Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - History of the University (Powell) [PAGE 229]

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Illinois Considers Disposition of Donation

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the towns, feeling out the sentiment of the community in regard to their enterprise. During the remainder of the year there was some further discussion of the plan but nothing definite was accomplished until June, 1860, by which time Hodgerson seems to have withdrawn from the company. On the evening of June 18, 1860, the friends of the project met in Champaign and after a number of rousing speeches favoring the plan a subscription paper was circulated that brought $10,000 in pledges. A committee of four from each town was selected to canvass the county, and on June 27 it was reported that $40,000, the amount desired, had been raised by subscription.37 They were ready now to enter into a contract with the company to erect the seminary building. In this connection it is interesting to observe the shrewd foresight of the Urbana leaders: a letter from them offering for the purposes of a state agricultural college a building erected at a cost of $100,00038 was read June 27, I860, at an industrial educational convention in Bloomington. The speculative nature of the offer is seen from the fact that it was made some five days before the contract with Stoughton and others for the erection of the building was actually signed; the citizens were certainly alive to their opportunities in thus seeking to get a state agricultural college—that did not exist—to occupy a seminary building that was not yet even on paper. On July 2, 1860, arrangements having been made by which the promoters had secured sufficient land and the necessary amount having been subscribed, a contract was made and signed that provided for the erection of the seminary building. The parties to the contract were: for the company, Jonathan C. Stoughton of Freeport, Illinois, John E. Babcock, of Aurora, Illinois, and George Harvey of Fort Edward, Washingtoncounty, New York; for the citizens, Joseph W. Sim, Jr., William Park, William H. Romine, Carter F. Columbia, John H. Thomas and James S. Wright of the county of Champaign, Illinois.89

"Central Illinois Gazette, Juno 20-27, I860. "Chicago Weekly Times, June 27, 1860. Urbana Clarion, June 30, 1860 confirms this by saying that a project was under consideration to have the state agricultural college occupy the building. "The contract is printed in full, below p. 458.