grant of three hundred acres in each of five townships just laid out in the western part of the colony.

In 1746 the institution which has become Princeton University received its first charter under the name of the College of New Jersey. Six years later, when the original location was abandoned and Princeton was chosen for a permanent home, the inhabitants of the town granted to the little school ten acres for a campus and two hundred acres of woodland.16

Dartmouth College owes its origin to the efforts of Reverend Eleazar Wheelock to establish a school for the education of the Indians for missionary service among their own tribesmen.17 In 1771 the town of Hanover, New Hampshire, in which the college was finally located, granted to the school three hundred acres of land.18 The year before the provincial government had given to the trustees of the institution the township of Landaff. The title to this tract proved to be defective; but in 1789 compensation was made to the college by the grant of 40,960 acres on the Connecticut River.19

After the separation from England the land holdings of many of the colonies were greatly increased by the taking over of the Crown lands and the confiscation of the estates of the loyalists. In several of the states a portion of this land was used for the endowment of colleges.

In 1780 Virginia donated eight thousand acres of her recently acquired lands within the present state of Kentucky "for the purpose of a publick school, or seminary of learning," to be established west of the Alleghanies.20 Three years later these lands were given to Transylvania Seminary." In 1784 several tracts of land near Williamsburg and Jamestown were granted to "William and Mary university."22 From the time of its establishment in 1693 this college had received government aid, but not in the form of land grants.28

During the Revolutionary period and the years immediately succeeding, the most extensive grants for the support of colleges were made by the new state of Vermont. Reference has been made to the reservations for a a college in the township grants by New Hampshire before the war and the reservations for the same purpose by Vermont during the final years of the war. So extensive were these reservations that in 1787 provision was made for the appointment of an overseer in each county to care for the college

16 David Murray, "History of Education in New Jersey," United States Bureau of Education, Circular of Information, 1899, pp. 212, 227-228.

17 F. W. Blackmar, "The History of Federal and State Aid to Higher Education in the United States," United States Bureau of Education, Circular of Information, 1890, pp. 116-117.

18 Hammond, Town Papers, New Hampshire, 12: 159.

19 Ibid., 361.

20 Hening's Statutes at Large, 10: 288.

21 lbid., 11: 283.

22 Ibid., 11: 406.

23 lbid., 3: 123.

lands.24 The policy was further extended in 1785 by the granting of twentythree thousand acres to Dartmouth College.25

In 1779 the legislature of Pennsylvania authorized the executive council to reserve as many of the confiscated estates as might be necessary for the support of the provost and masters of the College, Academy, and Charitable School at Philadelphia, the present University of Pennsylvania.20 The yearly income of the institution from this source was not to exceed fifteen hundred pounds. In 1786 Dickinson College became the beneficiary of a grant of ten thousand acres. 27 The next year Franklin College received a similar endowment.28

In 1782 the legislature of Maryland gave the "visitors of Kent County School" authority to raise the school to the rank of a college and granted to the new institution the lands of its predecessor.29 Two years later it offered a campus to St. John's College in case it should choose to locate at Annapolis.30

In a measure ordering the survey of two or more new counties the Georgia legislature of 1784 provided for the reservation of twenty thousand acres of land in each county for the endowment of a college or seminary of learning. This grant was a first step toward the establishment of the University of Georgia.

31

The College of Charleston was incorporated in 1785 and was vested with the land provided for the free school at Charleston half a century before.82

In 1789 the act of incorporation of the University of North Carolina provided that all property that had theretofore or should thereafter escheat to the state should be vested in trustees for the benefit of the University,33

The next year New York devoted several large tracts of land to the support of Columbia College, an institution to-day known as Columbia University.

Prior to 1787, the time when the question of federal land grants for the support of universities came up for serious consideration in Congress, eight of the original thirteen states had made use of public land for the maintenance of institutions of learning of college rank. In a ninth, New Jersey, the only land grant of this kind had come from a local community. Two other states, North Carolina and New York, adopted the policy within the next three years. Delaware and Rhode Island had no college until the next century.

CHAPTER IV

LAND GRANTS FOR MILITARY PURPOSES

Land grants for military defense took two forms during the colonial and Revolutionary period: to encourage the settlement of armed men on exposed frontiers and to reward soldiers for military service. Virginia adopted the former method in 1679 to guard against the incursions of hostile Indians. A tract of land on the Rappahannock River containing about fortyfour square miles was granted to a military officer upon condition that he locate two hundred fifty settlers upon it within fifteen months and keep fifty of them equipped with arms and in readiness to repel an attack at a moment's warning. Provision was made in the same manner for the defense of the region at the headwaters of the James.1

In 1701 the colonial assembly offered ten thousand acres of land to any group of men that should settle on an unprotected frontier and maintain there twenty men fully equipped for military service. For every additional soldier the grant was to be increased by five hundred acres, the total, however, not to exceed thirty thousand acres. The executive council of Georgia, in 1778, proposed a similar system for the Florida frontier.3

In 1696 Connecticut granted a township to a company of volunteer soldiers in reward for their services in a war with the Narragansett Indians.* In 1755 the proprietors of Pennsylvania, to regain possession of their western lands and to safeguard them against future encroachments, offered a bounty, varying from two hundred to one thousand acres, according to the military rank of the grantee, to every man who should join the expedition to drive the French from the Ohio and who should settle on the land within a fixed time thereafter.5

At the close of the French and Indian War in 1763 the King of England granted to every private soldier who had served in that war fifty acres of land, to non-commissioned officers two hundred, and so on up to five thousand for field officers."

It was, however, not until the commencement of the War for Independence that land grants were used extensively for soldiers' bounties During this critical period the burden of taxation became exceedingly oppressive

1 Hening's Statutes at Large, 2: 448-452.

2 Ibid., 3: 204-207.

3 Revolutionary Records of Georgia, 2: 50.

4 Colonial Records of Connecticut, 1689-1706, p. 186; Connecticut Historical Society, Collections, 3: 300.

5 Colonial Records of Pennsylvania, 6: 504.

6 Laws of the United States, 1: 446.

in many of the states. Gold and silver money retreated into the strong-boxes of the well-to-do and continental currency became almost worthless. Accordingly, when the Crown lands and the confiscated estates had been added to their land holdings, the states naturally resorted to land bounties to encourage enlistments or to pay for services rendered.

Connecticut was quick to fall back upon the expedient she had relied upon as a colony. In 1776 she promised a land grant of one hundred acres to all soldiers who should serve during the course of the war.”

In 1778 South Carolina, apparently copying the Rhode Island act, offered a land bounty of the same amount and upon practically the same condition. In the event of the death of a soldier while in service the land was to go to his heirs."

Virginia, the state with the largest land holdings in the West, adopted the policy the next year. Every private who should enlist to serve to the end of the war and who should complete his term was to receive one hundred acres. Officers were promised the same amounts as officers of the Continental Army. Subsequent acts extended the land grants to army surgeons and chaplains,10 increased the grant to soldiers to three hundred acres,11 and made the right to receive land inheritable.12 The provision for officers was especially liberal. Major generals were given fifteen thousand acres, brigadier generals ten thousand, and the lower ranks in proportion.13

In 1779 Maryland offered fifty acres to soldiers who should enlist for three years, and one hundred acres to each recruiting officer who should secure the enlistment of twenty men within a specified time.1 Pennsylvania in 1780 provided for a bounty varying in amount from two hundred acres for a private soldier to two thousand acres for a major general.1 Providing the grantee did not dispose of the land, it was to be exempt from taxation during his life.16

The same year North Carolina provided that every soldier who should serve three years or to the end of the war should receive "one prime slave" and two hundred acres of land. Two years later the land grant to private soldiers was increased to six hundred forty acres and liberal provision was made for officers.18 The distinguished Rhode Island general, Nathaniel Greene, received a grant of twenty-five thousand acres, presumably in recognition of his brilliant southern campaign.19 Georgia followed a similar pol

icy.20 Rhode Island devoted the confiscated estates of the loyalists to the payment of the arrears of the wages of her troops.21

A New York act of 1781 offered a bounty of five hundred acres to private soldiers who should enlist for three years, and larger amounts to officers. The same measure sought to encourage the enlistment of negro slaves by offering to the master five hundred acres for each slave who should join the army and to the slave his freedom at the end of three years.22 The next year six hundred acres were offered to any one who should furnish an ablebodied man for three years' service.22

In 1786 sixty-four square miles of land were granted to the "sufferers in opposing the government of the pretended state of Vermont."24

During this period the Continental Congress, even though it owned not one acre of land, encouraged enlistments by means of promises of land bounties.

20 Revolutionary Records of the State of Georgia, 2: 791; Laws of Georgia to 1820, 264.

21 Records of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, 9: 171, 608.

22 Laws of New York, 1: 350-351.

23 Ibid., 432.

24 Ibid., 2: 338.