The Town Clerk’s Office serves as the Town’s real-time historian, responsible for creating and/or retaining the official record of certain milestone events in the personal lives of residents, known as Vital Records, and in the civic life of the Town, for example, the outcome of annual and special Town Meetings, amendments to the Town’s General and Zoning By-laws, the charters and composition of various ad hoc committees, among other things.


Authentication of official documents of the town, such as the land use decisions of the Zoning and Planning Boards or Town Meeting appropriations, is performed by the Town Clerk’s Office with the application of the Town Seal. Massachusetts documents that are going to a foreign country may require an Apostille, which can only be obtained from the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s office.



Certain records are deemed of such public significance, that their retention and ultimate disposal is set by law in the Municipal Records Retention schedule. The Town Clerk’s Office is deemed responsible under the law for the maintenance of a system capable of timely retrieval of all public records and for insuring their appropriate disposition or preservation.

The foundation for the town’s modern day public records management system is the Town Archives.