Massachusetts provision was in 1634 made for choosing two or three men to represent the towns. This action was taken partly because the growth of the colony rendered it difficult to transact business with such a large body of men, and partly because the citizens of Watertown protested against a tax levied on them, as they claimed, without their consent. Even after this representative body was established, the Assistants still sat with them as one body and it was not until 1644 that an act was finally passed separating the two bodies so that they henceforth sat apart. Great events seem to be often decided by seemingly trivial occurrences; for according to John Fiske it was owing to a controversy in regard to a stray pig that the Legislature of Massachusetts Bay Colony was divided into two separate bodies.
A stray pig had been impounded by one Captain Keayne, founder and first commander of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, and also donor under his will of a sum of money for the erection of what was the first town-house in Boston. The pig was claimed by a widow named Mrs. Sherman. She brought suit in the law courts without success and then went to the General Court. A majority of the deputies voted in her favor but a majority of the Assistants voted against her. As it was a mooted point whether they sat as one body or as two, the case could never be decided; but it was owing to this controversy, writes Fiske, that an act was later passed providing that the two bodies should sit separately, with coördinate jurisdiction.[1]
This makes a very effective story but according to another historian the separation came about because of a division over the request of the people of Newtown to remove to Connecticut.[2] Fifteen of the deputies together with the
