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Show PRIVATE LAND CLAIMS 107 largest claims.62 However, they must have seen there was little for any member of Congress to gain politically by supporting the claim and much to lose, for continued agitation about it did little to quiet the worries of people living on the tract. Under an Act of June 22, 1860, which was put through Congress so quietly that one of the most persistent enemies of special legislation had to confess that he had never heard of it, Glamorgan's heirs and three other persons with whom they may have been connected were able to have their long dormant claim considered by the local officers. A divided report was sent to the Commissioner of the General Land Office, where opinion seemed equally divided. Having been discredited by two land boards and recommended in part by a third, it reached the House Committee on Private Land Claims which in 1874 and again in 1876 proposed confirmation and the grant of scrip to the amount of 25,056 arpents to the heirs. Too many claims had gained approval of Congress in the past to please the growing number of land reformers and when a measure to provide the recommended relief came before the House, opponents tore into it and its one supporter. They demanded to know who would be the beneficiaries of the bill and, not getting the information, complained that the scrip to be granted would be used by speculators in pinelands or by others trying to anticipate homesteaders, and condemned it as another raid on the public lands. The measure was first limited by an amendment restricting entry of the scirp to Missouri and then was overwhelmingly rejected. Yet 4 years later, supporters of the Clamorgan claim were back again trying to gain confirmation.63 62 In 1851 the Supreme Court struck down another Clamorgan claim for 536,904 arpents in southern Missouri, which had long since gone into other hands. The grounds for its decision were failure to make any improvements or to conform to the minimum expectations for Spanish approval of title. The claim had been twice rejected by Boards of Land Commissioners and by the Federal District Court. 54 Stat. 252. 63 House Reports, 43d Cong., 1st sess., June 4, 1874, Vol. V, No. 635 (Serial No. 1626), and ibid., 46th Advocates of another claim once a part of Missouri absorbed the attention of land boards, Commissioners of the General Land Office, and Senate and House Committees on Private Land Claims over the course of many years to no good effect, except that they prevented confirmation of a very doubtful claim. The Dubuque claim dated from the late 18th century when lead mining was attracting attention in what is now eastern Iowa. Julien Dubuque was in debt to August Chouteau and John Mullanphy who ultimately took over ownership of the southern portion of Dubuque's claim to 75,000 to 150,000 arpents in eastern Iowa. When it was first presented to the Missouri Board of Land Commissioners it was called a complete Spanish title, though Lucas dissented. When the report of the board reached Albert Gal-latin, Secretary of the Treasury, he observed that the claim appeared to be a mere permission to work certain mines "without any alienation or intention to alienate, the domain," and was subject to revocation at will. He felt that the board ought not to have given certificates to the claimants which tended to give color to the title. The claim came before a reconstituted land board again in 1811, and again Lucas insisted on rejection. The other commissioners were reluctant to concur but finally agreed that the title should not be confirmed. Long years of delay followed, possibly because, with the admission of Missouri into the Union as a State and the establishment of its boundaries, the Dubuque claim was no longer within the territory covered by the Missouri land boards, and neither was there another land board before which the claimants could bring their case. Meanwhile, lead mining was attracting miners from Cornwall, and from river communities all the way from New Orleans to Dubuque, Galena, and Mineral Point. Squatters scattered all over the claim, though they Cong., 3d sess., Dec. 21, 1880, Vol. I, No. 28 (Serial No. 1982); Cong. Record, 44th Cong., 1st sess., July 14 and 21, 1876, pp. 3599-4603, 4805-09. Lemont K. Richardson, "Private Land Claims in Missouri," chap, on the Clamorgan claim is particularly good. |