Texas A&M University [Land Scrip]
Name/Title
Texas A&M University [Land Scrip]Description
“San Francisco, California November 4, 1871 For Value Received, I hereby guarantee Agricultural College Scrip, No. 724, issued to the State of Texas and furnished by me this day to William C. Whetstone to be genuine and perfect in every respect; and I hereby agree that if said Scrip shall prove spurious, I will replace it with good Scrip, or Legal Tender Currency, without expense to the purchaser. William S. Chapman”Context
When Texas reentered the Union in 1870, the state became eligible for a grant of federal land as a result of the Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862. Since there was no federal land in Texas, the grant came in the form of scrip, that is, the right to public land in another state where the federal government owned land. The Texas share, 130,000 acres, was sold for eighty-seven cents an acre in 1871; the proceeds constituted the first endowment of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (now Texas A&M University). Texas A&M was one of thirty-two land-grant universities that received a share of California Indian land, raising approximately $3.6 million from over 1.7 million acres.Category
Agriculture
Being Texas, Bullock Museum