Board of Selectmen - Finance and Accounting records, 1778 - 1924

Records document financial transactions between the selectmen and Hanover residents. The receipts and orders were drawn against town accounts for expenditures on legal services, payments to town officers, education, highways, and other fiscal responsibilities. The bulk of the receipts and payment orders relate to poor relief, militia and Civil War era bounties, town officer payments, and highways. The poor relief receipts after 1840 document expenditures on the town farm, and those incurred for the indigent who did not live on the town farm. The account books and ledgers contain memoranda of annual expenditures and for various accounts, and annual summaries as well as detailed accounts for education, poor relief and the town farm, military bounties, and highway expenditures. Municipal debts, tax income, and tax abatements were recorded in some account books as well.