A recent addition to the Plymouth County Notable Land Records Collection was the Quaker Meetinghouse in Pembroke.  This site, located at the intersection of Rts. 139 and 53 in Pembroke, is another important part of Plymouth County’s history.  The meetinghouse, built in 1706, is the oldest Quaker Meetinhouse in Massachusetts and the third oldest in the United States.

The property was placed on the National Registry of Historic Landmarks in 2006 as part of Pembroke’s 300th Anniversary.  For a futher description and a copy of the deed, please click on the Notable Land Records Collection of this website and scroll down to Number 31.  It can also be viewed in the revolving notable land records display in the entrance corridor of our Plymouth office.

This notable land record and related information was brought forward to our volunteer Display Committee by Elizabeth (Libby) Bates, Chairman of the Friends Meetinghouse Board of Trustees,  Assessor/Appraiser for the Town of Marshfield and past President of the Plymouth County Assessors Association. Thank you Libby.

On this Thanksgiving Eve, I wanted to offer our congratulations to the Aldren Kindred of America, owners and operators of a well known Plymouth County historical property. Recently, the Alden House Historic Site was granted National Historic Landmark status. The United States Department of Interior added the site to the National Register of Historic Places last month. The location preserves the history of the John and Priscilla (Mullins) Alden story and is located at 105 Alden Street in Duxbury. For more information about the Alden House, go to their website at www.alden.org.

In addition, our Plymouth County Notable Land Records Collection, available on this website, provides a short history of the Alden property along with a copy of the 1630 granting of this property to John Alden as listed in the Plymouth Colony Court Orders. Please note the boundary descriptions in the document including from “the Blew Fish River to a burnt walnut stump” (line five).

We at the Plymouth County Registry of Deeds consider ourselves fortunate to be in the midst of the historical records of the founders of our nation’s first Thanksgiving, the Plymouth Colonists (Pilgrims) and the Wampanoag people.  Happy Thanksgiving to all!

There will be a dedication of a plaque commemorating James Edgar, the first department store Santa Claus, on Sunday, November 23rd at 12:30 p.m.  The dedication ceremony will be held in front of the parking garage located at the corner of Crescent and Main Street.  James Edgar was a Main Street department store owner who began the tradition of a department store Santa in December, 1890.  His innovative approach to bringing excitement to children during the Christmas season caught on around the country and remains a common holiday practice today.  James Edger and his accomplishments have been highlighted in the Plymouth County Notable Land records collection available on the website.

As part of the dedication, the sponsors of this event, the Downtown Brockton Association, are attempting to make a new record in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most people gathered in one place wearing Santa Claus hats. You can bring your own hat or buy one for $2.00.  Registration for the event is $1.00 and begins at 11:30 a.m. at Joe Angelo’s Restaurant next door.  All proceeds will support Brockton’s annual Holiday Parade.

Celebrate history and kick off the holidays at this fun event.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008 is Latvian Independence Day.

Over the last several years, Registry employees have celebrated the diverse cultures represented here.  The country’s flag is raised for the day, and employees enjoy specialty foods of the culture during afternoon break.

The Registry’s longest serving employee, who will celebrate her 50th anniversary of employment in June 2009, emigrated from Latvia to the United States as a young girl.  On Tuesday, November 18th, the Latvian Flag will be raised, and our employees will enjoy “Piragi” (bacon rolls) and “Apple Slice” at their afternoon break.

To Latvians, Independence Day is a very special day.  For decades their country was dominated by Russia, Germany, and Russia again, before independence was restored in 1991.  Latvia is now a member of the European Union and NATO, as of 2004, along with the other two Baltic States, Lithuania and Estonia.

The Registry salutes Latvian Independence Day.

Dievs, Sveti Latviju! –

Employees of the Plymouth County Registry of Deeds, title examiners, and the general public responded to a request from the Plymouth County Extension Service to assist in the collection of groceries for distribution to needy families through the 4-H program.

Coordinated by the Registry’s Director of Operations, John Zigouras, with assistance from Frank Macdonald and Marilyn Marvill, the outpouring of support from many individuals came at an important time for many families.   A special recognition ceremony was held at the Registry on Wednesday, October 29, 2008, to recognize and thank those individuals involved.  Deborah Swanson, from the Plymouth County Extension Service,  thanked those who participated in the program.

This activity was the main community service project for the Plymouth County 4-H program.  It occurs during the month of October, which is National 4-H Month.  County-wide, 200 bags of groceries were collected and given to the South Shore Community Action Council for distribution to local families through local food banks.

At the ceremony, Deborah Swanson noted it was Plymouth County Commissioner, Tim McMullen, and the Commissioners’ Office who expanded the reach of the program.  This week, Cumberland Farms announced they have partnered with 4-H to expand the program even further.

The recent food drive was one of several collections coordinated at the Registry over the last several years.  Other successful programs have included Holiday food collection for the local chapter of the Salvation Army, and a  collection of cash donations and old blankets for the Plymouth Animal Shelter, as part of a special “animal print dress down day”.  On numerous occasions, collections were taken for items sent to the relatives of Registry employees serving in the armed forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Registry employees have been very generous to those in need.  Please see the photo gallery on our website for pictures of this event.

It has been over three years (September 12, 2005) since we abandoned our 1904 location on Russell Street and moved into our more modern, handicapped accessible, technologically efficient land records facility at 50 Obery Street in Plymouth.  It has clearly been a far better and safer work environment for our employees and the general public who access the registry.

The architectural design of our new building used natural light and current electrical and heating technology throughout the building.  An independent analysis by NStar at the time brought significant energy efficiency rebates back to Plymouth County. 

Several months ago, we began a new initiative.  Our electrical provider, NStar, connected us with Rise Engineering, an NStar subcontractor, who recently completed an energy audit of our Plymouth facility at no charge to the Registry of Deeds.  As part of completing the review, a site visit was conducted which resulted  in changes to our night and weekend lighting.  The report concluded that, based upon the methods used in the new building construction, we were at maximum energy efficiency.

We have, however, taken some additional steps towards minimizing our environmental footprint and also have set up an internal structure through our employees to expand these efforts.  Recently, after a thorough review process and a trial period of recording non-time sensitive recordings, we approved our first outside vendor for the electronic submission of unregistered recordings.  A company called Simplifile has created a program, at no cost to the registry, which allows for off-site closings and recordings.  While that program has been promoted primarily for its improved efficiencies for both the registry and the filer, (usually closing attorneys), as this program expands it will have a significant positive environmental impact.  There will be less carbon dioxide created by the reduction in vehicle trips to our Plymouth office or our satellite offices by attorneys and their clients, less traffic on the surrounding roads, and the new program will reduce the paper use at our recording counters.  The recorded document comes to us as an electronic image.  

We have also begun fact finding and preliminary discussions about creating solar energy options for our roof and behind our building at our Obery Street office building.   We have had informational meetings with industry leaders about potential third-party ownership options that could reduce our electrical costs significantly.

In  addition, we have established an internal “Green Building Committee” which will involve our employees in hands-on, cost-effective suggestions for making our day to day operations more environmentally friendly.   John Zigouras, our Director of Operations, will coordinate exploration of a variety of alternatives.  Each of our departments will be included in this process along with maintenance staff, with the intent to establish a pro-active Environmental Plan for our operations.   Further updates of our progress will be noted on this website.

Each month, the Registry issues a report highlighting the real estate activity of the previous month, including sales, mortgages and foreclosures.  A review of these reports over the past several months quickly reveals the affect the national economy, and in particular the crisis in the financial and real estate sectors, have had on Plymouth County.  Located on this website under “Register’s Monthly Report,” you can see in real numbers from reports over one year ago how the increasing foreclosure notices and foreclosure deeds showed cracks in what was believed to be a strong national financial system.

Over the past six months, we saw a steady decline in the volume of mortgages, an indication of the national credit crisis.  We were also hearing from real estate brokers about the difficulty in getting financing for sales they had negotiated.  The decline in the number of mortgages through September 2008 compared to the same period in 2007 illustrates the affect that the combination of declining homes values, tighter lending standards and the inability of those in distress to renegotiate their loans have had on the marketplace.  Until we see an increase in the number of mortgages, indicating greater refinancing activity, the market will remain stagnant.

Two new federal financial initiatives are intended to result in a write-down of principal balances on certain loans and terms of certain mortgages.  Because that is such an important component of the recent recovery efforts, I have asked our Information Systems Department to track the filings of amended mortgages separately in order to report those statistics in future monthly reports. If there are other relevant issues you would like to see addressed in these reports, please email us your suggestions for consideration.

On Wednesday, September 17, 2008, the Plymouth County Registry of Deeds hosted members of the Russian Judiciary from the Tomsk Region of the Russian Federation. The Tomsk Oblate (region) is located in the southeast area of the West Siberian Plain.

The main city in the region, Tomsk, is a city of approximately 500,000 people and was founded in 1604. Tomsk is the administrative and legal center of the province. It was designated a special economic zone by the Russian Federation in 2005.

Tomsk is said to have an atmosphere very much like Boston when colleges are in session. There are six universities and 90,000 students. Almost one fifth of their population is students.

Chairman of the Registry’s display committee, Tony Markella, guided the Russian officials and their translators through the Registry’s front entrance displays highlighting the history of Plymouth Colony and the founding of the Registry of Deeds. The tour was a timely precursor to the delegation’s next scheduled stop, Plimoth Plantation.

A tour of the functional operations of the Registry ended in Land Court, where department head Lucille Plausse discussed Massachusetts’ land registration system. The Russian Federation has been advancing ownership and record keeping of private property ownership since the mid-1990’s. Their system of recording relates very closely to our Land Court. In addition, according to a recent Ernst and Young economic report, the Russia Federation recently adopted changes to their system of recording in order to create an upgraded unified system stored on electronic media by the year 2012.

A Russian delegation hosted by then Register Jack Riordan visited the Plymouth County Registry at its former Russell Street location in the early 90’s. The Norfolk County Registry of Deeds also hosted a Russian delegation within the last few years.

The visit was conducted through the Open World Program, whose website describes the program’s objective as building mutual understanding between the United States and Russia by opening and maintaining new avenues of dialogue between U.S. political and civic leaders and a new generation of Russian leaders. The visit to the Plymouth County Registry was coordinated through the Massachusetts Land Court.

The failure of Lehman Brothers and the sale of Merrill Lynch, already called Black Monday by some pundits, led to the biggest drop on Wall Street since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The immediate result of yesterday’s economic news is the projected loss of capital available for commercial lending.  Commercial sales in Plymouth County have been a source of encouragment amid an otherwise persistent downturn in the number of transactions being recorded at the Plymouth County Registry of Deeds.

The number of residential sales and in particular, the number of mortgages recorded in connection with the refinance of existing home loans has fallen significantly from previous years. As reported in our last few Monthly Register’s Reports, refinance activity is at an eight year low. The tightening credit market in response to the sub-prime loan fallout by national lenders, combined with a drop in the appraised values of these properties has made it difficult for homeowners to refinance.

Yesterday’s turmoil brought immediate calls in Washington for another economic stimulus package, belated calls for better regulation of the mortgage industry and a cry for the Federal Reserve Board, who meets today, to forget about inflation for a while and cut interest rates.

Cuts in interest rates now certainly begs the question, who has money to loan? It does however, clearly put our housing crisis and the economy on the front burner of the presidential campaigns between now and November.

On  Monday, September 15, 2008 there will be a special ceremony dedicating a bridge in Humarock in the name of  long time Plymouth County Clerk of Courts Frank Powers.  Frank passed away earlier this year but will be remembered for the help he gave to so many trying to navigate their way through the court system. His commitment to his public and military service will be recognized at this event.

The Francis R. Powers Memorial Bridge dedication will take place at 1:00 p.m. on Julian Street in  Humarock.  Humarock, a section of Scituate, was separated many years ago by a storm and is accessible through Marshfield.