[142]
From their property arose the ‘William Cutter School Fund,’ and the ‘Poor Widows' Fund.’ In 1842, the net income of this school fund was three hundred dollars, expended as follows:The William Cutter Fund as originally constituted by the donor, was five thousand nineteen dollars, to which was added, in consequence of the annexation of a part of Charlestown to West Cambridge, in 1842, four hundred and sixty-five dollars. The income of the ‘Poor Widows' Fund’ in 1842 gave three widows four dollars each: total, twelve dollars, annual income. The Poor Widows' Fund, amounting to two hundred dollars, was the donation of the widow Mary Cutter. The School Committee Report for 1866-67 contains the following: ‘Perhaps full justice has scarcely been done to the donor of this noble gift to the schools of the town. His will bears date March 17, 1823, and it gives his whole estate, $5,000—as it proved to be—after the death of his wife, as a trust fund for the benefit of the schools. The town was then poor, and from the date of his will, it may well be inferred that at the annual meeting he had been struck with the smallness of the sum voted for schools, and found it in his heart to increase it in the future from his own means. It is the gift of an humble, childless man, whose motive could not be other than unselfish.’
South School $76.00 Union School 138.00 Northwest School 87.00 —— $300.00