The recent sale of part of a plot of land, which was willed to the University in 1700, has enabled the establishment of a scholarship fund provided for by a benefactor who died more than 220 years ago. The land, which is situated in Dorchester near the present Codman Square, was bequeathed to the University by William Stoughton 1650 and was intended to furnish an income to go toward the support of a scholar, preferably from Dorchester. Although the income from the property has been irregular, rent from if has often been applied to scholarships, but the fund has now been increased sufficiently to assure one or more annual awards.

Stoughton, a member of the class of 1650, was one of the most prominent men of his time in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, of which he was lieutenant-governor. He served as chief justice in the notorious Salem witchcraft trials. It was he who presented to the University the original Stoughton Hall, which, "being an unsubstantial piece of masonry," had to be taken down in 1780 and was succeeded in 1806 by the present Stoughton Hall.