| | Abstract: | The state of Connecticut created a school fund from the proceeds of the sale of the state's Western Reserve land to the Connecticut Land Company in 1795. This company, a syndicate of 35 purchasing groups representing 58 individuals, paid $1.2 million on credit, with each purchasing group issuing personal securities. The Connecticut General Assembly empowered the school fund managers to take mortgages on lands in the Reserve as collateral security on personal bonds to the fund. Due to poor planning and company mismanagement, resale of Reserve lands was slow and few of the original proprietors made profits. An 1810 report on the school fund showed that $162,533 of interest on the company's debt was unpaid and that the collateral of the original debt was not safe. The school fund was managed throughout the 19th and 20th centuries and by 1957 had earned over $17 million since its founding in 1795. The collection consists of reports of the "Subscribers managers of the School Fund" empowered by the Connecticut General Assembly in 1800 to manage the Connecticut school funds produced from the sale of the Western Reserve lands. The collection consists of two volumes (1801-1803 and 1807-1810) of copies of regulations for the disposition of bonds, including account listings of bonds by number and original bondholder, the amount and location of lands placed as collateral security for the bonds, and listings of bond transfers and delinquent interest payments due. John Treadwell, Jonathan Brace, Hezekiah Ripley, and Andrew Kingsbury were managers of the fund. Included is a report by the commissioner of the school fund in 1810. | |
