The General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in 1864, appointed a committee of seven to report a plan of trusteeship. The report of the committee was adopted, and is substantially the same as the section of the Discipline on that subject. The General Conference appointed a board whose headquarters should be at Cincinnati, and which was incorporated with the title of "the Board of Trustees of the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States," and its charter was recorded July 11,1865. According to the Discipline, "The duty of the board shall be to hold in trust, for the benefit of the Methodist Episcopal Church, any and all donations, bequests, grants, and funds in trust, etc., that may be given or conveyed to said board, or to the Methodist Episcopal Church, as such, for any benevolent object, and to administer the said funds, and the proceeds of the same, in accordance with the direction of the donors," etc.