in the Massachusetts and Connecticut grants. They are, however, stated in a slightly different form; one share "for the first settled minister, one for the parsonage, and one for the school.” In the case of Barrington two hundred acres were laid out for the parsonage, two hundred more for the first minister, and one hundred for a school.85

From that date the practice seems thoroughly established. In 1727 at least four charters were granted, all containing the reservations as above. At a later date a fourth reservation was added which finds a place in all of the charters granted by Benning Wentworth, the royal governor, both in New Hampshire and in Vermont. This was a share for the Incorporated Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.86

Reference has already been made to the provision in Capt. John Mason's will in favor of a grammar school in his county of New Hampshire. Capt. Mason did not foresee the vicissitudes that this property would encounter, nor that the name of Mason, for the preservation of which he provided so carefully in his will (granting the county to his grandson, Robert Tufton, on condition of his taking the name of Mason), would ultimately fade out of the proprietary. But so it was that after more than a century of litigation the rights of the last Masonian, John Tufton (Mason), were transferred to a company of twelve men usually known as the "Masonian Proprietors.' This was in 1746.87

The proprietors began soon to make grants of townships, and in the space of twenty years, 1748-1768, issued charters to forty distinct towns, in every one of which, without a single excep

85 Ibid., p. 124.

86 The charters of the years 1752, 1753, and 1754 contain all of the reservations except that for schoois. But the town histories show that some of these towns had school lots in the plats drawn in accordance with the charters. The Masonian charters of even date contained the school reservation. Many of these Wentworth charters, too, were renewed for various reasons, and in such cases the provision for the school was uniformly inserted. Why the school was not mentioned in the charter, I have not been able to discover, but Its omission was apparently accidental.

87 The head of this proprietary was Theodore Atkinson, who was then and remained for many years, the secretary of the colony. His name appears on most of the charters granted by the colonial government.

tion, reservations were made for the first settled minister, for the ministry, and for the school. In one case a "mill right" was added to the list; and in a single instance, in 1769, the third reservation was stated for a grammar school.88 Otherwise there is complete uniformity.

The "New Hampshire Grants," of territory in the present state of Vermont number about one hundred and thirty. Most of them were made after the year 1760, when the great immigration to Vermont began. With the exception of the fifteen or sixteen charters issued before 1760, all seem to contain the usual reservations; one for the first minister, one for the ministry according to the Church of England, one for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and one for the school. In five of the cases above excepted, it has been ascertained, either from the plats, or from the town histories, that reservations for schools. were included though not stated; and it seems reasonable to suppose that this was always true.

When the people of Vermont organized a government of their own, townships were granted by it with a somewhat different statement of reservations. In the charter of Montpelier, 1781, there are reserved, "one right for the use of a seminary or college, one right for the use of the county grammar school, onę right for the support of public worship, and lands to the amount of one right for the support of an English school or schools in said township." It is worthy of note that the college and grammar school rights were placed under the control of the general assembly. The others were to "be and remain inalienably appropriated to the uses and purposes to which they [were] respectively assigned, and be under the charge disposal and direction of said town forever.”89

In 1794 the legislature of Vermont passed a law appropriating the glebe lands to the support of public worship, the rents. and profits to be distributed among the several church organizations in the town in which such lands lay. This was a blow

"Town Charters, V, 249.

Thompson, History of the Town of Montpelier, p. 24.

90

at the church of England. A second law appropriated the lands reserved for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, to the towns for the use of the schools.91

90 Documentary History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the State of Vermont, pp. 53-54.

Slade, Laws of Vermont, pp. 193–194. The United States District Court, in a test case, decided that this act of the state legislature was legal. See also Documentary History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Vermont, pp 338341, 357-360.

It is hardly necessary to point out here that in the Vermont grants made by the New York government (which claimed the terriory), no reservations were made for religion and education. (See Green Leares from Whittington, p. 734, for copy of a New York charter.)

The notable letter of Dr. Samuel Johnson, of King's College, New York, to Archbishop Secker, April 10, 1762, is in point here. He says: "And I beg leave, my lord, to observe, that it is a great pity, when parents are granted, as they often are, for large Tracts of Land [in New York], no provision is made for Religion or Schools. I wish therefore Instructions were given to our governors never to grant patents for Townships or Villages, or large Manors, without obliging the Patentees to sequester a Competent portion for the support of Religion and Education." (Documents Relative to Colonial History of New York, VIII, 497.) Dr. Johnson was very familiar with the customs of the New England colonies, especially Connecticut.

New York adopted the land grant policy after it had been put in operation by the national government, and applied it to the wesern part of the state.

CHAPTER V.

NATIONALIZATION OF THE RESERVATION POLICY.

We have traced the policy of reservations by colonial governments down to the end of colonial times. It now remains to see, whether the policy was a continuous one extending generally into the constitutional period; and whether there was any connection between this policy in the New England states and the national reservation policy inaugurated with the Ordinances of 1785 and 1787.

Let us take Massachusetts as the typical New England state. Coming at once to the period following the Revolution we find that in 1785, the year of the land ordinance, a law was passed granting a confirmation of five townships between Penobscot and Union Rivers in the district of Maine. In each of the townships four lots were reserved, one for the first minister, one for the ministry, one for future appropriation, and "one for the use of a school forever.” 1792

In 1786 it was resolved" "that the committee for the sale of the unappropriated lands belonging to this commonwealth in the county of Berkshire, Be and hereby are empowered and directed, in the disposal of the lands belonging to this commonwealth in the district of New Ashford, to provide for the following reservations and appropriations, viz: two hundred acres for the first settled minister, two hundred acres for the use of the ministry, and two hundred acres for the use of a grammar school."

An act was passed in March, 1786, confirming Deer Island and Sheep Island to the inhabitants of those islands respectively, on condition, first, of their paying a certain sum into the state treasury, and second "that they appropriate three hundred acres

"Laws and Resolves of Massachusetts, 1784-85, p. 407. Laws and Resolves of Massachusetts, 1786-87, p. 299.

of land for the ministry and three hundred acres for the use of a grammar school."+

A certain township, referred to in the acts as "Number 3" had been granted in March, 1785, to a group of persons, "on conditions which it is improper to insist on the performance of as per charter;" said lands are therefore confirmed to the same parties "with the reservations and on the provisions and conditions expressed," in the original resolve. These conditions had reference to the three reservations, one for the school. It is interesting to note that "Township number 3" was surveyed by Rufus Putnam.95

96

In 1719 two townships were ordered to be laid out for the benefit of the sufferers from the burning of Falmouth, now Portland, by the British in 1775. In each four lots of three hundred twenty acres were to be reserved for the usual uses." We have a similar case in 1792 and other cases later.97 But it will not be necessary to detail them. Enough has been said to prove the continuity of the policy. It originated with the colonial governments in the period about 1700 and extended well into the constitutional period.

We are now to inquire whether the national policy,98 usually traced no further back than 1785 or 1787, is in any sense an outgrowth of this New England system. On general principles it would seem that a policy so deeply rooted in the institutional life of an important section must have an influence upon the government of which that section forms a part; but it is possible to trace a close and direct connection.

The treaty which closed the Revolutionary War left us an independent people, with boundaries including territory far beyond the frontiers of settlement on the west. This great stretch of wilderness, from the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, became,

94 Laws and Resolves, 1784-85, p. 925.

95 Ibid., p. 887.

96 Ibid., (1786), 415.

97 Ibid., (1792), 464.

I have received much help on the later phase of this subject from the monograph on "The History and Management of Land Grants for Education in the Northwest Territory," by Geo, W. Knight, Ph. D., published in the American Historical Society Papers, volume I.