1870-03-03 Trustee Committee Report on Bylaws, 2021.004.088

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To the President and members of M^tAuburn Cemetery Corporation

Gentlemen

The Committee appointed at the meeting of the Proprietors of M^tAuburn held Feby 7th. 1870 have attended to the duties assigned them and beg leave to report. -

By the records of the Secretary of the Corporation, the subject referred to this Committee appears to be restricted to certain modifications of the by-laws in reference to the compensation of the Superintendent made by the Trustees, and an amendment to the same proposed at the meeting of the 7^th ult. This restriction was not in accordance with the understanding of your committee, one of whom drafted the motion creating the committee. Conceiving that with even this restricted form, the general management of M^t Auburn is necessarily more or less interwoven, your committee have not yet felt themselves at liberty to reject any testimoney bearing upon the interest of the cemetery. We have however, throughout our investigations, kept two considerations chiefly in view: Has the Superintendent been in the receipt of commissions levied upon work done for the cemetery, and to what extent? Is it necessary or desirable that he or any paid servant of the Corporation shall be suffered to receive any compensation other than a regular salary?

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Your committee have held seven meetings, at all but one^of which every member has been in constant attendance, and while the above named points have been kept chiefly in view, we have not refused to receive any testimony of responsible parties having any bearing however indirect, upon the general subject. In regard to the two by-laws bearing upon the right of the Superintendent to receive commissions upon work done for the cemetery, your committee may here state that these by laws were drafted, and are at this moment upon the files of the corporation in the hand writing of your venerable President, and were by him designed and understood to prohibit any form of commission or pereqisites whatever. Your committee fail to see how language can well be more explicit. We have good reason to believe such to be also the views of a large majority of the Proprietors of M^tAuburn.

It appears, however, that in the opinion of members of the board of Trustees these rules admit of a different interpretation from that designed by those who framed them, and that the Trustees assume the responsibilitiy of this interpretation on the part of the Superint endent. And while your committee do not express or imply any censure upon your

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Trustees - while we fully recognize the integrity and the interest for which several of its members have for many years of unrequited services been honored with the confidence of the Proprietors - and while we trust that all desire only the prosperity and good management of the affairs of M^tAuburn, at the same time we cannot but dissent from them in their interpreta tion of the by-laws, which to our view have been plainly transgressed. Nor are we able to agree with them in regard to their proposal to sanction the remuneration of any paid servant of M^tAuburn by commissions in any form. Your Committee met for organization Feby 15^th at which meeting it ws unanimoously agreed to invite the attendance of the Superintendent and a gentleman not now, but recently a member of the board of Trustees, and who had declined to subscribe to the Report exonerating the Superintendent.and for this ^{To hear from the above named Gentleman} Committeepurpose met again on the 17th, And here your committee would state that all our testimony has been necessarily ex parte, All were invited to attend who appeared able to impart reliable information, and all were received who voluntarily offered. Your committee had no power to compel attendance, had no authority to ^put the witnesses upon oath, and could only

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listen to such as voluntarily attended. Your committee could not anticipate the testimony before it was offered, nor determine the entire credibility of our witnesses. Not being a judicial tribunal, and with only limited powers, we have only attempted a general investigation. At the meating on the 17th Mr Cheever, recently a member of the board of Trustees informed your committee that to the best of his knowledge, the present system of commissions originated with the present superintendent. He estimated the value of these commissions at a very large amount per Anⁿum. He had been informed by several stone-Cutters that they paid the superintendent commissions, but, except in regard to one party, he could only obtainthe most general information. the exact amount he was never able to acertain. At the same meeting the Superintendent appeared, and testified touching his commissions. From his own testimony it appears that Cap^t has been in office since 1861 - that he came into office with the full knowledge of the complaints against his predecessor, but had never supposed that his predecessor, in receiving commisions, had violated any rules of the Corporation. During his first seventeen months Capt Winsor received no commissions of any kind, and he claimed that when he first began to receive any commissions, that they were forced upon him

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by contractors, that he never exacted them, that for the past seven years he had been in the receipt of commissions of five percent, upon all contracts for Stone work with which he has had any connection as also for marble and free-Stone. Of this he says he has kept no account, and is unable to give any estimates to its amount. During these seven years he thinks he ^may have received $3,000 from one party, $2,000 from another , and other sums from other partys. His commissions may have been $1500 per annum, or more. By his lowest estimate they must have reached during these seven years the gross amount of $10,500. It also appears from his testimony that, beside these sums derived from commissions, the compensation allowed by the Trustees was a salary of $2,500, and the free rent of house, use of a horse and carriage, the labor of one man, a cow had his fire wood. Your committee thus received from the Superintendent the free admission that a regular system existed by which commissions were by him received upon a large portion of the Stone, Marble, and free-stone work executed for the Proprietors of M^t Auburn. Having been able to obtain only a general estimate of its amount, we conceived it to be important to ascertain the exact sum this received. We therefor invited the several Stone workers, from whom Capt Winso acknowledge he had been in receipt of