In the matter of the acquirement of land no discrimination was made by the Canadian authorities against the fugitive settlers. On the contrary these unpromising purchasers were encouraged to take up government land and become tillers of the soil. In 1844 Levi Coffin found that "Land had been easily obtained and many had availed themselves of this advantage to secure comfortable homesteads. Government land had been divided up into fifty-acre lots, which they could buy for two dollars an acre, and have ten years in which to pay for it, and if it was not paid for at the end of that time they did not lose all the labor they had bestowed on it, but received a clear title to the land as soon as they paid for it."[587] [587] Levi Coffin, _Reminiscences_, pp. 252, 253. In 1848 or 1849 a company was formed in Upper Canada, under the name of the Elgin Association, for the purpose of settling colored families upon crown or clergy reserve lands to be purchased in the township of Raleigh. It was intended thus to supply the families settled with stimulus to moral improvement.[588] To whom is to be attributed the origin of this enterprise is not altogether clear; one writer ascribes it to the influence of Lord Elgin, Governor-General of Canada from 1849 to 1854, and asserts that a tract of land of eighteen thousand acres was allotted for a refugee settlement in 1848;[589] another says it was first projected by the Rev. William King, a Louisiana slaveholder, in 1849.[590] Mr. King's own statement is that a company of fifteen slaves he had himself emancipated became the nucleus of the settlement in 1849; and that under an act of incorporation procured by himself in 1850 an association was formed to purchase nine thousand acres of land and hold it for fugitive settlers.[591] [588] Benjamin Drew, _A North-Side View of Slavery_, p. 292. [589] George Bryce, _Short History of the Canadian People_, p. 403. [590] Benjamin Drew, _A North-Side View of Slavery_, p. 291. [591] S. G. Howe, _Refugees from Slavery in Canada West_, pp. 107, 108. The Canadian authorities facilitated the efforts made by the friends of the fugitives to provide this class such supplies as could be gathered in various quarters, and they entered into an arrangement with the mission-agent, the Rev. Hiram Wilson, to admit all supplies intended for the refugees free of customs-duty. Mr. E. Child, a mission-teacher, educated at Oneida Institute, New York, received many boxes of such goods at Toronto;[592] and at a hamlet called "the Corners," a few miles from Detroit, a Mr. Miller kept a depot for "fugitive goods." Supplies were also shipped to Detroit direct for transmission across the frontier.[593]