The following is a copy of the bill incorporating the new town of Gay Head.

 

Sect. 1. The district of Gay Head is hereby abolished, and the territory comprised therein is hereby incorporated into a town by the name of Gay Head. And said town of Gay Head is hereby invested with all the powers, privileges, rights and immunities, and subject to all the duties and requisitions to which other towns are entitled and subject by the constitution and laws of this Commonwealth.

 

Sect. 2. All common lands, common funds and all fishing and other rights held by the district of Gay Head are hereby transferred to the town of Gay Head, and shall be owned and enjoyed as like property and rights of other towns are owned and enjoyed.

 

Sect. 3. Any justice of the peace of the county of Dukes county may issue his warrant directed to any principal inhabitant of the town of Gay Head, requiring him to notify and warn the inhabitants thereof qualified to vote in district affairs, to meet at the time and place therein appointed, for the purpose of choosing all such town officers as towns are by law authorized and required to choose at their annual meetings, and shall be served by publishing a copy of the same in some newspaper printed in the county of Dukes and by posting up copies thereof attested by the person to whom the same is directed, and three public places in said town, seven days at least before such time of meeting. Such justice, or in his absence such principal inhabitant, shall preside until the choice of a moderator in said meeting.

 

At such meeting all inhabitants of said town qualified to vote in district affairs may vote, and no checklist shall be required for any purpose.

 

Sect. 4. The said town shall be and form a part of the same representative, senatorial, councillor, and congressional district as the town of Chilmark constitutionally changed.

 

Sect. 5. The county commissioners of the county of Dukes County shall, as soon as may be after the passage of this act, proceed to lay out and construct a road from the line of Chilmark and Gay Head to the lighthouse of Gay Head, and may appropriate such sum from the funds of the county as may be necessary to defray the expense of the same; and the sum actually expended for that purpose shall be reimbursed from the treasury of the Commonwealth; provided, the same shall not exceed the sum of five thousand dollars.

 

Sect. 6. The judge of probate of the county of Dukes county upon the application of the selection of Gay Head, or of any ten resident owners of land therein, after such notice as the judge may direct to all parties interested, and a hearing on the same, if he shall adjudge that it is for the interest of said parties that any or all of the common lands of said town be divided, shall appoint two discreet, disinterested persons commissioners to make partition of the same, and their award, being confirmed by said court, shall adjudge that it is for the interest of said parties that the same, or a part of the same, be sold, he shall direct the said commissioners, after they shall have given such bonds as the court may require, to proceed to sell any or all of said lands, and to pay the proceeds thereof to the treasurer of said town; and the said judge of probate shall direct the said commissioners to examine and define the boundaries of the lands rightfully held by individual owners, and to properly describe and set forth the same in writing, and the title and boundaries thus set forth and described, being approved by the court, shall be final in the premises; and the same, together with all deeds of partition, division or sale made by such commissioners shall be recorded in the registry of deeds in the county, and the expenses of said commissioners, including the cost of recording said deeds, the same being approved by the judge of probate, shall be paid out of the treasury of the Commonwealth, the same being also approved by the governor and council; and the governor is hereby authorized to draw his warrant accordingly.

 

Any person aggrieved by any order, decree or denial of the judge of probate under this act, shall have the same right of appeal, under the same rules and regulations as provided for in chapter one hundred and seventeen of the General Statutes: provided, that the attested copies and notices required to be given by said chapter shall be served upon such parties as the judge of probate shall direct.

 

Sect. 7. All sums of money payable to the selectmen or treasurer of the district of Gay Head under chapter thirty-six of the General Statutes, for the support of schools, shall hereafter be paid to the treasurer of the town of Gay Head, to be expended in accordance with section four of said chapter.

 

This section shall continue in force five years.

 

Sect. 8. This act shall take effect upon its passage.