on, administration, and even
eventual sale of these sections with no reference to the limits of the
Congressional townships, thus permitting their consolidation into one
state fund. This precedent has been followed by all the states entering
the Union since 1837.

The plan of making a state trust of the public lands was a good one--on
paper. But with the rapidly growing population, envious eyes were soon
cast on these tracts by immigrants, many of whom settled on these
sections as squatters, to make endless trouble in the future with their
conflicting claims. The first lands definitely set aside were selected
by the Trustees of the old University of Detroit in 1827 within the
limits of what is now the city of Toledo. The selection could not have
been better, consisting in all of some 960 acres, but most unfortunately
the best part was exchanged in 1830, on the representation of
land-sharks, for poorer land and the land thus received was sold four
years later for $5,000. The remainder was disposed of fifteen years
later for about $19 an acre, bringing to the University a total of some
$17,000 for land which eventually came to be worth, literally, millions.
Meanwhile other tracts were being located in all the counties of the
State then organized. Soon after Michigan became a state, the
Superintendent of Public Instruction made an inventory of these which
showed that at $15 an acre they would bring a fund of $691,200 and an
annual income to the University of $48,384. At $20, which he thought
might easily represent their value, they would bring an annual income of
$64,912. The first sale justified his optimism, as the price averaged
$22.85 an acre, though only one-fourth of the purchase money was paid
in cash. But the people of the State soon began to murmur; they were not
interested in continuing these big reservations of choice land for an
object so remote as a university. The Superintendent of Public
Instruction, moreover, found himself involved in all kinds of trouble
with the purchasers. The matter finally came up to the Legislature under
the guise of a bill for the relief of certain settlers on university and
other state lands, which would have thrown these sections on the market
at a nominal price and insured the squatters permanent tenure. The bill
was a short-sighted and vicious one and was promptly vetoed by the young
Governor, Stevens T. Mason, because he felt these lands were given to
the State as a sacred trust