To the Board of Trustees of Washington College,
Your committee appointed to consider the condition of the College grounds & buildings, & devise a scheme of improvement, respectfully report at present only a few simple changes as needful to be done immediately, & ask more time for the maturing of a finished system.
The Committee unanimously adpoted the suggestions of President Lee that all front grounds should be thrown together by the removal of the avenue fences, except in front of the dwellings, setting the exterior fences on the line, entering by means of gates, changing the principal avenue so as to enter just above the Episcopal Church, & to follow the curvature of the surface some distance below the present line: Also putting a gate in front to connect with the street near the former site of the Steward's House, making suitable walks, & carriage ways & planting trees, & grassing the whole.
It is also proposed to remove the large Ice house which now disfigures the front, to some position in the rear. All that the Committee ask of the Board at present, is to sanction the general idea of an enclosed, single Park in front, & if they approve it, to authorize the (page 2) Committee to put a gate, & make about 23 poles of board fence, & a few slight repairs of present fences, & finally, to make the appropriation for the improvements, as a guide to the Committee.
All the front below the Avenue has been cleared of the partition fences which divided it into small lots, & has been seeded down in oats, & clover seed. It is not proposed to enter regularly upon our improvements until the oats have been harvested; & we will have an opportunity of presenting to the Board a minute plan of operation, together with estimates of the cost of the various improvements.

R E Lee
Pres
Hugh Barclay
A. Leyburn
W. H. Ruffner
Comt

Endorsements:
No 22 ½
Report
of Committee on
Buildings & Grounds

Resolved, That the Board approve the report of the Committee on Grounds & Buildings and that the sume of $1000 be appropriated for the improvement of the grounds __?__ of the necessary enclosures

Rept of Comt. on
Buildings & grounds
adoptions of $1000.
Appropriation
.

April, 1866 Minutes of Board of Trustees