Our Land Reserve Fund

1916

Augusta, Me., Sept. 23 — One of the purposes for which the Maine legislature is called in special session next Friday is to make provision for using the state land reserve fund.

From 1836 to 1839, no state tax was levied in Maine because the income from public lands was sufficient to meet all demands. Maine owes the Land Reserve fund about $450,000 various sums of annual interest at 6 per cent since 1848. This debt is theoretical, since there is none to whom it may be paid.

This fund dates back to 1788 when Maine was a part of Massachusetts. To encourage settlement in Maine, the Massachusetts legislature provided that in setting off townships there should be reserved for public uses four lots of 320 acres each. One was to become automatically the property of the first settled minister, another was for the support of the ministry, another for the support of common schools and the fourth was the "State lot," to be disposed of as the state might choose.

All townships surveyed prior to 1832 contained originally 1280 acres of reserved lands, but by an act of that year it was provided that 960 acres should be reserved for the benefit of schools, the other 320 acres to be set aside as the state lot. Thus it happens that the reserved lots are of different acreages, some of 960 and others of 1000.

In 1848 the state treasurer was authorized by the legislature to keep an account of all money received from the reserved lands and to place it in the treasury, each sum received to be credited to the township which contained the reserved lands yielding the amount. Since 1848 each township has been credited with the net receipts from the sale of timber and grass from its reserved lands.

When a township is organized as a plantation for school purposes the state must pay over to it annually 6 per cent on the trust fund credited to it. When a township is incorporated as a town the funds accrued and the lands themselves become automatically the property of the town, and the title to the reserved lands vests in the town; but the funds turned over and any money received from the sale of timber or land must still be reserved for the schools of the town.

The principal of the fund now amounts to $446,871.17. State treasurer Newbert and chief clerk Warren D. Trask have for a long time been figuring the interest to be credited this fund on the various sums since 1848, and it has been a gigantic task. The total interest is now given out as $413,977.05.

Gov. Curtis is of the opinion that some of this fund should be used, but he wishes to make the using of it legal. The interest on the reserved land fund is approximately $26,000 per year, which appears to the credit of the various counties as follows: Aroostook, $8412; Franklin, $3229; Hancock, $421; Oxford, $2139; Penobscot, $1925; Piscataquis, $2893; Somerset, $5017 and Washington, $1797.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 26, 1916, p. 2.