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Show 98 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT tional trouble to the courts. Rich deposits of lead in the region back of St. Genevieve had long been mined in the crude fashion of the day, producing wealth for the entrepreneurs. Among the leading figures in mining in the American period were Moses Austin, Francois Valle, and John Smith T. Smith had acquired a 10,000-arpent floating concession from Jacques St. Vrain which he interpreted as entitling him to take possession of every new mine opened upon the public lands. The firm of Dodge, Wilson and Craighead was developing a mine they called Shibboleth which promised to be quite productive; Smith claimed that his floating right permitted him to extend his title over their mine site, as well as over a number of other promising developments, which he took over from their discoverers and lessees and operated. Smith's monopolistic activities and claim jumping elsewhere in the mining area all contributed to what was called "mineral-mania" and to disorders, contempt for law, and reckless and destructive mining practices that went with it. Dodge, Wilson and Craig-head found that Smith's questionable claim carried more weight in the local courts than the firm's lease from Federal authorities.28 Government officials clashed with settlers over squatters' rights and the right of preemption. The latter led to particularly angry recriminations in areas where the private claims had not been adjudicated or finally determined. Under an Act of April 12, 1814, every person who had actually inhabited and cultivated a tract of land in Missouri Territory or Louisiana and who had not removed from the territory or state was entitled to a preemption right by which he could acquire 160 acres at the government price provided application was filed 2 weeks before the public sale.29 There was as yet no land office opened at which settlers entitled to this privilege could file their applications and naturally few tried to do so.30 Then out of the blue came a Presidential Proclamation of December 12, 1815, stating that "many uninformed or evil-disposed persons have taken possession of or made a settlement on the public lands" which had been "expressly prohibited" by the Anti-Intrusion Act of 1807. All such persons were warned to remove from the land and those not leaving were threatened with forcible removal by military force and prosecution in the courts.31 The Federal marshal in St. Louis, reporting the excitement aroused by the proclamation, warned that not "five Militia men of this Territory would . . . march against the intruders on public lands." An immediate question arose: did this proclamation have any bearing on owners whose land claims had been rejected or who had been awarded only a small part of their claim? Naturally it caused consternation among small settlers whether they had a private claim or might only be entitled to a preemption. Their protests, joined with those coming from other regions perhaps, led Congress to take another questionable step which increased Mis-sourians' disrespect for land law. This was an Act of March 25, 1816, allowing any person occupying land before February 1, 1816, to become tenants at will of the United States on as much as 320 acres, provided they first signed a declaration that they would give quiet possession when it was sold by the government.32 Anyone understanding western feelings toward absentee government and the intensity of feelings against Federal land policy in Missouri could have predicted that the measure would be disregarded. In 1814 confirmation was authorized of incomplete grants up to a square league- presumably 6,000 acres-which were made 28 Territorial Papers, XIV, 5-7; Thomas Maitland Marshall, Life and Papers of Frederick Bates (2 vols., St. Louis, 1926), I, 251 ff. Benton was attorney for Smith. 29 3 Stat. 122. 30 The St. Louis land office was to be opened in June 1816, but it was many months before it was prepared to do business because the surveys had not been completed. Territorial Papers, XV, 199, 219. 31J. D. Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, I, 572; Territorial Papers, XV. 110-12. 32 !5 Stat. WO. |