1857-01-05 Trustee Committee Report on the Permanent Fund, 2021.004.002

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The Committee to whom in April last was referred the duty, to mature & report a plan for establishing an accumulating Fund for the perpetual repair & preservation of the Cemetery - have considereed the said subject, & a majority of them ask leave to report - that in their opinion it is meet & proper that such a Fund should be created^{& forever held for those [?]}. - up to the present time, the expenses of the Cemetery, of all kinds, have been defrayed by the proceeds of the sales of Lots; This source of revenue must sooner or later cease to exist, and inasmuch as there is no authority in the charter for imposing assessments on the Proprietors, the time must inevitably arrive, when, if some such measure as the Com^ee propose, be not adopted, the Company will be without the means of discharging their ordinary expenses. - Your Comm^ee cannot believe that this would be a wise policy. It would partake too much of the character of the youth who uses up his capital without making provision for his old age. - Your Com^dd have obtained from the Treasurer a statement of the product of sales of land from 1847 to 1855 inclusive - say nine years - amounting $157301 to one hundred & fifty seven thousand three

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hundred & one dollars, to which add the estimated amount of sales in 1856, say twenty^nineteen one thousand dollars, making the aggregate for the preceding ten years of one hundred & $156301 seventy eight^five thousand three hundred & one dollars, or seventeen thousandeight^fivehundred & thirty dollars a year on an average; - For the last four years, the average is twenty three thousand^{two thousand five hundred}& fifty five dollars a year - During the same period of time - say ten years, the average of ordinary expenses of the Corporation has been as near six thousand dollars as the Treasurer could compute it without a minute & unnecessarily exact examination of the accounts. On the same principles the average for the last four years is nine thousand three hundred & seventy five dollars a year. Each Trustee can form as good a judgment of the future prospects of the Company in regard to the product of sales, as the Committee can; but the Comm^ee suppose that for some years to come, the sales will not be less than they have been during the year 1856^{but will be more.} If this estimate be well founded & the ordinary expenses do not exceed eleven^ten thousand dollars a year, there will be in the Treasury a balance of ten ^{or eleven} thousand dollars, to be applied

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to the discharge of the debts of the Corporation and any other extraordinary expenditures. -

Chapel 1900 Statuary 7500 Farm 12600

The ^present debts including the mortgage for the Stone Farm, do not exceed twenty Two thousand dollars and there are now in the hands of the Treasurer, Bank & other shares, the market value of which is nineteen thousand dollars.

It will be borne in mind that your Comm^ee have taken no notice of the income received by the Corporation from Stocks or other sources, for defraying current expenses; they are desirous of confirming their views entirely to the probable product from the sales of land as a means of establishing an accumulating Fund.

Your Comm^ee from these premises have come to the conclusion that the Trustees may with safety set aside every year ^{not less than one fifth part of the gross proceeds of the sales of lots} as much as five thousand dollars for the purpose aforesaid. - and as there is no Institution apparently so well protected from the vicissitudes of trade, as the Massachusestts Hospital Life Insurance Company, - The Committee recommend that out of the proceeds of sales of lots in 1857 the^{above proportion thereof} sum of Five thousand dollars be deposited by the Treasurer with that^{the [?]} Company^{provided that the Trustees for the time being shall deem the same to be safe} upon the principle of accumulation, for the term of twenty years; And that he annually deposit the same ^proportion with

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said Company upon the same principle, only deminishing the period annually, so that all the deposits may become payable at the same time.

Your Comm^ee have not calculated the amount of interest which would have accrued at the end of twenty years; but they presume that compounded as it would be annually, it would not fall much short ^{of any} of the amount of capital deposited. At the expiration of that period, the Corporation would be possessed of a capital of ^nearly two hundred thousand dollars, or thereabout, the income of which would probably de= fray the current expenses. - if however our Suc cessors should find that the current expenses increase so considerably as to excite their apprehensions that the income of two hundred thousand dollars would be insufficient, they will undoubtedly take reasonable measures to enlarge the capital by increasing the annual deposits. -

Charles P. Curtis Charles C. Little

Report of Com^ee on Permanent Funds Jany. 5^th1857 Records vol 2^dp. 142