92 The Financial History of Connecticut. 



this act the state paid seven hundred dollars during the year ending 

 in 1841. After that the payments averaged a little more than one 

 thousand dollars a year, the total amount, including the payment 

 in 1841, being five thousand seven hundred sixty dollars. 



The other bounties granted by the state were those which the 

 banks were required to pay as a condition of receiving their char- 

 ters. Many of the charters granted at this time are 

 Silk Manu- ^gj-y interesting. In 1834 a charter was granted to 

 Company ^^e Exchange Bank at Hartford. By the terms of this 

 charter the bank had to pay a bonus of twenty-five 

 thousand dollars. Of this amount fifteen thousand dollars was to 

 go to the Connecticut Silk Manufacturing Company, which, in turn, 

 was directed to pay two thousand dollars to Gamaliel Gay and James 

 Bottom. This last payment was to be made as a remuneration for 

 the invention of machinery for the manufacture of silk and was to 

 be given on condition that the inventors would allow this machinery 

 to be used by any person in Connecticut without receiving in return 

 a royalty. The company was also directed to pay fifteen hundred 

 dollars of the fifteen thousand dollars to the Mansfield Manufac- 

 turing Company. This left eleven thousand five hundred dollars 

 to be used by the Connecticut Company. The bank was also directed 

 to spend eight thousand dollars in constructing an iron railing, 

 walks and gutters around the state house in Hartford. The re- 

 maining two thousand dollars the bank was to pay into the state 

 treasury.^ 



The "internal improvement" movement spread over the country 

 in this period and Connecticut did not escape. The particular ob- 

 ject of its solicitude was the Farmington Canal. The 

 toif Canal"^ projectors of this canal had large visions of what 

 it would become and of the prosperity it would 

 bring to Connecticut. At first it was intended to be but a 

 link of a series of canals leading to Canada. The city of 

 New Haven was especially interested in it because the terminus 

 was to be at New Haven, and it was expected that much of the 

 trade Hartford had enjoyed would be brought to New Haven. The 

 Farmington Canal Company was incorporated in 1822 and its 

 charter exempted the stock of this corporation from all taxation 

 until after twenty-one years from the time of the completion of the 

 canal. 2 The state never made a grant from the treasury to this 



Public Statute Laws, 1834, chap. 40. 

 Private Laws, 1789—1836, title 8, sec. 22. 



