A general assembly of the inhabitants of a town; spec. in U.S. a legal meeting of the qualified voters of a ‘town’ for the transaction of public business, having certain powers of local government.
1636. Salem, Mass., Town Recds., 16. At a generall Court or towne meeting of Salem held the second of … May ao 1636.
1639. Boston Town Recds., 2 July. At the next townes meeting.
1747. Shirley, in Eng. Hist. Rev., Oct. (1912), 786. The principal cause of the mobbish turn of this town [Boston] is its constitution, by which the management of it is devolved upon the populace, assembled in their town meetings.
1819. T. Jefferson, Autobiog., Wks. 1859, I. App. 116. The resolutions … were probably those you mention of the town-meeting of Boston.
1876. Bancroft, Hist. U.S., I. xiii. 426. Each town-meeting was a legislative body.
1878. Stubbs, Const. Hist., III. xx. 414. Those whom their townsmen had chosen in their own town-meeting.
