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Show CASH SALES, 1840-1862 199 quired in amounts of 1,000 acres or more. One student concluded that between one-half and two-thirds of the land of Iowa went through the hands of speculators.48 The Census of 1860 listed only 10,069,907 acres in farms in Iowa, though there was undoubtedly much more improved land that the census takers missed. If we add to this figure the 4,706,874 acres, as yet largely unsold, which were given to railroads, the 3,019,685 acres given the state, and the nearly 2 million acres of public land remaining unsold, there still is a balance of 15,778,574 acres unaccounted for, which were to a very considerable degree held for speculation. If one were to apply the proportion of speculator-owned land (1,000 acres or more) that Swierenga found in the Sac and Fox tract to the entire state, the amount would be 11,277,252 acres. On the other hand, Swierenga shows a relatively rapid turnover of speculator-owned land, a very considerable amount having been sold by 1860. In Description of Iowa and its Resources, a pamphlet to draw immigration to Iowa in 1865, William D. Wilson wrote that not less than 15 million acres or two-fifths of the state, were held by nonresidents.49 The largest purchasers of Iowa lands were either easterners actually lending settlers funds or military bounty warrants to enter 48 Robert P. Swierenga, "Pioneers and Profits. Land Speculation in the Iowa Frontier" (Ph.D. dissertation, Iowa State University, 1965), drew heavily on data prepared as part of a suit brought by the Sac and Fox Indians to recover from the United States a higher consideration for the land than they had received in 1842. He concludes that between one-half and two-thirds of Iowa land went through the hands of speculators. Swierenga has a useful article compressed from the dissertation: "Land Speculator 'Profits' Reconsidered: Central Iowa as a Test Case," Journal of Economic History, XXVI (March 1966), 1 ff. Manuscript records of land speculators show that some suffered heavy losses but no one truly familiar with the land business ever believed that investment in "good" land at government prices, if carefully managed with capital to carry the investment until conditions warranted sale, was not profitable. 49 Swierenga, "Pioneers and Profits," p. 71. lands on the usual frontier terms of 24, 36, and 48 percent interest, or they were western agents or "bankers" using eastern funds for the same purpose. Oddly enough, it was a southern group whose purchases and loans reached the highest figure. Easley & Willing-ham and Easley, Holt & Company were mercantile firms owning a system of stores scattered through different sections of Halifax County, Virginia. Their total entries of land in the West, made largely for settlers, amounted to 401,752 acres of which 328,000 acres were scattered over 51 counties in Iowa. James S. Easley described his method of lending money for the purchase of land: he would enter a quarter-section of land for a settler using land warrants that cost him from 90 cents to $1.10 an acre, and require that the settler pay $280 at the end of a year plus all land office fees. For 120-acre entries the payment was to be $210 and for 80 acres, $140. Easley allowed local agents, who rounded up settlers willing and anxious to have their claims entered for them, $5 to $10 for their services. He and his associates entered land for more than 2,000 settlers. Many of these entries were for people who had filed their declaratory statements and were looking forward to preempting their claims but had to call on Easley & Willingham for aid. In such cases the entry was marked on the books of the registers and receivers as "sub to preempt of. . . ."50 Another team of capitalists who made extensive loans to settlers were Miles and Elias White of Elizabeth City, North Carolina, and after 1849, of Baltimore, where Miles White was president of the Peoples Bank. Their total purchases of public land came to 165,483 acres, of which 146,000 were in Iowa. In addition they took over purchases of 24,000 acres made by others. In 1854 they were entering land for settlers who were re- 50 In the library of the University of Virginia is an extensive collection of letters and business records detailing the land business of Easley and Willingham and others associated with them. |