Just my personal opinion as an appreciative taxpayer, but ...
 
    That should be on a Brass Plaque and displayed in every town office.
 

Patrick G. Cummings, 
Public Health Analyst 
Vital Records - Health Surveillance, 
Department of Health, 
Vermont Agency of Human Services 
P.O. Box 70, 108 Cherry Street 
Burlington, VT 05402-9962 
PH: (802) 863-7301 
E-mail: [log in to unmask] 

-----Original Message-----
From: Vermont Municipal Government Discussion Network
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Greg Sanford
Sent: Friday, February 27, 2009 6:55 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Town Records, 1937



I found the following excerpt from a 1937 report by the Public Records
Commission to Governor Charles Smith. I thought you might enjoy it and
marvel at how things change(?).  

"It has been the habit of uninformed persons to blame the Town Clerk for
all defects in town records. This survey has demonstrated what
thoughtful people have long realized, that in view of the handicaps
under which they labor, Vermont Town Clerks have done extremely well.
The law requires a Town Clerk to keep his office open at all reasonable
hours and customers often require him to open his office at all hours.
The law gives him a full time job and pays him very little for his
trouble. It imposes on him the care of about fifty kinds of records
which include perhaps a hundred different titles running through the
century and a half more or less, of the Town's existence. It requires
numerous reports, much correspondence, and many expenses." 

 

 

Gregory Sanford

Vermont State Archives and Records Administration

(802) 828-2369

 




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