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Show 204 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT the anti-renters of New York who were currently involved in a political campaign to secure relief from the demands of their landlords, the settlers on the Half-breed Tract organized for resistance. At a meeting in 1845 they resolved to tar and feather the representatives of the company.61 The company, for its part, was contemplating a few ejectments as an example to others, but was fearful of the reaction. The local agent was instructed to select for ejectment persons who might not easily stir up hostile feeling and who would not be too obstinate. Settlers petitioned Congress for aid against the company, but were told that the Federal government in the Act of 1834 had surrendered all authority over the land. Senator Augustus C. Dodge of Iowa denounced the company which had few friends in the Iowa Legislature.62 Long continued bickering, fighting, and litigation led the officials of the company to realize that some compromise was necessary. Its local agents were changed, settlers were assured that the company respected their occupancy rights (actually Charles Mason, who assumed charge of the property in 1852 had drafted Iowa's occupancy law), and during the next few years, with more gentle suasion, the settlers were induced either to sell their improvements or to buy the company title at modest prices.63 Before this dispute was well along toward settlement another and bigger agrarian conflict arose. In 1846 Congress granted land on the alternate section pattern to aid in improving the Des Moines River for navigation. The act was carelessly drafted by Congress without proper attention to earlier legislation which it affected; in turn it came into conflict with later railroad grant acts, 81 Kilbourne, Feb. 1, 1845, to Hiram Barney, Kil-bourne Letter Book. 82 John T. Norton, Albany, July 22, 1846, to D. W. Kilbourne, Kilbourne MSS.; Senate Reports, 30th Cong., 1st sess. (Serial No. 512), No. 198, July 3, 1848. 63 Both the Kilbourne and Mason collections in the Iowa State Department of History shed much light on this knotty question of the rights and issues on the Half-breed Tract. and officials of the General Land Office issued conflicting interpretations of the law. As a result more than a thousand settlers took up land in the Des Moines River Tract for which they secured patents, only to be ejected later because the government had erred.64 The first clash came in 1852 when the settlers organized an association for mutual protection, declared their intention not to pay more than the government price for their land and to "use every legal recourse and if it becomes necessary physical force to maintain" their rights. Their difficulty was that, because of overlapping grants, the lands were claimed by the State of Iowa, by the Navigation Company, and by a railroad, each of which went on selling its rights during the next 35 years. To protect their rights in improvements settlers found it necessary to buy their land two and sometimes three times. The conflict reached its final crisis in the late eighties when hundreds of ejectment suits were brought against settlers, resulting in a shooting affray. In 1893 some compensation was allowed the disillusioned settlers by Congress.65 A third series of clashes occurred, this time between settlers and a railroad, the Burling- 64 An Iowa State Commission reported on the losses settlers had suffered by improving lands for which they had either United States patents, warrantee deeds of railroads, deeds of the state government, or quitclaim deeds, or for which they had taken preliminary steps toward title under the Preemption or Homestead Acts. The number of claimants was 1,032; the value of their improvements was 5758,031; and their losses were estimated at $800,000. Report oj the Commission appointed under the provisions oj Chapter Seven oj the private local and temporary laws oj the Fourteenth General Assembly oj the State oj Iowa to ascertain the extent oj losses oj settlers upon Des Moines river lands by reason oj failure oj title (Des Moines, 1872); C. H. Gatch, "The Des Moines River Land Grant," Annals oj Iowa, I (April, July, October 1894, January 1895), 354 ff., 466 ff., 536 ff., 639 ff. Congress in 1893 appropriated $200,000 to adjust the claims of settlers on the Des Moines River lands. 65 Iowa Star, Jan. 24, Feb. 5, 1852; letters of J. Fred Myers, Nov. 24, 1888, Samuel Heffner, Nov. 29, 1888, and numerous others, to Governor William Larrabee, Des Moines Land Company Files, Governor's Archives, Des Moines. |