Page:The Pacific Monthly volumes 1-3.djvu/168

 established, and has grown to such pro- portions and attained such a degree of excellence that it is a pride of the people.

In closing his recommendations as to education, Governor Stevens said: "I will also recommend that congress be memorialized to appropriate land for a university." The legislature also acted promptly in this matter. Congress had granted for the Oregon university two townships of land, and on March 22, 1854, congress was memorialized for two

townships of land for the Washington university. In the incredibly short space of four months, or on July 17, 1854, congress granted the land as re- quested.

At this time a government census showed the total population of the new territory to be just 2965 souls. The boundaries then extended from the Pacific ocean to the Rocky mountains, embracing, besides the present area, portions of Idaho and Montana. In spite of their few numbers and the miles of wild lands between their settlements, they had unbounded ideas of universities. On January 29, 1855, they established two, one at Seattle, another on Boisfort plains, in Lewis county. The agents appointed to select the granted lands failed to do their part, and on January 30, 1858, the universities were consolidated and located on Cowlitz Farm prairie, in Lewis county. Again the lands were not selected. The pioneers along the shores of Puget sound grew tired of this jugglery, and on January 25, i860, they incorporated the Puget Sound University, but before a building could be erected the other pioneers relented, and in January of 1861, the university was relocated in Seattle. Hon. Arthur D. Denny, founder of the city, gave a ten-acre site. The legislature named Rev. Daniel Bagley, John Webster and Edmund Carr a commission to select the granted lands, to sell them for not less than one dollar and a half an acre, and to build the university; They did it.