Transcribed from microfilm and contributed by: Charles A. Sherrill, 1992
A project of the Bradley County Historical Society

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Year 1855, Petition Number 75_

[The cover sheet reads: “Memorial from Bradley County Tenn. Recd & read Dec. 13th 1855. Masons to control.”]

To the General Assembly ))
of the State of Tennessee ))

The memorial of the Trustees of the Female Branch of Oak Grove Academy in Bradley County, and Cleveland Lodge of Free & Accepted Masons No. 134. Would respectfully represent that by an act of the Legislature passed January 19, 1848, the Board of Trustees of Oak Grove Academy were empowered to established a Female department in said Academy to be located in Cleveland, or within one mile of said town, and that one half of the funds due annually from the State to said Academy should be appropriated to the use of said Female Department.

In pursuance of the Act of Assembly to Board of Trustees of the Female Department were duly organized, and under Section 4 of said Act became the purchasers of a lot of ground in Cleveland, and proceeded to erect Buildings thereon for the objects contemplated by the law. But in order the more effectually to concentrate public action upon the subject, and to erect in Cleveland a Female School of a high order, arrangements have been entered by and between the Trustees of said Female Department and Cleveland Lodge No. 134 of Free & Accepted Masons, by which the management of said Female Department, and the funds derivable from the State, are vested in said Lodge.

By written contract entered into between the parties on the 29 day of June last, between the Trustees & the Lodge duly executed and confirmed, for satisfactory consideration to each party, the Trustees conveyed to the Lodge the lot of Ground with the Buildings & etc., in trust for the purpose of establishing a permanent Female School, together with all the necessary conditions, restrictions and details in the due execution of such a contract, the Trustees reserving to themselves the right to take possession of the same in their own right, whenever the said Lodge should cease to maintain such a school, or to carry out the purposes of the agreement.

The premises considered, your memorialists would respectfully ask the Legislature to confirm by a special Act, the doings of the Board of Trustees in the particular, and to convey by Law to the Lodge as aforesaid the management and control of the Academy and funds, buildings ground etc. etc. under the conditions and restrictions as before mentioned.

William Grant, President of the Board of Trustees of Oak Grove Female Acad.
D.C. Kenner, Trustee
Geo. W. Parks, ”
R.S. Stuart, Trustee
M.W. Legg, Trustee
Stephen Hempstead, Trustee