Comments on My Transcription of the Town of Milford Annual Town Meeting Minutes
In the early 1990s Marion Brophy made photocopies for me of the Town of Milford Annual Town Meeting Minutes at the New York State Library in Cooperstown, Otsego County, New York, in reply to my request for information about my great great great grandfather, Christopher ELLI.S. As far as I know, the Minutes I have transcribed are all that remain of the Town of Milford's Annual Town Meeting Minutes, but I may be wrong about that; there may be Minutes for years before 1811 and after 1840. For anyone who wants to inquire of the library, its address is New York State Historical Association/The Farmers' Museum, Research Library, P.O. Box 800, Cooperstown, New York 13326, its telephone number is 607-547-1400, and its website is http://www.nysha.org/about/index.htm. The call number for the Town of Milford Annual Town Meeting Minutes is N593.82(2). However, the Minutes for 1812 and 1813 are probably lost; if not, Marion would have sent copies of them to me also.
I have transcribed the information from The Town of Milford Annual Town Meeting Minutes for 1811 and 1814-1840 and have entered the information into separate documents by year. My comments are in brackets [ ].
You may notice that some pages are missing and, I presume, lost, and that some of the page numbers within the documents are out of sequence. That apparently happened because the responsible town clerk did not enter the information about an event until some time after the event. For instance, information from page 256 appears in the years 1827, 1828, and 1829 because information for those years appears on that one page. Also, some page numbers appear in two consecutive years because the town clerk continued writing minutes for the current year on the sheet used for the previous year rather than taking a new sheet of paper.
The page numbers are as they appear in the original document. Where [New page, unnumbered] appears at the top of the page, the photocopying must have cut off the page number. These missing page numbers seem to be the odd-numbered pages.
I have copied the text as it appears in the original document, which means I have retained the spelling of the original document. . Where I could not read letters or words, I have substituted underlining of the same length as the missing letters or words. There is little punctuation; the first, a comma, shows up in the late 1820s.
Where the town clerk left a space blank that should have been filled with a name or a word or words, I have typed (blank).
The researcher should look through all of the years to find her/his ancestor(s) because some of the names were spelled one way on one page and another way on another page or pages. Some of the names appear over the entire span of years while others appear only once or twice.
Town of Milford Annual Town Meeting Minutes
1840
Entered of record Feb 25, 1840
Allen Baker Town Clerk
Marks of Cattle Sheep & Swine
Allen Bakers mark – A Swallows tail or hollow crop of the Right ear – formerly
Thomas Bakers mark – see 88th page
The following resolutions were adopted at the annual town meeting held at the house
of Jesse Mumford March 3rd 1840 Viz.
First That there be three Assessors chosen for the ensuing year
Second That there be four constables for the ensuing year
It was afterwards determined that this next annual town meeting be held at Jesse
Mumfords
The following named persons were chosen town officers for this ensuing year Viz/
Asa Eddy Supervisor
Chauncey Brown Town Clerk
Joseph Westcott Justice to fill a vacancy
Henry Wilcox Justice
Luther Brewer
John Dietz Assessors
Edward Seger
Lorenzo Bates Commissioners
Daniel H. Westcott of
Garret W. Dietz Highways
Page 309
William Fairwell Overseers
Eli Rose of Poor
Allen Baker Commisioners
Samuel Russell of
Dennison R. Boyce Common Schools
John Eddy Inspectors
James Fern Jr. of
James G. Walley Schools
Jacob Dietz Collector
John Brown
James M. Scott Constables
Reuben A. Goodrich
Levi B. Tarbox Sealer of Weights and Measures
Overseers of Highways
No of Wards
1 James Donnelly
2 Judah Waters
3 Isaac Bissell
4 Griswold Walworth
5 Chauncey Brown
6 Samuel Russell
7 Ebenezer Cronkite
8 Joseph Westcott
9 Timothy Cook
10 Jared Goodyer
11 James Fern
12 Gideon Ray
13 Andrew Shute Jr.
14 Hosea Westcott
15 Henry Wilcox
16 John Aylsworth
17 Edward Seger
18 Abraham Van Buren
19 David Wilcox
20 George Aylsworth
21 Russell Spafford
22 Nicholas Schermerhorn
23 Alvin Lyon
24 Simeon Stevens
25 Benoni Adams
26 Simon Green
27 Jeremiah Bowman
28 Bezer Reed
29 Zuri Wellman
30 Horace Keth
31 Benjamin Shaw
32 Lyman Scott
33 William Scott
34 Chester Whitford
35 William Whitford
36 Warren Lyon
37 Harvey Houghton
38 Elihu Gifford
Page 310
39 Peter Marlatt
41 George D Hoag
42 Augustus Vars
43 Amos Waters
44 Charles Ellis
45 Alonzo Low
46 William R Hardy
47 Stephen Platt
48 James Seeley
49 Benjamin Estes
50 Peter Bromfield
51 Robert Crandell
53 David White
54 Jurial Preston
55 John Quackenbofs
56 Amos Keth
We the undernamed Justices of the Peace of the Town of Milford do hereby certify
that the above named Persons were this day Elected to fill the offices as above
named in the Said Town the 3rd day of March A 1840
William Kirby}Justices
Henry Wilcox }
Allen Baker Clerk
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