Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - History of the University (Powell) [PAGE 311]

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University Organizes

279

and payable ten years hence, bearing interest at ten per cent, per annum; and, "WHEREAS, also, the contract of M. L. Dunlap for the delivering, upon the order of the said Board, of fruit, shade and ornamental trees and shrubbery, to the value of two thousand dollars has also been delivered to this Board; and, "WHEREAS, the Illinois Central Railroad Company has likewise assured to said Board the sum of fifty thousand dollars in freight over said Road: and in consideration of the foregoing premises, therefore be it, "Resolved, That the Illinois Industrial University be and the same hereby is permanently located at Urbana, Champaign County, Illinois." 11 The adoption of this resolution caused a different and distinctly more fortunate feeling to permeate the meetings.12 Trustees who before had looked askance at the tender of compliance on the part of the county of Champaign now took hold of affairs as if they always had believed in the good faith of the county. The first necessity in the organization of the new university was money. The university owned four hundred and eighty thousand acres of land scrip of uncertain value but could not command enough hard cash to buy a record book. Some means had to be devised whereby ready money could be obtained. At the May meeting the treasurer was instructed to sell one hundred and eighty thousand acres of the land scrip on the best possible terms. But this did not remove the difficulty. The federal act provided that the fund arising from sales of this grant should never be used, except as an endowment, the proceeds only being available for the expenses of the institution.13 ConFirst annual report af the hoard of trustees, 35. "Cunningham manuscripts; Judge Cunningham, a resident of Urbana, was instrumental in securing and perfecting deeds and titles to the property offered to the university. Shortly before his death, he informed the writer that he himself had carried the papers and deeds to the May meeting of the board of trustees. "The federal law did provide that ten per cent of the fund might be used for the purchase of land for sites in experimental farms, if authorized by the legislature. Federal Law, 1862, section 5, paragraph 1.

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