretary.  Among them were these transcripts made for the editors at the State Paper Dept. in the British Public Record Office. –Documents were transcribed from the Trade Paper, Board of Trade, Colonial Entry, American & West Indies, and Privy Council volumes.  Documents include letters from Massachusetts officials, letters of agents in London, orders in council, and: List of curious and scarce books in the British Museum relating to New England.
Restrictions: Copying is restricted
Notes: Collated: [1867?-19–]
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Scope and Content: The Commonwealth, in order to fulfill its responsibility to provide education to its deaf residents, was required to pay tuition to the American Asylum in Hartford (Resolves 1819, c 60), to the Clarke Institution for Deaf Mutes in Northampton, and to the Horace Mann School in Boston (Boston School for Deaf Mutes until 1887) (Resolves 1868, c 200) for students who qualified as state beneficiaries.  The state secretary was required to act as secretary to the governor to receive all communications, applications, and returns concerning the education of these indigent students, thus creating the files reflected in these transcripts.
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically
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