The period of which this chapter treats ends with 1850; but inasmuch as that year marks no break in the history of Bishop Hill, it will be well here to finish the sketch of the development of that colony. On learning of the death of Janson, Olson returned at once from California and became the head of the colony after February, 1851. Improvements immediately followed; the government, which had been autocratic or theoretically theocratic, became more and more democratic under Olson. Finally, as a completion of this broadening evolution, an act of the Illinois legislature of 1853 incorporated the Bishop Hill Colony, and vested the government in a board of seven trustees who were to hold for life or during good behavior, their successors to be elected by the community.[131] [131] Act of January 17, 1853. The Charter and Bylaws are reprinted in Mikkelsen, _The Bishop Hill Colony_, 73 ff. (App.). The trustees were from the first afflicted with a speculative mania, and invested in all sorts of enterprises--in grain, in lumber, in Galva town lots, in railroad and bank stock, and in a porkpacking establishment. Disaster after disaster followed between 1854 and 1857, when a general panic prostrated the industries of the country. The climax of the reckless mismanagement of the Colony came in 1860, and the corporation went into the hands of a receiver, only to get deeper and deeper into financial and legal troubles. Individualization of property took place in 1861, when $592,798 was distributed among 415 shareholders, and other property to the value of $248,861 was set aside to pay an indebtedness of about $118,000.[132] The last traces of communism were gone, and with the disappearance of communism went also the old religious tenets peculiar to the faith. The majority of the Jansonists joined the Methodist communion; even Jonas Olson deserted and became "an independent Second [Seventh?] Day Adventist."[133] [132] Johnson and Peterson, _Svenskarne i Illinois_, 44 ff. [133] Mikkelsen, _The Bishop Hill Colony_, 71. Difficulties continued, however, for Olof Johnson, the chief offending trustee, secured his appointment as one of the receivers. Assessment followed assessment, and when the totals were footed up the chicanery of trustees and receivers was made clear: to pay an original debt of $118,403, these ill-fated people of the Bishop Hill Colony actually expended in cash $413,124, and in property $259,786, or an aggregate of $672,910.[134] Of course a lawsuit was begun, and the "Colony Case" dragged along in the courts for twelve years, to be finally settled by compromise in 1879, nine years after the death of Olof Johnson.[135] [134] Johnson and Peterson, _Svenskarne i Illinois_, 49-52. [135] The special master in chancery found in 1868 that Olof Johnson was indebted to the Colony in the sum of $109,613.29. Mikkelsen, _The Bishop Hill Colony_, 68.