Massachusetts
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://dspace.d106.bravog.com/handle/123456789/85
Welcome to the Massachusetts Collection
The Massachusetts Collection serves as a repository for academic and research materials related to the history, culture, and regional developments within Massachusetts. This Collection provides a valuable resource for researchers, students, and professionals exploring the historical significance and cultural evolution of this prominent state.
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Item Open Access THE COMPACT WITH THE CHARTER AND LAWS OF THE COLONY OF NEW PLYMOUTH 102 (William Brigham ed., 1836) (enacted 1675) (Year-Round)(General Publisher, 1675)Required everyone to bring arms to Sunday church services, furnishing six charges of powder and shot. The penalty is two shillings for violations.Item Open Access Records Of The Colony Of New Plymouth In New England. Boston Page 230, Image 241 (1861)(General Publisher, 1671)Laws of Plymouth Colony (1671). Whereas several persons have been greatly endangered by setting of guns, it is enacted by the Court and the authority thereof that none shall sett any guns except in enclosures and that the gun be sufficiently enclosed so as it be secure from hurting man or beast and that he that setteth the gun do give warning or notice thereof to all the neighbors on penalty of paying a fine of five pounds to the use of the Colony for every default.Item Open Access An Act in Addition to the several Acts already made for the prudent Storage of Gun-Powder within the Town of Boston, ch. XIII, 1783 Mass. Acts pp. 218-219(General Publisher, 1783)Created a fine of ten pounds for individuals creating the fire hazard of having a loaded cannon, swivel, mortar, howitzer, cohorn, firearm loaded with gun powder, bomb, grenade, or other iron-shell in a dwelling house.Item Open Access Thomas Wetmore, The Charter and Ordinances of the City of Boston: Together with the Acts of the Legislature Relating to the City, at 142-43 §§ 1-2 (1834)(General Publisher, 1783)Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled and by the authority of the same, That if any person shall take into any dwelling house, stable, barn, out house, ware house, store, shop or other building within the town of Boston, any cannon, swivel, mortar, howitzer, cohorn, or fire arm, loaded with or having gunpowder in the same, or shall receive into any dwelling house, stable, barn, out house, store, ware house, shop, or other building within said town, any bomb, grenade, or other iron shell, charged with, or having gun powder in the same, such person shall forfeit and pay the sum of ten pounds, to be recovered at the suit of the firewards [duties of Firewards transferred to Engineers,] of the said towns, in an action of debt before any court proper to try the same; one moiety thereof, to the use of said Firewards, and the other moiety to the support of the poor of said town of BostItem Open Access 1783 Mass. Acts 37, § 2(General Publisher, 1783)Prohibited the possession of any “fire arms,” and among other devices, loaded with any gun powder. Punishable by forfeiture and sale at public auction.Item Open Access An Act Providing for the Punishment of the Crimes of Burglary, and Other Breaking and Entering of Buildings, §§ 1-5, MASS. GEN. LAWS (Manning & Loring 1807) (Passed 1806).(General Publisher, 1806)BE it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives, in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, That if any person, with intent to kill, rob, steal, commit a rape, or to do or perpetrate any other felony, shall in the night time break and enter, or having, with such felonious intent, entered, shall in the night time break a dwelling house, any person then being lawfully therein, and such offender being, at the time of such breaking or entering, armed with a dangerous weapon, or arming himself or herself, in such house, with a dangerous weapon, or committing an actual assault upon any person lawfully being in such house; every such offender, and any person present, aiding, assisting or consenting in such burglary, or accessary thereto before the fact, by counselling, hiring, or procuring such burglary to be committed, who shall be duly convicted thereof in the Supreme Judicial Court, shall suffer the punishment of death.Item Open Access 1805 Mass. Acts 111–13, ch. 81(General Publisher, 1805)Authorized the governor to appoint two provers per county who would prove musket and pistol barrels before sale. Proven barrels stamped. Violators fined ten dollars.Item Open Access 1804 Mass. Acts. 111, ch. 81, An Act to Provide for the Proof of Fire Arms Manufactured Within this Commonwealth.(General Publisher, 1805)Requiring appointment of two per county for the inspection of barrels. Barrels required inspection under varying charges of powder and at varying degrees of elevation. Proven barrels are stamped post-inspection. Failed barrels fined thirty cents. Failed pistols fined twenty-five cents. Unproven barrels & pistols fined at ten dollars.Item Open Access 1801 Mass. Acts 507-08, An Act to Provide for the Storing and Safe Keeping of Gun Powder in the Town of Boston, and to Prevent Damage from the Same, ch. XX § 1(General Publisher, 1801)§1... That all Gun Powder imported and landed at the port of Boston, shall be brought to and lodged in the Powder House or Magazine in said town, and not elsewhere, on pain of confiscation of all Powder put or kept in any other house or place...Item Open Access 1795 Mass. Gen. Laws 454, ch. 2, § 2; 1795 Mass. Acts 436, ch. 2(General Publisher, 1795)Commanded justices of the peace to arrest "all affrayers, ruiters, disturbers, or breakers of the peace, and such as shall ride or go armed offensively, to the fear or terror of the good citiens of this Commonwealth."