Lawrence Public Library

Lawrence, Mass., contracts, leases, and bonds, 1847-1878

eng

no index present

non fiction

Lawrence, Mass., contracts, leases, and bonds

677975966

Contracts, bonds, specifications, leases, and other documents, between the City of Lawrence and one individual or sometimes a corporate body. These were also only with the city directly not with separate departments. The early ones and many of the later ones were entirely hand written, but as the years past printed forms were used particularly where there were a number of bonds done each year for certain positions. The collection reflects city government in mid-19th century America. Lawrence was much of a boom town in 1847 and the collection reflects what the needs were as the population grew. By the time Lawrence was a city in 1853 it needed more constables and was organizing the sale of "intoxicating beverages" by selling licenses to liquor agents. Of interest is a lease from the Franklin Chapter of the Order of United Americans, a know-nothing organization; bonds with three communities in Massachusetts (Brighton, Boston, and Newton) paying $105 to use Lawrence men for their draft quotas in the Civil War; and the 1848 agreement to build the town hall which of course would become Lawrence City Hall