The University of Michigan | Page 6

only the familiar general declaration that:
"Schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged," but
an ordinance adopted ten days later provided that in addition to the
school lot in every township: "Not more than two complete townships
are to be given perpetually for the purposes of a University, to be laid
off by the purchaser or purchasers as near the center as may be, so that
the same shall be of good land to be applied to the intended object by
the Legislature of the State." This was the fundamental action which
made possible the foundation of the University of Michigan almost at
the same time that the State was admitted to the Union.
For the most part the story of the land grants under this provision is an
unfortunate one of speculation, misappropriations, and sale by venal
Legislatures, whose only excuse was probably their inexperience and
lack of vision; and the natural desire of the people to benefit at once
from the endowment these lands represented. Michigan had her
troubles in common with the other new states, but she did manage to
acquire enough from these lands eventually to give the University
needed support in her very lean early years. Their history, therefore, is
not without interest. When Indiana territory was divided by Congress in
1804 into the three districts corresponding to the present states of
Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan, one township was reserved in each for
a seminary of learning. This, in Michigan, was increased in 1826 to two
townships, which might be located by sections in any of the districts
surveyed. Even more important was a measure approved by Congress
in 1836 which permitted the State to control the selection,
administration, and even eventual sale of these sections with no
reference to the limits of the Congressional townships, thus permitting
their consolidation into one state fund. This precedent has been
followed by all the states entering the Union since 1837.

The plan of making a state trust of the public lands was a good one--on
paper. But with the rapidly growing population, envious eyes were
soon cast on these tracts by immigrants, many of whom settled on these
sections as squatters, to make endless trouble in the future with their
conflicting claims. The first lands definitely set aside were selected by
the Trustees of the old University of Detroit in 1827 within the limits of
what is now the city of Toledo. The selection could not have been
better, consisting in all of some 960 acres, but most unfortunately the
best part was exchanged in 1830, on the representation of land-sharks,
for poorer land and the land thus received was sold four years later for
$5,000. The remainder was disposed of fifteen years later for about $19
an acre, bringing to the University a total of some $17,000 for land
which eventually came to be worth, literally, millions. Meanwhile other
tracts were being located in all the counties of the State then organized.
Soon after Michigan became a state, the Superintendent of Public
Instruction made an inventory of these which showed that at $15 an
acre they would bring a fund of $691,200 and an annual income to the
University of $48,384. At $20, which he thought might easily represent
their value, they would bring an annual income of $64,912. The first
sale justified his optimism, as the price averaged $22.85 an acre,
though only one-fourth of the purchase money was paid in cash. But
the people of the State soon began to murmur; they were not interested
in continuing these big reservations of choice land for an object so
remote as a university. The Superintendent of Public Instruction,
moreover, found himself involved in all kinds of trouble with the
purchasers. The matter finally came up to the Legislature under the
guise of a bill for the relief of certain settlers on university and other
state lands, which would have thrown these sections on the market at a
nominal price and insured the squatters permanent tenure. The bill was
a short-sighted and vicious one and was promptly vetoed by the young
Governor, Stevens T. Mason, because he felt these lands were given to
the State as a sacred trust. In this courageous action he performed one
of the greatest of his many services to the University.
But the Legislature had a different idea as to the sacredness of the trust.
Various measures were passed, lengthening the time of deferred
payment, successively lowering the minimum price at which the lands

were to be sold and eventually in 1841 making the minimum price of
$12 retroactive. Under this measure, $35,651 were actually returned or
credited to purchasers. When the lands were all sold the average price
realized was not quite $12 an acre, resulting in a fund of