Report of the Committee Appointed by the Connecticut General Assembly to Enquire into the Land of Milford Indians

To the Honorable the General Assembly to be Holden at Hartford on the second Thursday of May 1818[1]

The undersigned appointed by the Honorable Assembly at their session in October last, a committee to enquire concerning the boundaries extent and value of certain land lying in Milford sequestered for the use of the Indians and also concerning encroachments made on said land and the number of Indians thereon beg leave respectfully to report that immediately upon notice of their appointment, they sought for information at the public offices, but until very recently, were unable[2] to procure any documents by which the original sequestration could be authenticated.

Having discovered the proceedings of the General Assembly in May 1680 and the return of their committee thereon, a copy of which is hereunto annexed marked (A), your committee ascertained the ancient boundaries and caused the land to be surveyed, which survey is herewith transmitted marked (B), which survey contains also a description of the land and its boundaries.

Your Committee are of opinion that said land is worth twenty five hundred dollars.  There are three houses belonging to the Indians upon the land.  Fifteen persons are at present resident upon it and are employed in cultivating a part of it from which they derive their support.  Besides these your committee have been able to find only five others, who are resident in different places and have occasionally received assistance from the overseers of said Indians.  They are all descendants of those for whose benefit said lands were sequestered but all, excepting a single instance, through intermarriages with those who were not the objects of the original grant.

Whether the present residents upon the land (who, together with those abovementioned as residing in different places, have been uniformly assisted by the present and past overseers) are entitled to such assistance, your committee are not authorized to determine if they are properly a charge upon the benevolence of the State, it is obvious, that their present situation upon the land is more advantageous to them and less burthensome to the public than it would be were they to receive a direct support from a pecuniary fund, more advantageous to them because from necessity they are to a certain degree industrious and frugal, less burthensome to the State because the interest of the money arising from the sale of the land, which would not probably exceed one hundred and fifty dollars must be entirely inadequate to provide for the wants of twenty persons without homes, unused to contrivance and naturally disposed to indolent indulgence. Your committee are therefore of opinion that a sale of said land would not at present be advisable.

About eight acres of land are in the possession and occupancy of persons owning adjoining lands and about five acres of the most valuable land are held by purchasers for a full and valuable considerations, having passed through a number of hands for the space of nearly one hundred years.

Your committee had not sufficient time after the discovery of the proper evidence to adopt any measures for the removal of these encroachments.

All which is respectfully submitted,

Leman Stone

Benjamin Bull

John L. Tomlinson

Derby, May 8, 1818