On Display in the State Library

This month, we’re displaying a broadside of a proclamation that was issued on August 29, 1780 and called for a special session of the Great and General Court or Assembly of the state of Massachusetts-Bay to convene on September 8, 1780. The General Court had been prorogued (or deferred) from July until September 13 but were called back to an earlier session because, as stated in the proclamation, “such intelligence has been received, and of such an important nature, as renders necessary that the said Court should be called together sooner than the time to which it stands prorogued.” 

There was a lot going on in Massachusetts in the fall of 1780. While the Revolutionary War continued on, Massachusetts was in the final stages of establishing its constitution. In 1779, town delegates participated in a constitutional convention, which resulted in a draft written by John Adams. The Massachusetts Constitution was ratified in June of 1780 and became effective on October 25. When this proclamation was issued on August 29, the state was less than two months away from having its constitution in place. Once the constitution was effective, John Hancock was elected the first Governor of Massachusetts, and the legislative branch was formally established with a House of Representatives and Senate – 242 years ago this month!

A quick way to identify this proclamation as dating to prior to the establishment of the state constitution is that it addresses the “Great and General Court,” terminology that was changed to the Massachusetts General Court after October 25, 1780. The General Court was and is the name given to Massachusetts state legislature – with the Senate as the upper house and the House of Representatives as the lower body. But the colonial legislature in place prior to the establishment of the constitution can be a little confusing, so an abridged version follows. The Province of Massachusetts Bay had a royal governor until 1775, the last of which was Thomas Gage, who was recalled amid the rising tensions of the Revolutionary War. From that point until 1780, Massachusetts was run by a Provincial Congress, without a governor or lieutenant governor in office. This proclamation falls at the very end of that political period. It refers to the Great and General court, or Assembly, which would be the equivalent of the lower house. But it is also important to note that the proclamation was issued on order of the Council, which was a group of individuals who were elected from the General Court and served as executives in the absence of a governor. If you look closely at the proclamation, you can see that it was issued in the Council Chamber of what is now known of as the Old State House, but in 1780 it was the seat of state government, housing the Council Chamber, the Supreme Judicial Court, and the space where the Assembly met. 

And now a note on the condition of this item, since it needed a bit of preservation attention before it was ready for display. We could tell by looking at it that there were lost fibers in the bottom portion, making it thinner and a bit fragile. As such, it had previously been stabilized by housing it between two pieces of archivally sound plastic sheets that were held together with double-sided tape. Though it was securely in place, we remove this type of enclosure because if the item shifts at all, it runs the risk of coming in contact with the tape. Before going on display, it was removed from the old enclosure and once it is off of display, we will make a new enclosure for it using Mylar sheets and our encapsulator, which makes a seal using heat rather than adhesive. Once it was out of its plastic enclosure, we were able to determine that there was a fair amount of dirt on the bottom portion. Since it was weak in that spot, we very gently cleaned it without causing any tears. In the image to the left, the “before” is on the top and the “after” is on the bottom.

With a little bit of care, this 242-year-old document was ready for display! Visit us throughout the month of October to see it on display in our main reading room.

Elizabeth Roscio
Preservation Librarian