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Show LAND GRANTS FOR RAILROADS AND INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS Sales of Illinois and Michigan Canal Lands'* 351 Year Acres Amount Lots Amount Total 1848 . 48,809 $212,154 2,227 $557,544 $769,698 1849 . 3,338 25,828 339 70,474 96,302 1850 . 6,443 40,212 325 82,750 122,962 1851 . 23,848 111,402 409 109,576 220,978 1852 32,871 289,911 692 198,903 488,814 1853___ 22,987 283,979 705 406,391 690,370 1854.- 42,559 335,732 401 272,548 608,280 1855 25,651 213,593 295 255,163 468,756 1856 10,922 130,683 342 84,177 214,860 1857 1,158 31,732 10,165 41,897 Compiled from Annual Reports of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, 1848-1857. Early Improvement of Muscle Shoals Congress tried another method to subsidize improvement of the navigation of the Tennessee River and a number of smaller streams. On May 23, 1828, it authorized the conveyance to the State of Alabama of 400,000 acres of relinquished land in six counties in the northwestern corner of the state, along which the Tennessee River flowed, for the improvement of the navigation of Muscle Shoals and Colbert's Shoals. The shoals were said to obstruct navigation of the Tennessee for a distance of 30 miles, though both below and above it steamboats could proceed without trouble; a canal, or removal of the obstructions, seemed called for and Congress voted overwhelmingly in favor of the measure. The relinquished lands were parts of larger tracts which had been purchased for speculation before the Panic of 1819 and later relinquished. Presumably the lands were attractive, being both near the river and 1854, Congress authorized the state to select from the remaining public lands held at $1.25 an acre this amount in lieu of what it had lost. In 1854 the 32,895 acres had been selected and 27,707 acres had been approved, the balance was held in abeyance because of conflicts. These are included in the 290,915 acres mentioned above. S. Ex. Doc, 34th Cong., 1st sess., Vol. I, No. 1 (Serial No. 810), p. 146. Krenkel, Illinois Internal Improvements, and James W. Putnam, Illinois and Michigan Canal ("Chicago Historical Society's Collection," Vol. X [Chicago, 1918]), are useful on the canal. promising for cotton growing, but they had not found new purchasers because of the depression and the almost complete cessation of speculative purchasing for a time. In the event that 400,000 acres of relinquished land were not found, the state was authorized to enter any unappropriated land in Jackson County to make up the deficit. Work on the river was to begin at the lowest point of obstruction. The Army Engineers were to survey and report the nature of the improvements to be made. Like the other internal improvements fostered at this time by state and national governments, the Muscle Shoals project was to be planned and possibly directed by the Army Engineers, and financed by a Federal land grant while the state was to do the work of construction and manage the sale of the lands at prices not below the government minimum.34 To secure the entire 400,000 acres, Alabama was obliged to take some land of inferior quality. The lands were offered for sale 34 Register of Debates, 20th Cong., 1st sess., May 19, 21, 1828, pp. 2733, 2744; 4 Stat. 290. As early as 1825 the Army Engineers had investigated the area around the Shoals, the possible water power available as part of the effort to locate a national armory in or near Florence, Ala., on the Tennessee. In the Engineers' report for 1825 it is stated that the United States had reserved a tract 7 miles square, 25 miles from Florence, containing an excellent quality of iron ore promising for forging. American State Papers, Military Affairs, II, 732. |
