Springfield 1636-1886, History of Town and City, by Mason A. Green ...

SPRINGFIELD, 16S6-1S86. 19
with split sticks, uo brandings of the forehead. And yet, the
scheme of parental supervision of men's movements was stoutl}-
adhered to.
The town-meeting was the source of all local authority. The
colonial law imposed a religious test upon all men entering this
assembly of freemen. This assembly owned and managed all the
land, apportioned it to individuals, tilled civil and religious offices,
built churches, hired ministers, opened and repaired roads, regulated
the walk and conversation of the individual, nominated the mao-is-
trate, the constable, the officers of the training band, elected all town
officers, superintended trade between man and man, fixed the price
of labor, limited market prices, regulated the forests, determined the
rotation of crops in the commons, even fixed the bedtime of the
inhabitants, their seasons of worship and their hours of labor. At
first there was a disposition to do away with executive officers as much
as possible in the town-meeting. For nearly ten years there is no evi-
dence that selectmen were elected at Springfield. There were sur-
veyors to see to the condition of tlie highways, after the manner of
the English vestry, and the town-meeting was continually appointing
special committees to perform certain prescribed duties, with fines
prescribed if those duties were not attended to, or if the freemen re-
fused to accept any office imposed on them ;
but nowhere in the records
is there, for nearly a decade, any evidence that "townsmen" were
appointed with discretionary powers of governing. There was no
need of selectmen, with the whole body of the freemen regularly in
session once a month for the transaction of business.