quantity not exceeding 4,000 acres of said land," which they proceeded to do, by sale and lease, after the organization of the board of trustees, which elected Governor William Henry Harrison, president; James Johnson, treasurer, and General W. Johnson, clerk, after which appropriate committees were appointed to carry out the intentions of Congress and the Legislature by the establishment of a University. The committee on building selected two parcels of land, adjoining, from Henry Vanderburgh and Colonel Francis Vigo, forming nearly four squares, and being bounded by Perry, Sixth, Hart and Fourth streets, the finest and most suitable locality in the borough for the college ground. At this early period building material was scarce and expensive, contractors were few and the revenue from the lands slow in being realized; which facts. greatly handicapped the trustees in their action. It was not until April 10, 1811, that the large two-story brick building, located in the center of the plot of ground, was tenantable and available for school purposes, when the Reverend Samuel T. Scott, a Presbyterian minister, was selected to open and take charge of an English school therein. The small revenue from the sale of the lands, having been consumed in the purchase of ground and the erection of the building, and more funds being needed to finish and equip the school, as well as to pay teachers, the board petitioned Congress, April 16, 1816, to permit it to sell the remaining 19,000 acres of the Gibson county lands, but the committee to whom the matter was referred reported adversely, saying "it is inexpedient to sell at this time." In 1818 the trustees repetitioned Congress for permission to sell the lands at not less than $10 per acre (as they

needed the funds to build up the school) at public auction, but the petition was rejected. Although hampered by lack of funds the school was making fair progress, its trustees and friends being buoyed up with the hope and expectation that at no distant day they would realize from the renting of its lands a sufficient endowment fund to meet the expenses incident to its growth and increased educational necessities. But, with the passing years and the increase in population in the eastern and northern parts of the State, a jealousy sprang up from these sections against the southern portion of the State which was soon manifested by legislative action against the Vincennes University, the same influences acting that caused the removal of the seat of government of the Territory from Vincennes to Corydon. On the 20th day of January, 1820, Bloomington College was given a charter, and, quickly following this action, on the 23d of January, 1820, the Legislature, assuming that the State, in its organized capacity, owned the Vincennes University lands, donated to the University by special act of Congress, passed an act appointing commissioners to take possession of said lands and rent them and turn the proceeds into the State Treasury. Thus it occurred, without a vestige of legal right, equity or law, that the remaining 19,000 acres of unsold land of the University were wrested from the trustees by force, under the claim of State inheritance. But it will be seen that the solons had some qualms of conscience about this highhanded procedure of appropriating these lands, for they took steps to give the State the semblance of a title to them through an attempt, by legislation, to obliterate the University from existence. In order to accomplish this

purpose, in 1824 an act was passed attempting to transform the University into a new creature under the name and style of the "Knox County Seminary." By this act Vincennes University was deprived of its lands, building, apparatus, furniture, and even its book of record. By this unjust procedure the University was compelled to give up all its possessions and be transformed into an institution entirely foreign to the kind contemplated by Congress, and thus, for the time being, the Vincennes University, on April 24, 1824, passed under the baleful shadow of wrong and injustice. In this metamorphosis into the "Knox County Seminary" it was stipulated by the Legislature that the institution should be under the control of the old board of trustees of the University; but they paid little attention to the mandate, and an inter-regnum of four years exists between the enactment of this law, attempting to disfranchise the University, and the first meeting of the Knox County Seminary trustees, which occurred October 3, 1828. The blow dealt the University in 1824 gave Vincennes educators a backset, and they did not take kindly to the new institution. The power, privileges and responsibilities having been taken from the old board of trustees, they ceased to be active in educational matters, and the new board (which did not meet until 1828, four years after dispossessing the old board) acted with very little spirit. In this connection it would be well to state, for a full understanding of the conditions existing, that there appears to have been a dual board of trustees, as will be evidenced later, the old board continuing its existence, although there are no continuous records to show the fact, their recordbook having been taken by the new board. In the mean

time, during this hiatus, the school building, having never been completed, was deteriorating for want of care to such an extent that squatters took possession and continued to occupy it at will, filling it up with household goods, using the campus for the pasturage of animals and the basement. as a stable for horses. The State, having appropriated the income of the University to Bloomington, said to its Knox County Seminary trustees: "Now, you take possession of the University building and its property and make the Seminary flourish." It gave them nothing to endow it, nor even complete the buildings, yet expected miracles of education to be wrought. To show that the picture is not overdrawn relative to the Knox County Seminary building as rechristened, I quote from its board's record of a meeting held on January 22, 1831. On motion of John Holland, a new trustee, it was "Resolved, That from and after this date, there shall not be allowed any family, person or persons, to occupy any part of the house except those who are engaged in the business of teaching, and the scholars. Neither shall there be allowed any horse, cow or hog, or any other animal whatsoever, to run at large in said Seminary lot, or be kept in any of the lower rooms, called the cellar, to the injury of the lot or cellar rooms." And from the wording of another resolution offered at the same meeting, one would infer that the building contained a pandemonium where blue, white, black and gray spirits often held high carnival. It reads: "And, be it further Resolved, That a committee of three be appointed whose duty it shall be to visit the Seminary as frequently as the affairs and business of the institution may require, to hear and determine all matters of dispute and to preserve good order

generally in or about the house and preservation of the lot." This condition of the institution was but a natural sequence of ill-advised and unjust legislative action.

"The Knox County Seminary," masquerading in the habiliments of the Vincennes University, maintained a precarious existence during the next few years; its new board of trustees having no heart in the project, held no meetings from October, 1832, until June, 1835, during which year they met but once, and the next and last meeting was held on August 25, 1836, when it ceased to be an active body, although it held control of the Seminary building and grounds. The new board ceasing to be a factor in educational work and the State having failed to extinguish the University, the latter's board resumed the office taken from them in 1824 and reorganized June 11, 1838. The Reverend Alexander was elected president and George R. Gibson secretary. (As they had been robbed of their endowment, they had no use for a treasurer.) Having partially recovered from the embarrassment, as a result of the State's unjust action, the board reasserted itself, and at its first meeting appointed a committee to recover the old records and require the board of trustees of the borough of Vincennes to render an account of the disposition of the funds of the commons land (arising from its sale) above the amount necessary to drain an adjacent pond, authorized by Congress April 20, 1818. At the next meeting of the University board of trustees, October 5, 1839, Honorable A. T. Ellis, a delegate from and in behalf of the "Knox County Seminary" board, appeared and relinquished all claim to the ground and building, thereby acknowledging that his board had no legal right to the property.