In December this committee reported the school fund to be as follows:—
| Farm in Stoneham, prized at | £ 450. |
| Bonds due from Richard Miller, Jonathan Chapman, and Richard Chapman | £ 70. 0.1 |
| Captain Nathan Adams, William Grubb, and Richard Trumbull | £ 24. 0. |
| Captain Benjamin Frothingham | £20..6 |
| Lot of land sold to Timothy Wright | £ 119. 0.8 |
| Received of Samuel Swan, Esq., for a lot of land belonging to James Kenney, secured by money borrowed of the school fund | £ 49. 12.0 |
| Farm at Stoneham, deficient | £ 38.18. 8 |
| A certain pasture in Medford | £ 90. 0.0 |
| Total | £8.12.1 |
To this may be added the commons which it is proposed to rent; notes due from Nicholas Hopping, £ 51 16s 5d, and from Benjamin Sweetser, £ 26 Os Od, but from these nothing is expected. The committee is of the opinion that the income from the funds will amount to £ 70 per annum. They recommend that a committee be appointed to care for this fund. It was voted to accept this report, ‘and that the same committee be empowered.’
In examining the records the writer must have overlooked the following item, which appears in the Charlestown school report for 1873, where a history of the school fund is given: ‘March, 1793, voted to sell the common, and that the proceeds be vested in funds for the use of the school.’
March 4, 1793, at the town meeting, which adjourned to 3 o'clock in the afternoon, it was moved and carried, that seven trustees be chosen to superintend the schools and the school fund. To the more conservative, and especially to the board of selectmen, this measure may have seemed reactionary in the extreme. For one hundred and sixty years control of all school
