From NKAA, Notable Kentucky African Americans Database (main entry)
Where did the money come from that was used to establish the A&M College of Kentucky?
(start date: 1865 - end date: 1871)Question: By one measure (relative inflated worth/purchasing power) in 1865, John Bryan Bowman raised the 2019 equivalent of $2,036,250 from at least 155 donors to buy the land and buildings that were essential for Kentucky University and its Agricultural & Mechanical College to begin operations in Lexington, KY between 1865-1866. At the end of the American Civil War, in a slave-holding southern state that remained in the Union, from where did this large amount of money come?
Ruth Bryan is an archivist at the University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center. She wrote and submitted this entry and the attached article that questions the origin of the money used to establish A&M College of Kentucky.