losses of removal. Meanwhile the people of Williamstown were not idle, and raised $17,5000 to replenish the funds of the college. The whole matter was thoroughly if not violently discussed in the Legislature of 1820, and the petition for removal was defeated by a large majority,—a result to which an elaborate speech in the Senate by Josiah Quincy largely contributed.1 The trustees "came all the way to Boston," he said, "to make public confession of a great crime. They tell us that so long ago as 1793 they perverted the Free School fund, which the donor designed for the use of the poor people of Williamstown, to the use of their college; that it was a great violation of a sacred trust. . . . It is very strange that these trustees all of a sudden should be filled with so great a compunction on the subject of returning these funds when all concerned are satisfied with their possessing them. What can be the object of this extraordinary penitential confession?       Do they want absolution? No, that is not what they want. What can be their object? In consideration of their confessing one crime, they ask your indulgence to be permitted to commit another. They tell you in so many words that we have for seven-and-twenty years been perverting to our own use and contrary to the will of the donor one half of our present funds in consideration of which we pray liberty —to abscond with the residue!"       When the scheme for removing the Mark Hopkins. 1President Quincy sent the manuscript of this speech to Dr. Hopkins in 1863. "The documents," he said, "are precisely as I found them among my papers folded forty years ago." -- page 166 -- Previous Page | Next Page | Town of Williamstown Page | Berkshire County Western MA History & Genealogy

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