Report on Construction of the Town House, 1852/53

The final report of the Town House Building Committee in the Concord town report for 1852/53 itemizes construction expenses (totaling $19,253.00, and including $4.00 to Henry David Thoreau for surveying the lot). Concord had borrowed the money to erect and furnish the building from the Middlesex Institution for Savings, which was to be repaid in installments of at least $1,000 a year, plus interest. The Building Committee urged Concordians to think positively about the benefits of the expenditure rather than the size of the debt incurred, congratulated their townsmen, and expressed “trust that the Town Hall of 1851-52, will long stand, a monument of the forecast, enterprise and liberality of the present generation.”