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Reported by us | Taunton

How a 192-vote margin in 1896 led Taunton to buy its own electric company

An SC360 Special on the votes, the court decree and the 1919 laws behind the Taunton Municipal Lighting Plant, from the state's reports of the 1890s, the laws themselves and the plant's own history.

By the SC360 Community Desk | Published Nov. 9, 2026 | Last verified Oct. 31, 2026, 1:49 p.m. ET

TAUNTON On Dec. 8, 1896, Taunton voters were asked on the city ballot whether Taunton should build or buy its own electric light plant. The answer was yes by 192 votes, 1,952 to 1,760, with 701 ballots left blank, according to the state Board of Gas and Electric Light Commissioners. Seven months later, on July 1, 1897, the city took over the Taunton Electric Lighting Company's station and began selling electricity itself.

That vote is why households in Taunton and several nearby towns pay their electric bills to a city-owned utility instead of Eversource or National Grid. The Taunton Municipal Lighting Plant, as the city renamed the business, has belonged to the city for 129 years. The state's annual reports from the 1890s record each step, and on a few points they read differently from the plant's own history.

A private company on Mechanics Lane

TMLP's history page says the business began as a venture of several Taunton entrepreneurs, who paid for a 100-foot by 75-foot wooden building on Mechanics Lane with a 60-horsepower engine, a boiler and dynamos to light 35 to 40 lamps around Main Street and City Square. Service started with 22 customers, it says, and ran from an hour before sunset to 10 p.m., or 11 p.m. on Saturdays.

The history page and TMLP's 2022 annual report say the company began 15 years before the city bought it, which would be about 1882. The state gas commissioners, in their second annual report, dated January 1887, already listed Taunton among the places with one electric light company in operation. TMLP's page dates an addition to the station to 1890 and says 18 stores around the Green had electricity by September 1892.

The company's power also ran Taunton's first electric streetcars, from the Green to Whittenton and back, starting April 30, 1893, according to TMLP. By then, the plant says, the company made enough power to light 84 streetlights and 2,000 incandescent lamps around the city.

The 1891 law that let cities buy in

The route to public ownership ran through Chapter 370 of the Acts of 1891, "An Act to enable cities and towns to manufacture and distribute gas and electricity." Under it, a city could build, buy or lease a lighting plant only after each branch of its city council voted by two-thirds, with the mayor's approval, in each of two consecutive years, and a majority of voters then ratified the decision at an annual city election.

The law also protected the companies already in business: a city that voted to go ahead had to buy the existing local plant first if its owner chose to sell, at fair market value for its use but "without enhancement on account of future earning capacity, or good will, or of exclusive privileges derived from rights in the public streets." If the two sides could not agree on what would be sold or on the terms, either one could petition the Supreme Judicial Court, which would appoint one or more special commissioners to decide.

In Springfield, the city's committee on lighting streets, quoted in the state board's report for 1896, called that requirement to buy out the local company "a serious restriction" and advised against a city plant.

Two years of votes

Taunton took up the question for the first time in 1895, the state board recorded. A resolve the city council adopted that June was not approved by the mayor, the board wrote, and "there seems to be some doubt whether it was ever presented to him." On Dec. 12, 1895, the council passed a second resolve, 19 to 2 in the Common Council and 7 to 0 on the Board of Aldermen, and the mayor approved it two days later.

The second year's votes came in October 1896, when the aldermen adopted the resolve unanimously on Oct. 7 and 22 members of the Common Council voted for it on Oct. 22, with two absent or not voting, according to the board's report. The mayor approved it Nov. 2, and the question went on the Dec. 8 ballot.

Three weeks after the election, on Dec. 29, the Taunton Electric Lighting Company filed a schedule of its plant and property with the city clerk and offered to sell everything to the city for $207,000.

A court sets the price

By decree of the Supreme Judicial Court on May 13, 1897, the city was required to buy the company's plant, delivered free of any mortgage or lien, for $125,000, the state board reported. That was $82,000 less than the company had asked.

On May 27 the city appropriated the money and authorized $125,000 in bonds at 4% interest, dated June 1, 1897, and due June 1, 1927. The decree set the handover for Monday, Aug. 2, 1897, or July 1 at the city's option, and the city took possession and began operating the plant on July 1, the state board reported. On Sept. 9 the city authorized another $7,500 in bonds for additions and extensions, and on Nov. 23 it moved $3,400 from its street light budget into new construction. TMLP's history, for its part, gives the purchase as June 1897.

TMLP's history describes the company it bought as floundering, with debt that grew as demand rose, and says the stockholders voted in December 1896 to sell. The company's own return to the state board for the year ending June 30, 1896, shows $50,000 in capital stock and $31,000 in notes payable. That year it took in $32,548.73 from the sale of light and power and spent $26,079.94 to run, carrying a balance of $6,468.79 to profit and loss.

Trouble, then a commission

Until 1919 the plant's powers sat with the mayor, as the 1919 law itself recites, and TMLP says the mayor appointed a board of commissioners to help run it. By 1918, TMLP's history says, it was in financial disarray for lack of a permanent manager or commission, and the Taunton Central Labor Union and the Taunton Chamber of Commerce pressed for a change.

The Legislature passed Chapter 150 of the Special Acts of 1919, approved April 22, 1919, which TMLP says Gov. Calvin Coolidge signed. It had the mayor appoint a three-member municipal light commission of Taunton residents who held no other city office, first named to terms of two, four and six years, with each later appointee serving six. The commission took over the powers the law had given the mayor over the plant, and it was to hire a manager who could be removed only for cause, after notice and a hearing.

Three months later, Chapter 236, approved July 18, 1919, let Taunton borrow up to $100,000 beyond its usual debt limit to pay the electric light department's obligations from before Dec. 1, 1918, and to repay the city for money it had advanced to the department. The bonds were to be named the Taunton Electric Light Funding Loan and paid off within 10 years. Today the three commissioners are elected by Taunton voters, the plant says, where the 1919 law had the mayor appoint them.

What public ownership means on a bill

The plant now serves Taunton, Berkley and Raynham and parts of Dighton, Lakeville and Bridgewater, according to its history page, which counts 34,000 customers; its rates page says more than 38,000. Its generating station is the Cleary-Flood station at 1314 Somerset Ave. The plant's page for the station lists one combined-cycle unit that can burn natural gas or oil and make 105 megawatts, plus a battery of 3 megawatts and 6 megawatt-hours, while the history page lists two units with 136 megawatts.

One credit on a TMLP household bill comes from power set aside for public utilities. A 1957 federal law set the terms for the Power Authority of the State of New York's Niagara River project: public bodies and nonprofit cooperatives get preference for half its power, and a reasonable portion of that share, which the law does not require to exceed a fifth, goes to neighboring states. The Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company, which oversees the state's share as agent for the Department of Public Utilities, says the Massachusetts allocation of 53.3 megawatts goes to the residential customers of all 40 Massachusetts municipal utilities, shared out by each one's number of residential customers and their use. TMLP's rates page lists the result as a PASNY discount, from a wholesale hydropower agreement with New York "strictly to benefit residential customers."

The larger difference shows in the total: at 600 kilowatt-hours a month, a TMLP household that pays within 10 days pays $116.68, against $225.75 for an Eversource customer and $250.71 for a National Grid customer nearby, under each utility's posted rates, as SC360 found in its comparison of the three bills.

Where to read the records

Label: Reported by us, from the town's posted records.

Notes

The 1895 and 1896 votes, the company's offer and accounts, the court price, the bonds and the July 1, 1897, takeover come from the state Board of Gas and Electric Light Commissioners' 11th, 12th and 13th annual reports. Chapter 370 of the Acts of 1891 gives the law's terms, and Chapters 150 and 236 of the Special Acts of 1919 set up the commission and the loan. For the company's early history, the 1918 troubles, the service area and the station, we used the Taunton Municipal Lighting Plant's own pages, and for the New York hydropower, federal law and the Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company. Where TMLP's account and the state record differ (the company's finances, the purchase date), or TMLP's own pages differ (customer counts, the station's units), the story gives both. We read them on Oct. 31 and checked each date and weekday against a calendar. Not heard: no one was contacted.

Corrections

No corrections to this story. If something here is wrong, tell us. Every correction is dated on the story and listed in our public log.

Sources (13)

  1. Eleventh Annual Report of the Board of Gas and Electric Light Commissioners of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (Public Document No. 35, January 1896) | Internet ArchiveMunicipal ownership section read in full: Taunton considers the subject for the first time in 1895; the June resolve and the Dec. 12, 1895, votes (19 to 2 and 7 to 0), mayor's approval Dec. 14. Read Oct. 31, 2026.
  2. Twelfth Annual Report of the Board of Gas and Electric Light Commissioners (Public Document No. 35, January 1897) | Internet ArchiveMunicipal ownership section and the Taunton Electric Lighting Company's return read in full: the Springfield committee report, the Oct. 7 and Oct. 22, 1896, votes, mayor's approval Nov. 2, the Dec. 8, 1896, ballot (yes 1,952, no 1,760, blanks 701), the Dec. 29 offer to sell for $207,000, and the company's accounts for the year ending June 30, 1896. Read Oct. 31, 2026.
  3. Thirteenth Annual Report of the Board of Gas and Electric Light Commissioners (Public Document No. 35, January 1898) | Internet ArchiveSummary and municipal ownership section read in full: the Supreme Judicial Court decree of May 13, 1897 ($125,000), the May 27 appropriation and bonds, July 1 possession, the Sept. 9 and Nov. 23 votes. Read Oct. 31, 2026.
  4. First to Seventh Annual Reports of the Board of Gas Commissioners and the Board of Gas and Electric Light Commissioners (1885 to 1891) | Internet ArchiveSecond Annual Report (January 1887), electric light section: one electric light company in Taunton. Read Oct. 31, 2026.
  5. Acts and Resolves passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, 1891 | Internet ArchiveChapter 370, sections 1 to 4, 12 and 13, read in full. Read Oct. 31, 2026.
  6. Special Acts and Resolves of Massachusetts, 1919 | Internet ArchiveChapter 150 (approved April 22, 1919) and Chapter 236 (approved July 18, 1919) read in full. Read Oct. 31, 2026.
  7. History | Taunton Municipal Lighting PlantCompany origins, first service, streetcars, the 1896 sale vote, the 1897 purchase and renaming, the 1918 to 1919 commission, service area, customers and the Cleary-Flood station at 1314 Somerset Avenue. Read Oct. 31, 2026.
  8. 2022 Annual Report | Taunton Municipal Lighting Plant125th anniversary history paragraph. Read Oct. 31, 2026.
  9. Cleary-Flood Generation Station | Taunton Municipal Lighting PlantUnit 9, 105 MW, battery 3 MW and 6 MWh, location off Route 138, station address 1314 Somerset Avenue in the page footer. Read Oct. 31, 2026.
  10. Rates | Taunton Municipal Lighting PlantPASNY discount description and the 38,000+ customer count. Read Oct. 31, 2026.
  11. 16 U.S. Code 836, Niagara power project (Pub. L. 85-159, Aug. 21, 1957) | Legal Information InstituteSubsection (b)(1) preference for public bodies and nonprofit cooperatives on 50% of project power, (b)(2) up to 20% of that share for neighboring states. Read Oct. 31, 2026.
  12. Hydro | Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric CompanyNYPA contracts: 53.3 MW Massachusetts allocation from the Niagara project to residential customers of all 40 municipal utilities. Read Oct. 31, 2026.
  13. A Taunton light plant home using 600 kilowatt-hours pays about half what Eversource and National Grid customers nearby pay | South Coast 360Our own verified bill comparison, the source of the three 600 kWh totals. Read Oct. 31, 2026.

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