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Show 276 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT Number and Acreage of Bounty Land Warrants Issued Under Acts of 1847, 1850, 1852, 1855, to July 1, 1906* Acts of 160 acres Number Acres 120 acres Number Acres 80 acres Number Acres 40 acres Number Acres 1847 1850 1852 1855 Totals 80,689 12,910,240 27,450 4,392,000 1,223 195,680 115,599 18,495,840 97,086 224,961 35,993,760 97,086 11,650,320 11,650,320 57,717 1,699 49,486 4,617,360 135,920 3,958,880 7,585 103,978 9,070 542 303,400 4,159,120 362,800 21,680 108,902 8,712,160 121,175 4,847,000 Totals of warrants and acres Totals of warrants and acres by acts 160 acre warrants_______ 120 acre warrants_______ 80 acre warrants_______ 40 acre warrants_______ Miscellaneous (10, 60, 100 acre warrants)________ Totals_________________ 224,961 35,973,760 1847 88 ,274 13 ,213,640 97,086 11,650,320 1850 189 ,145 13 ,168,480 108,902 8,712,160 1852 11 ,992 694,400 121,175 4,847,060 1855 263 ,083 34 ,148,910 370 22,190 552,494 61,205,490 552 ,494 61 ,225,430 B Secretary of the Interior, Annual Report, 1906, p. 548. To these totals should be added the 2,666,080 acres given 16,663 veterans of the Revolutionary War in the U.S. Military Tract in Ohio, 4,891,520 acres given 29,471 soldiers of the War of 1812 in the three United States military tracts. A total of 3,186 soldiers elected to take the $10 and $25 Treasury certificates in place of 454,560 acres under the Act of 1847. Not included in this table is the Revolutionary War Scrip given veterans unable to locate their rights in the Virginia Military Tract. exchanges. For example, Jason Easton, one of the most extensive moneylenders and dealers in land warrants in Minnesota, who accumulated a fortune in lending at rates up to 60 percent interest to desperate squatters, on occasion had more warrants than he could lend at his high interest charge and used them to buy cattle or for other commercial purposes.80 Years of Economic Expansion, 1848-57 Emigration to the newly developing western communities was given a major impetus by the discovery of gold in California, the de- 80 Robert R. Jost, "An Entrepreneurial Study of a Frontier Financier, 1856-1863" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1957), p. 14. mand for American wheat abroad during the Crimean War, and the flow of European capital into American enterprises, especially into western railroads. The surge of population flowing westward from the older states and from northern Europe reached new, successive highs. We cannot quantify the westward movement of population except by comparing the population of the states as given in the Census of 1850 with that of 1860, but those figures are revealing. The population of Illinois and Wisconsin more than doubled during the decade and that of Iowa more than tripled.81 81 The statistics of immigration are from Historical Statistics, p. 57; the population data is from the Censuses of 1850 and 1860; the mileage of railroads is from Henry V. Poor, Manual of the Railroads oj the United States for 1870-71 (New York, 1870), p. xliv. |