The Massachusetts Collection was generated primarily from the papers of William Lincoln (1801-1843) of Worcester, Mass. Lincoln, son of Levi Lincoln, Sr. (1749-1829), and younger brother of Mass. governor Levi Lincoln, Jr. (1782-1868), was a lawyer, historian, and statesman. His many accomplishments include: writing a History of Worcester, published in 1837, editing the Worcester newspaper, the National AEgis, 1838 to 1841, and serving a five-year term as a member of the Mass. House of Representatives, 1835 to 1840. He was a member of the American Antiquarian Society, the Mass. Historical Society and was also active in Whig Party politics, serving on state and county Whig committees. The Massachusetts Collection contains documents, records, correspondence, charts, notes and miscellaneous other papers which reflect Lincoln's involvement as a historical researcher and antiquarian, as well as his career as a lawyer and politician. Much of the collection was arranged by Lincoln personally and many of the notes are in his handwriting. Three of the manuscript boxes contain papers relating to politics and government. Included under this heading are: portions of the first Charter of the Mass. Colony conferred by King Charles in 1643, a 1660 letter from King Charles II to Governor John Endicott expressing support for Endicott's leadership, a reply of Charles II to a petition by the Mass. General Court, and the 1686 commission of Sir Edmund Andros by James II. The charter and letters have been printed in Thomas Hutchinson's Collection of Original Papers, while the commission appears in Volume VII of the third series of the Collections of the Mass. Historical Society. The General Court records contain copies of numerous acts, minutes of several General Court Sessions, papers pertaining to boundary settlements, statistics of representation, and documents concerning colonial magistrates. In addition, there is a 1750 document which lists fees to be charged by public officers for their services, as established by the General Court. A similar document exists for 1752. Bank statements and statistics for the years 1803 to 1814 appear in a chart as well as in several printed editions; Senate documents include several resolutions, proceedings notes, members lists with vote tallies and miscellaneous other papers; papers relating to State expenditures investigate the finances of the state and the possibility of reducing expenses by lowering the salaries of public officials in order to cut state spending. Several charts of tax payments (one for taxes no. 6 and 7, 1791) and land and property assessments are contained in the Taxation and Assessment folder; Gubernatorial declarations, copies of letters reporting military conditions from 1696 to 1758, notes and accounts of state prisons from 1825 to 1828, and an [1869?] chart of school attendance are included with miscellaneous treasury receipts and a chart of Treasury Bills emitted in the Province from 1700 to 1738; the Judicial papers consist of miscellaneous notes on various court issues; including the case of Mass. versus the Pejepscot Proprietors, 1812, and a small docket book of the Supreme Judicial Court, with records made in numerous towns from 1780 to 1788. The Miscellaneous Historical Notes contain two charts of town settlement in Mass. beginning in 1629, notes on the seal of Massachusetts, an account entitled "Phenomina" which describes natural occurrences in the 17th and 18th centuries, and an essay on Fashions in Wearing Apparel in the 17th century, written by Rev. Joseph Barlow Felt (1789-1869). Other notes detail events and facts taken from the Boston Evening Post, and other (unknown) sources. They cover a variety of subjects. In addition to the Militia folder containing militia returns, 1788-1818, officer's commissions, 1810-1823 and miscellaneous papers, there is a muster roll of Company C of the Second Regiment, 1898, and various muster rolls of Massachusetts soldiers from 1722 to 1776. They are filed in the oversize "M" mss. box. The Military Court Records, 1813-1822, pertain to cases from the Sixth and Seventh Divisions of the militia. An octavo volume of militia records, 1822-1830 contains General & Division orders as well as reports of the Committee of Council on Military Affairs for the Sixth Division of the militia. Folio volumes #1 and #3 are similar record books for the Third, Sixth and Seventh Divisions and Folio volume #2 includes rosters of the officers of the Third and Sixth Divisions, 1831-1859. In 1837 Governor Edward Everett appointed William Lincoln to organize and see to the publication of the Journals of each Provincial Congress of Massachusetts. Manuscript boxes #4 and #5 contain correspondence and papers gathered from Massachusetts towns in response to a request by Lincoln for information. Most of the materials are excerpts transcribed from town records at the time of the Revolution. (Original documemts of the period have been removed from the Massachusetts Collection.) Transcripts of the Worcester County Convention, 1774-1775, and copies of letters indicating the votes of the towns in relation to the Declaration of Independence are also included. A portion of Lincoln's manuscript copy of the printed edition and an index are filed following the Journal papers (Another portion of the manuscript is to be found in the oversize manuscript box "M.") The Journals of Each Provinicial Congress of Massachusetts in 1774 and 1775, and of the Committee of Safety, with Appendix was published by Dutton and Wentworth of Boston in 1838. Manuscript boxes #6 and #7 contain papers and correspondence relating to three Whig Party Conventions which were held in Worcester in 1839 and 1840. William Lincoln was active in organizing and participating in these meetings and he preserved these records. Numerous letters from local Whig organizations throughout Massachusetts reveal the rhetoric and mood of Whig politicians of the period. Also included in the Whig Party Papers are numerous letters addressed to William Lincoln's brother, John Waldo Lincoln (1787-1852) and Stephen Salisbury II (1798-1884). They are responses to Lincoln's and Salisbury's requests, as officers of the Worcester County Whig Committee, that local Whig Party members make concerted efforts in the Campaign of 1844. The Massachusetts Collection also contains an octavo volume, The Massachusetts Gazetteer. In it are extensive statistics of taxes paid by each town in 1642 and 1788, township populations in Maine and Massachusetts in 1790, lists of proportions of polls to the white population in several states of the Union, a list of towns with a population of 2000 or over in 1810, town locations, and miscellaneous other charts and information. Folder 5 in Box 2 contains a printed petition, and accompanying documents, of "sundry" women of Dorchester, Mass., who asked for a repeal of all laws of the commwealth making distinctions on the basis of color. The documents disclose that the General Court investigated who started the petition and authorized its presentation to the General Court. The legislative investigation created additional controversy.
