September 8, 2024

No Lowell City Council meeting this week.

Election Results – 18th Middlesex

Congratulations to Tara Hong on his victory in the Democratic Primary for the 18th Middlesex District State Representative race. Hong defeated incumbent Rady Mom who has held office since 2015. Here are the results:

Tara Hong - 1195
Rady Mom - 1013
Andrew Kollar – 312

In 2014, Kevin Murphy was selected to be Lowell City Manager so the 18th Middlesex seat he had held since 1997 was left vacant. In the 2014 Democratic Primary, Rady Mom (648 votes) defeated Jim Leary (595); Brian Donovan (577); and Dave Ouellette (348). Mom then defeated unenrolled candidate Fred Bahou in the November election. In that race, Mom received 3867 votes to Bahou’s 2398.

In 2016 in the Democratic Primary, Mom (1074) defeated Dave Ouellette (615) and Cheth Khim (402). In the November election, Mom (8107) defeated Republican Kamara Kay (3115).

In 2018 in the Democratic Primary, Mom (1315) defeated Rithy Uong (1077); Jim Leary (1052); and Sam Meas (319). Mom was unopposed in the November election.

In 2020, Mom was unopposed in the Democratic Primary and in the general election.

In 2022 in the Democratic Primary, Mom (1023) defeated Tara Hong (955) and Dominik Lay (352). Mom was unopposed in the general election.

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Election Results – Northern Middlesex Register of Deeds

Congratulations to Karen Cassella on her victory in the Democratic Primary for the Northern Middlesex Register of Deeds race. She defeated Sokhary Chau and Joe Ready. Since there are no Republican or Unenrolled candidates in this race, her election in November is a formality. The seat was vacant this year because the incumbent – me – did not run for reelection.

Here’s the vote total for the three register of deeds candidates:

Karen Cassella – 10258
Sokhary Chau – 7964
Joseph Ready – 7059

Here are the town-by-town results for the register of deed race with candidates listed in order of finish by town:

Billerica

                Chau – 1077
                Cassella – 1068
                Ready – 946

Carlisle

                Chau – 267
                Ready – 211
                Cassella – 161

Chelmsford

                Ready – 2278
                Cassella – 1132
                Chau – 1120

Dracut

                Cassella – 1338
                Chau – 659
                Ready – 457

Dunstable

                Chau – 116
                Ready – 109
                Cassella – 96

Lowell

                Cassella – 3516
                Chau – 2672
                Ready – 961

Tewksbury

                Cassella – 1080
                Ready – 604
                Chau – 578

Tyngsborough

                Cassella – 380
                Chau – 282
                Ready – 262

Westford

                Ready – 872
                Chau – 712
                Cassella – 694

Wilmington

                Cassella – 793
                Chau – 481
                Ready – 359

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I’m sometimes asked, “Why is the office of register of deeds an elected position?” The best reply I have is, “because of the English Civil War” which isn’t much of an answer. Let me explain. When the first English colonists came to New England in the 1620s, the king of England granted ownership rights to parcels of land in New England to his supporters as a type of patronage.

However, political power in England during the 1600s was deeply unsettled with a series of civil wars and revolutions. In 1649, for instance, Parliament with the support of the army and its leader, Oliver Cromwell, seized power and charged King Charles I with treason. The king was found guilty and beheaded.

Although his supporters wanted to make him king, Cromwell did not wish to hold that title but was instead named “Lord Protector of England.” In that capacity, he revoked the land ownership charters in New England that had been issued to supporters of King Charles and reissued those ownership rights to supporters of his own.

This created enormous confusion in New England over who owned what land. With the sailing time from London to Boston in 1650 being a minimum of two months to go one way, relying on officials in England to resolve title disputes in New England was impractical. Consequently, the landowners of Massachusetts decided to select one of their own to oversee land ownership records. That person became known as the register of deeds.

Granted, that was 375 years ago, and a lot has changed since then, but there’s a certain “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach to a position like this. I’ve often said that being register of deeds is a little like being an offensive lineman in football. When watching an American football game on TV, the only time the announcers say the name of an offensive lineman is when he (1) gets a penalty, or (2) gives up a sack. If the offensive lineman is doing his job, his name is never mentioned by the announcers. Similarly, if the register of deeds is doing their job, you don’t read or hear about them in the media. It’s only when they mess something up that their name gets mentioned.

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Another question I am asked is why aren’t towns like Ayer and Groton which are in the northern part of Middlesex County, not in the Northern Middlesex Registry of Deeds district. Again, I must dip into history for the answer.

From the time the current registry of deeds system was instituted in Massachusetts in the 1640s, land records were recorded at the county level. For Middlesex County, the records depository was first in Charlestown, then Concord, and finally in Cambridge. However, by the mid-1800s, the city of Lowell had burst on the scene in a very big way as the center of large-scale textile manufacturing in the United States. This created a great deal of litigation, so an outpost of the superior court was constructed on Gorham Street in 1848. Lowell’s economic vibrancy also generated much real estate activity. Because it was inconvenient to travel to the registry of deeds in Cambridge whenever a new document had to be recorded, and because Lowell had a lot of political juice on Beacon Hill, in 1855 the state legislature voted to carve out a northern district registry of deeds for Middlesex County.

With 54 cities and towns in Middlesex County, you would have thought the legislature would have evenly divided them into the two registry district, but that was not the case. Only ten communities ended up in the Northern District. These were Billerica, Carlisle, Chelmsford, Dunstable, Dracut, Lowell, Tewksbury, Tyngsborough, Westford and Wilmington. I believe that towns in the northwest part of Middlesex County were not included in the Northern registry of deeds district because in 1855, the railroad line from Fitchburg to Boston made it easier to get from Groton to Cambridge to record your real estate documents than it was to go from Groton to Lowell.

Another reason for the asymmetric division of communities was that before the new registry could open, clerks had to make copies of all the records that had previously been recorded in Cambridge for land that fell within the Northern District communities. That process was done by hand with pen and ink. Doing it for ten towns was an enormous task; doing it for half the county (26 communities) would have been nearly impossible.

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Since this has turned into an “everything you wanted to know about the registry of deeds but were afraid to ask” session, I’ll leave you with one more. Despite all this talk of “Middlesex County” the Northern District Registry of Deeds is not part of county government but is a division of the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s office within state government. (With the Secretary of the Commonwealth being Bill Galvin). Now, Middlesex County is just a geographic boundary.

Outside of New England, county government remains vibrant with many responsibilities. In most of the country, things like voting, property tax assessment, and vital records are all handled at the county level. That was never the case in Massachusetts although county government did – and in some parts of the Commonwealth, still does – perform a variety of services. Historically, voters of the county would elect three county commissioners and a county treasurer to oversee the operational and fiscal affairs of the county. For budgetary and administrative purposes, the county sheriff and the county register of deeds, both elected by the voters of the county, fell under the county commissioners.

By 1997, however, several counties in Massachusetts, including Middlesex, were insolvent, meaning their debts exceeded their ability to pay. The legislature stepped in to cover the debts, but at the price of abolishing county government. The sheriff and the register of deeds were retained as independently elected officials, although the sheriff’s office was transferred to the state Department of Corrections and the registry of deeds became a division of the Secretary of the Commonwealth. The elected positions of county commissioner and county treasurer were eliminated in the abolished counties.  

Counties that were abolished were Berkshire, Essex, Franklin, Hampden, Hampshire, Middlesex, Suffolk and Worcester.

The abolition legislation left intact all counties that remained solvent with the provision if they were to become insolvent, they would immediately be abolished. In the 27 years since Middlesex County government went away, none of the surviving counties have been eliminated. They are Barnstable, Bristol, Dukes, Nantucket, Norfolk and Plymouth.

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QUIZ: Name two Lowell city councilors since 1965 who were later elected Middlesex County Commissioners? See answer below.

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There were a couple of blog posts on richardhowe.com this past week that might be of interest. On Thursday, I wrote about my experience in watching the recently completed summer Olympics; and on Tuesday, David Daniel shared his interview of Lowell writer Pierre Comtois on the occasion of the publication of Pierre’s new book, Marvel Comics in the Early 1960s.

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Upcoming history events:

TODAY (September 8, 2024), at 11am at Tyler Park. Walking tour of the Tyler Park Historic District. Th

Sunday, September 15, 2024, from 10am until noon at Lowell Cemetery. Self-paced Portrait & Mausoleum Tour.

Saturday, October 5, 2024, at 10am at Lowell Cemetery. Walking tour. Begins at Knapp Ave entrance.

Sunday, October 6, 2024, at 10am at Lowell Cemetery. Walking tour. Begins at Knapp Ave entrance.

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QUIZ ANSWER: Paul Tsongas and Ed Kennedy.