a through brass lock pouch for Indianapolis, the mail train was burned on which this pouch was being carried, and because no speck of the bills was found by the special mail agent, W. N. Tyner, refusal was made of payment to the postmaster. It was proved by witnesses that the money was mailed, and that it was wholly burned, but because no vestige of the bills was found, Uncle Sam, who "is rich enough to give us all a farm," through his overscrupulous Secretary of the Treasury, Spinner, denied justice to the postmaster. After many years, when principal and interest amounted to nearly $100, the congressman from the Vincennes district succeeded in getting a bill for reimbursement before the House to the point of having it printed, and there it stuck. Correspondents all over the country took up the case, and all said a long deferred just bill was about to be paid by the Government, in which opinion they lamentably erred. "Corporations have no souls," it is said, and the only consolation that the then postmaster now has left to him in his declining years is the knowledge of his having stock in the father of all corporations-the United States Government-and he can advisedly say, "this is my Government," if he is but a small junior partner.

The writer's first experience in postage tax, where the amount was paid in money (it being prior to the time of stamps), and according to the distance the letter was carried, when under 600 miles, and near that, it was twentyfive cents per half ounce. Not having sent letters a distance exceeding 600 miles, the highest cost to him was that sum from Kentucky to Missouri. What a drop in postage, from twenty-five cents for 600 miles, to two cents from San Francisco to Europe, a distance of at least 6,000 miles! Penny postage is the next step in postal progression.

V

Chapter V.

SCHOOLS-VINCENNES UNIVERSITY.

INCENNES, being one of the first settled towns

in the West, early became an important base for military operations, and especially during the close of the eighteenth century. The United States Government, having permanently possessed this region through the foresight and brilliant strategy of General George Rogers Clark, in 1779, it soon became the seat of the Territorial Government, whose jurisdiction embraced much of the Northwest, including Illinois and Michigan. The influx of population, following the organization of a Territorial Government, at this point, especially of the enterprising educated class of people, brought it into such prominence that the establishment of a seat of learning was soon determined on, and Congress was petitioned to, and did, on March 4, 1804, set apart one entire township of land for th benefit of a seminary of learning in the Vincennes land district, and the Secretary of the United States Treasury, on October 10, 1806, selected and set apart Township No. 2, south range eleven west, situated in Gibson county. In pursuance thereof, and to carry out the intention of Congress, the Territorial Legislature of Indiana passed an act November 29, 1806, and supplemented the same by an act passed September 17, 1807, incorporating the Vincennes University in the name and style of "Board of Trustees for the

Vincennes University," and recognized it as the recipient and beneficiary of the aforesaid gift of lands donated by Congress. This act of the Territorial Council and House of Representatives ordained, "that an university be and is hereby instituted and incorporated, within this territory, to be called and known by the name and style of the Vincennes University, and that Wm. Henry Harrison, John Gibson, Thomas M. Davis, Henry Vanderburgh, Waller Taylor, Benjamin Parke, Peter Jones, Samuel Johnson, John Badollet, John Rice Jones, Geo. Wallace, William Bullitt, Elias McNamee, Henry Hurst, Geo. Johnson, Francis Vigo, Jacob Kuykendall, Samuel McKee, Nathaniel Ewing, Geo. Leach, Luke Decker, and Samuel Gwathmey are hereby declared to be the trustees of said University, and the said trustees and their successors be, and they are hereby created, a body corporate and politic by the name of the Board of Trustees for the Vincennes University, and are hereby ordained, established, and declared to be forever hereafter a body politic and corporate in fact and in name and by that name they, and their successors, shall and may have continual succession and shall be persons in law capable of suing and being sued, pleading and being impleaded, answering and being answered, defending and being defended in all courts and places whatever, and that they and their successors may have a common seal and make and alter the same at their pleasure, also that the said trustees shall not at any time hold or possess more than 100,000 acres of land." This act emphasized the broad and liberal heartiness with which the Legislature entered into and sanctioned the idea of Congress in its aim to build up at Vincennes a great educa

tional institution. The general Government having passed an act to give a second township of land for the same purpose (locating it in Monroe county), the Indiana Legislature evidently intended, at that time, to apply the proceeds of this second township of land to the upbuilding of the Vincennes University, as evidenced by the provisions in the act restricting the institution from acquiring more than 100,000 acres of land. This inference is a clearly legitimate and reasonable one. An additional evidence that the Territorial Legislature intended that this school should be the leading one of the State may be found in the liberal and extensive provisions of its charter. It not only provided for a collegiate course of study, embracing literature and the sciences, but gave it the right to establish chairs of law, medicine and theology; also granting it the right to confer degrees, in the several departments, to students and eminent scholars. It also empowered the board of trustees to establish a grammar school and a female department, also requiring the board to receive into the institution any Indian scholars "who, when sent, shall be maintained, clothed and educated at the expense of said institution." To accomplish this, small donations would have been inadequate, and hence the inevitable conclusion that both townships of land in Gibson and Monroe counties were intended for the use of the Vincennes University. Any other conclusion must presuppose that the members of Congress and the Legislature knew but little of the expensive requirements of such an institution, which was certainly not the case. In the act incorporating the University, under the management of a board of trustees, power was given them by Congress to "sell, transfer, convey and dispose of any