An Old Wound Finally Healed: Vincennes University’S Struggle for Survival
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An Old Wound Finally Healed: Vincennes University’s Struggle for Survival Matthew E. Welsh* AUTHORS NOTE In the 1955 session of the Indiana General Assembly, Vin- cennes University, situated in my Senate district, asked that the state double its support to the school on a continuing and predict- able basis. The university was then receiving public funds by way of a Knox County property tax, which the state matched, but the money thus generated was not nearly enough to meet the school’s needs. I knew that additional funds would not be easily come by unless solid reasons were presented and the interest and support of the legislative leadership obtained. To this end I put together the bits and pieces of the school’s history that I had learned during my many years as a trustee, focusing upon the bitter political struggle that had almost destroyed the school and fashioning the story into a political drama that I hoped would command the sym- pathetic attention of the legislators. What follows is that story and the legislature’s reaction to it. The article was given as a paper before the Indianapolis Literary Club on October 6, 1986, and an abbreviated version was included in the 1978 yearbook of the So- ciety of Indiana Pioneers. *** After William Henry Harrison, Indiana’s first territorial gov- ernor, came to Vincennes, the capital of the territory, he caused to be organized in 1801 Jefferson Academy for instruction of the chil- * Matthew E. Welsh, a Democrat, served in the Indiana House as a represent- ative from Knox County during the 1941 and 1943 sessions. In 1955 he was elected to the Indiana Senate from Knox and Daviess counties and served in that capacity until August, 1960. Welsh was governor of Indiana from 1961 to 1965. He has been a member of the Vincennes University Board of Trustees since 1943. INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTOKY, LXXXIV ISeptember. 1988,. 1988. Trustees of Indiana llniversity 218 Indiana Magazine of History dren of the settlers and the Indians of the area. This was the first educational institution in Indiana Territory, which consisted of what are now the states of Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and a portion of Minnesota; and it is thought to be the second oldest such institution west of the Alleghenies, preceded only by Transylvania College in Kentucky, which was founded in 1780.’ In December of that same year, 1801, Harrison and five other trustees of Jefferson Academy petitioned the United States Con- gress for a donation of land to be used for the development of an “Institution for the Education of Youth” similar to the one that had been granted for an “institution on the Ohio Purchase on the Mu- skingum.”2 The petition was referred to a three-man committee for consideration but apparently occasioned no congressional action. In December, 1802, however, a “general convention of the [Indiana] Territory,” called and chaired by Harrison as governor, included in its list of “representations to the Congress of the United States” a request for federal assistance for education.3 In response to this petition of 1802 Congress in 1804 adopted an act for survey and disposal of public lands and provided that in each of the three land districts established in Indiana Territory (namely at Detroit, Vin- cennes, and Kaskaskia) one entire township was to be reserved for a seminary of learning, the township to be designated by the sec- retary of the trea~ury.~Thus Harrison and his colleagues were suc- cessful in obtaining a land grant as an endowment for the new institution of learning. The grant consisted of a six-mile-square congressional township, which was set aside by Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin on October 10, 1806, comprising 23,040 acres located at Township 2 South, Range 11 West, which is now known as Patoka Township of Gibson County.s I E. Bierhaus & Sons, a wholesale grocery firm in Vincennes, erected a large highway sign at the edge of town that proclaimed Vincennes University to be “the oldest college west of the Alleghenies.” When advised of Transylvania’s earlier founding date, the company salvaged its sign by adding in small letters, “and north of the Ohio.” ‘This institution is today Ohio University at Athens, Ohio, which traces its origin back to the Ordinance of 1787 and the Ohio Company. Earlier plans for the establishment of this school at Marietta on the Muskingum River gave way to the eventual site in the center of the Ohio Company land grant. Ohio University was incorporated in 1804. See William E. Peters, Legal History of the Ohio University, Athens, Ohio . (Cincinnati, 1910), 86-88, passim. The original petition for funds for an educational institution at Vincennes in Indiana Territory is on file in the National Archives, Washington, D.C. .I Logan Esarey, ed., Messages and Letters of William Henry Harrison: Vol. I, 1800-181 1 (Indiana Historical Collections, Vol. VII; Indianapolis, 1922), 64. Annals of Congress, 7 Cong., 1 sess., p. 497; ibid., 8 Cong., 1 sess., Appendix, pp. 1285-93. Albert Gallatin to John Badollet, October 10, 1806, in The Territorial Papers of the United States: Vol. VII, The Territory of Indiana, 2800-1810, ed. Clarence E. Carter (Washington, D.C., 1939), 394-95. WILLIAMHENRY HARRISON Courtesy Byron H Lewis Historical Library. Vincennes University 220 Indiana Magazine of History Shortly thereafter, on November 29, 1806, the territorial leg- islature incorporated “the Vincennes University”-not a college or a seminary but a “university.” The newly chartered school, which took over the activities of Jefferson Academy, was to receive the township of land already set aside by Gallatin.6 The preamble of the chartering act indicates that the legislature, struggling to es- tablish an orderly society in the wilderness, had high hopes for the new institution. It reads: AN ACT to Incorporate an University in the Indiana Territory. WHEREAS the independence, happiness and energy of every republic depends (under the influence of the destinies of Heaven) upon the wisdom, virtue, tallents and energy, of its citizens and rulers. And whereas, science, literature, and the liberal arts, contribute in an eminent degree, to improve those qualities and acquirements. And whereas, learning hath ever been found the ablest advocate of genuine liberty, the best supporter of rational religion, and the source of the only solid and imperishable glory, which nations can acquire. And forasmuch, as literature, and philosophy, furnish the most useful and pleasing occupations, improveing and varying the enjoyments of prosperity, afford- ing relief under the pressure of misfortune, and hope and consolation in the hour of death. And considering that in a commonwealth, where the humblest citizen may be elected to the highest public office, and where the Heaven born prerogative of the right to elect, and to reject, is retained, and secured to the citizens, the knowl- edge which is requisite for a magistrate and elector, should be widely diffused. 1st. Be it therefore enacted by the Legislative Council and House of Represen- tatives, That an University be, and is hereby instituted and incorporated within this Territory, to be called and known by the name, or style of the “Vincennes University”. .7 Among the powers given to the trustees of Vincennes Univer- sity by the 1806 act of the territorial legislature was the authority to sell 4,000 acres of the 23,040-acre township grant made by Con- gress “for the use and support of the University . for the purpose of putting into immediate operation the said institution . and to lease or rent the remaining part of said township, to the best ad- vantage, for the use of said public school, or University.”6 It should be noted that the act contained no specific language formally con- veying legal title of the township to the university, and apparently nothing in the nature of a deed or patent was ever placed on re- cord. Certainly, however, the trustees could reasonably assume that the territorial government by such language had released to the Francis S. Philbrick, ed., The Laws of Indiana Territory, 1801-1809 (Collec- tions of the Illinois State Historical Library, Vol. XXI; Springfield, 1930), 178-84. Vincennes University is thought to be the thirty-ninth oldest college in the United States and, along with Transylvania, shares the distinction of being founded by a future president of the United States. Thomas Jefferson was governor of Virginia in 1780 when Transylvania was chartered. The University of Virginia was later founded by Jefferson in 1820, after he left office as president of the United States. Quoted from ibid., 178. “ Quoted from ibid., 179. Vincennes University’s Struggle for Survival 221 university any claim it had to this grant. Also granted by the act was the authority to conduct a lottery as a means of raising funds, and a lottery to raise six thousand dollars was in fact authorized by the university’s Board of Trustees in 1806. It was a financial disaster! The tickets did not sell even when offered on credit. The proceeds received were refunded, and the university had to pay the expenses incur~ed.~ A word needs to be said here about the men who served on the Board of Trustees of Vincennes University throughout the years. Many were among the most prominent citizens of the territory and state. One indication of their prominence is the fact that a number of Indiana counties were named after board members; viz., (Henry) Vanderburgh, (John) Gibson, (Toussaint) Dubois, (Benjamin) Parke, (Francis) Vigo, (William Henry) Harrison, etc. Other influential trustees were Waller Taylor, one of Indiana’s first two United States senators; John Rice Jones, first attorney general of Indiana Terri- tory; General Washington Johnston, lawyer and founder of Free- masonry in Indiana Territory; and John Badollet, first register of the Vincennes Land Office.