COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS

In the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and eleven.

An act to incorporate township number three in the fifth range of townships north of the Waldo Patent into a town by the name of Garland.

Section 1st. Be in enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled and by authority of the same: That township number three in the fifth range of townships north of the Waldo Patent in the county of Hancock, bounded as follows: Northwardly by township number three in the sixth range; westwardly by township number four in the fifth range; southwardly by township number three in the fourth range; and eastwardly by township number two in the fifth range, together with the inhabitants thereof be, and hereby are incorporated into a town by the name of Garland vested with all the powers, privileges and immunities which other towns do, and may enjoy by the constitution and laws of this Commonwealth.

Section 2. Be it further enacted, that any justice of the peace in said county of Hancock be, and hereby is empowered to issue his warrant directed to some suitable inhabitant of said town of Garland requiring him to notify and warn the inhabitants thereof qualified to vote in town affairs, to meet at such time and place as shall be expressed in said warrant, to choose all such officers as towns are by law required to choose in the month of March or April annually.

In the House of Representatives, February 14, 1811.

This bill having had then several readings was passed to be enacted.

JOSEPH STORY, Speaker

In Senate, February 14, 1811

This bill having had two several readings was passed to be enacted.

H. G. OTIS, President.

Council Chamber:
16th of February, 1811
Approved E. GERRY

Secretary's Office,
February 11, 1811

A true copy,
Attest BENJ. HAMANS
Secretary of the Commonwealth of Mass.

The act of incorporation was copied into the first volume of town records, and the correctness of the copy attested by Joseph Treadwell, Garland's first town clerk. An inspection of the geographical description of the township will show that county and State lines have been changed since the incorporation of the town.

The act of incorporation had the effect of converting and unorganized, into an organized community, and of investing it with all the powers, privileges and immunities that a town may exercise and enjoy. Through the agency of the courts it could now enforce legal claims against individuals or communities, and defend itself against claims of an opposite character. It could now assess taxes to make roads, to build schoolhouses, support schools and for other public purposes and enforce their payment.

It was brought into political relations with state and national governments. The ballot of its humblest voter would weigh as much in determining who should be governor or president as that of the wealthiest or most aristocratic citizen of the State.

The transformation of township to town had been made under auspicious conditions. The act of incorporation, the bill of rights of the inhabitants, had been granted by the State of Massachusetts which had been the home of the Pilgrim and the Puritan, the state that had given to New England the school, the church and the town meeting, and to the country the best type of civilization the world had ever known, the state whose soil was the first stained by patriot blood in the War of the Revolution.

The renowned jurist, Joseph Story, signed the act as Speaker of the House. The cultured and polished Harrison Gray Otis signed it as President of the Senate, and Elbridge Gerry, afterwards Vice President of the United States, approved it as Governor.