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
Related Catalog Records:

Archivegrid
OCLC

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
Related Catalog Records:

Archivegrid
OCLC

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
Related Catalog Records:

Archivegrid
OCLC

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
Related Catalog Records:

Archivegrid
OCLC

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–]
Related Catalog Records:

Archivegrid
OCLC

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
Related Catalog Records:

Archivegrid
OCLC

Scope and Content: From the establishment of the first turnpike commission in the Commonwealth (St 1796, c 5), legislation required corporations building toll roads and bridges to file annually an account of expenses with the state secretary and a report of income and expenses with the governor.  Other corporations including insurance companies were also required to file returns.  The state secretary maintained these filings and created a transcript of summary information.
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically
Notes: Spine title: Turnpike returns
Related Catalog Records:

Archivegrid
OCLC

Scope and Content: By various acts intended to regulate the inspection of goods sold in or exported from the Commonwealth, appointed public inspectors were required to submit annual reports to the state secretary.  The secretary maintained these filings and transcribed the returns in summary form. –Transcripts of the annual returns, 1801-1889 (v. 1-2),  include date of inspection and quantity and quality of each commodity.  Among the goods inspected are beef and pork, pot and pearl ashes, leather, gun powder, pickled and smoked fish (see below), and lumber.  Volumes also include transcripts of returns of turnpike and toll bridge corporations, ca. 1856-1868 and transcripts of returns from insurance companies, 1825-1882.  For other such transcripts see Transcripts of corporation returns ((M-Ar)165X).  Originals of some of the records in the series generally are found in Returns from public inspectors, 1801-1919 ((M-Ar)139X); Returns of turnpike and toll bridge corporations, 1801-1862 ((M-Ar)957X); and Returns of the Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Company ((M-Ar)1049X). –Appendix (v. 3): St 1859, c 102 required the secretary to publish in newspapers annual returns of the inspector general of pickled and smoked fish. Transcripts for 1859-1877 returns provide no figures but reference these publications, as found here in a scrapbook of news clips, 1863-1896.
Related Catalog Records:

Archivegrid
OCLC

Scope and Content: The New Plymouth (later “Old”) Colony, settled in 1620, became part of the Province of Massachusetts Bay under the Charter of 1691, but its records continued to be held in Plymouth successively by the last colonial secretary, clerk of the Inferior Court, and Plymouth County register of deeds.  In the 19th century, concerns over condition of and access to records led to their transcription by the Commonwealth, allowing the originals to remain in Plymouth.
Arrangement:  In three subseries: (1) 1818 transcript; (2) 1818-1820 transcript (3) 1855-1857 transcript; arranged chronologically –both arranged by topic, thereunder chronologically
Notes: Spine title: Plymouth Colony records
Related Catalog Records:

Archivegrid
OCLC

Scope and Content: The Commonwealth, pursuant to St 1828, c 113, s 7 as amended by Resolves 1833, c 28, was required to pay to the Trustees of the New England Asylum for the Blind (later known successively as the New England Institution for the Education of the Blind (1832), the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind (1839), the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts School for the Blind (1877), and the Perkins School for the Blind (1955)) an annual sum to provide for the tuition of up to twenty indigent children certified by a physician to be blind.  Transcripts were kept by the state secretary of returns of the supervisor of the school stating the names and number of beneficiaries attending the school.
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically
Related Catalog Records:

Archivegrid
OCLC