38 The Financial History of Connecticut. 



appointed to investigate the problem recommended that the manage- 

 ment of the fund should be intrusted to one person. Accordingly 

 the legislature, at its May session in 1810, appointed James Hill- 

 house, then a member of the United States senate, to be "Commis- 

 sioner of the School Fund." He immediately resigned his senator- 

 ship and entered upon his new duties. The nominal amount of the 

 fund on October 1, 1811, was $1,332,756.15 but of this sum only 

 $1,201,165.74 was considered actually reliable.^ The work that 

 James Hillhouse did cannot be better described than in the words 

 of the great educator, Henry Barnard. "Without a single htigated 

 suit or a dollar paid for counsel, he reduced the disordered manage- 

 ment to an efficient system, disentangled its affairs from loose and 

 embarrassed connections with personal securities and indebted es- 

 tates, and converted its doubtful claims into well secured and solid 

 capital." 2 The following is the statement of the capital as it stood 

 in April, 1819.3 



Connecticut, $579,228 

 New York, 568,298 

 Massachusetts, 271,582 

 Ohio, 47,582 



Vermont, 17,445 



$1,483,831 4 

 Cultivated Lands and build- i Connecticut, $7,618 



ings in t Massachusetts, 59,576 67,194 



Money loaned on bonds, con- 

 tracts and mortgages to in- 

 habitants of 



Wild Lands in 



f New York, $38,000 



\ Ohio, 2,560 40,560 



Bank Stock (1 bank), 57,600 



Total, $1,649,185 " 



In accordance with the terms of the sale of the Western Reserve, 

 interest did not begin to accrue until September 2, 1797, and it was 

 allowed to accumulate until March, 1799, when the first apportion- 

 ment of the fund was made. Until May, 1810, the expense of manag- 

 ing this fund was paid out of the state treasury, leaving the whole 



1 Niles' Register, vol. i (1811), pp. 128, 129. 



2 Report of Superintendent of Common Schools, 1853, p. 146. 



3 Report of Commissaioner of School Fund, 1819. 



^ A verification of this table shows an error of a Uttle more than three 

 hundred dollars in this total, but the percentage of error is too small to 

 detract from the substantial accuracy of the table as given in the report 

 from which it is taken. 



