Connecticut's Villages Become Mature Towns

A CCORDING to the folk cultural view of American history, the town meeting was the only major governing body in the communities of colonial New England and was an eminently democratic institution. The men met, exchanged ideas, decided policy, and elected committees and officers. What could be more democratic? Professional historians, of course, have long pointed out the inadequacy of this view, specifically in its failure to deal with restrictions on voting, family dominance, the politics of deference, oligarchical officeholding, economic power, and other factors that influenced the meeting and its officers. While sophisticated in their perception of the complexity of the problem of town meeting democracy, however, these same historians are not as sophisticated about the character of town government.' The debate goes on at length about the nature of local power elites and social structures, but seldom are the institutions of local government described even briefly, let alone in their full complexity. Consequently, those who have not done research in local New England history have been entitled to assume that the town meeting was a simple governing body and the only significant one beneath the county level. Those working in the field know that local

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