Polk Family Papers Box 9 Document 19

Beersheba Springs Tennessee July 22nd 1857

To Colonel Gywnn Civil Engineer

Dear Sir

You may have seen some notice of a movement of the authorities in the Dioceses of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the ten most southern states for founding & establishing a University on the most approved model & the most extended scale, at some place within their common territory, and that this movement has met the approbation & obtained the promised support, not only of the Episcopal portion of our population, but of a very large part of all others, before whom it has been brought.

You may also have seen that these Dioceses by their representatives, have met in convention on the 4th July currant, at Lookout Mountain in East Tennessee, near Chattanooga for organizing a board of Trustees to carry this purpose into execution.

The Delegates to this meeting were some of the most eminent Citizens in the Southern States, and the influence and resources represented 7 pledged for carrying the project into execution were such as to place its success beyond a doubt.

Our purpose is to erect within the Southern States an institution which shall place the South in a position of absolute independence of all others at home or abroad, as to educational advantages, in the higher walks of learning. We have all the elements, intellectual, social & pecuniary to do this. And now that we have succeeded in combining the interest & will of those interested in regard our way as open before us.

A point of the greatest consequences now is to fix on the date which shall

on the whole best combine the advantages we deem important to visit in a locality for that purpose. To discuss & fix upon such a point, it was thought best by the meeting just held, to appoint a committee of one from each state & it was made the duty of that committee to collect certain facts connected with certain localities thought eligible & to report therese at an adjourned meeting to me held in Alabama on the 25th Nov. next.

In order that this committee may discharge the duty assigned it with satisfaction to itself & those it represents, it has thought proper in matters involving the Expenditure of large sums of money & the success of a measure which in a sense may be considered national, to invoke the aid of science in the determination of the questions it deserves to have solved.

I am requested by the Committee to communicate with you as a gentleman of attainments, character and general reputation, eminently qualifying you to discharge the trust & to ascertain whether you would undertake it. What we wish is to have satisfactory answered to the interrogations contained in the accompanying list.

The points which wish examined are such as the authorities of the towns of Knoxville Chattanooga & McMinnville, Tennessee, Atlanta, Georgia & Huntsville Alabama may indicate near their respective corporations.

Provision will of course be made for a satisfactory remuneration of your services while engaged on the work & we earnestly trust that the magnitude of importance of this enterprize, the pervading intent felt throughout the south as its being fixed at the proper place, will warrant your turning aside from your usual pursuits long enough to perform the duty I have indicated.

You will perceive the time at your disposal is from this to say, the 15th Nov next.

You will oblige me by allowing me to have your answer at your earliest leisure

I am X - Leonidas Polk Chairman of the Com. on Location

P.S.

Any assistance you may deem it expedient to require, may be furnished by yourself at the expense of the Committee. We should prefer that gotten from a distance. I may add there are as you may know, rail roads extending from the sea to all the points named, so that the elevations are readily obtained.