Samuel Jones
Let's fast forward from 1818 to February 1836. Samuel Jones, former Chancellor of the State of New York, and prominent resident of Oyster Bay, realizes that his health is failing. As he sets about putting his affairs in order, his mind dwells upon the problem of how to better provide for the local poor. Jones himself is wealthy, but most of his fellow townsmen are not. They are burdened by a number of taxes, including a poor tax that seems not to accomplish very much. No one, not even he, believes that an answer will be found by simply increasing taxes. Samuel Jones thinks he has a better idea, and he writes his will accordingly.
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He died that May, and come August, his will was probated. To widespread surprise, his will provided $30,000 (equivalent to more than $900,000 in today's dollars) for the establishment of The Jones Fund for the Support of the Poor. It was an enduring trust fund, the interest from which was to fund a residence that was open to any impoverished resident of the Town of North Hempstead or the Town of Oyster Bay. Many townspeople were not pleased to learn of Jones's bequest - it was met with suspicion, and likely with a good measure of NIMBYism to boot.
W.W. Munsell and Company, History of Queens County, New York,
published 1882
Samuel Jones's idea had evolved from the old poor house / work farm concept: the poor would live in a residence in an agricultural setting, and they would tend the fields. The significant (and perhaps naive) difference in his plan was that taxpayers would not be burdened. All expenses were to be paid by interest generated from the Jones Fund, and secondarily by revenue created through the sale of the produce that the residents harvested. Note the similarity of this approach to that followed years later by the Protectory, where the boys' labors successfully reduced the burden of charitable donations needed to keep their home going.
Within months, on farmland somewhere near the boundary between Brookville and Muttontown, a group of impoverished residents - sometimes called "inmates" - were sheltered for the winter, and the Fund's money had been invested safely.
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