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Home Digital Photographs Genealogy Resources Special Collections Search |
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| dark and mysterious, with light slanting in from high windows.
In one comer you see 54 small metal boxes filled with City Farm Records
kept by the Overseers of the Poor. One room is filled with shelving,
which is lined with bound volumes. There are wooden ballot boxes
from the Perfection Ballot Box Company in Worcester. You step around
holiday lights and decorations. Inside a room marked "Laboratory"
there's a beautifully framed Water Loan Bond from 1891, including the quill
pens used by Mayor Charles D. Palmer in signing the first issue.
In another room, you pick up a small ledger, its reddish brown spine worn
through. The date "1835" is stamped on the cover. You can smell
the brittle, discolored paper. On page eleven, written in fine script,
you see the name "Boott Kirk'' and the amount "50.45," which was his total
tax for the year. These are the treasures of the attic.
City Hall is a kind of "common" in the same way as public green spaces are available for all citizens to use. It is a place for everyone, and our shared heritage is kept in its vaults, storerooms, and new machines. It is the location of the City's memory.
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