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Show 536 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT classification system. Timberlands were surveyed, offered at auction exactly like other land, and rarely brought more than the government price of $1.25, for the lumbermen quickly learned to make agreements to prevent competition as speculators and settlers had done before. After the auction all offered land was subject to private entry in unlimited amounts at $1.25 an acre. Most timberland in the Lake States was entered with land warrants and scrip which were available at substantial discount prices. It has been seen that millmen of Saginaw Bay, Detroit, Green Bay, Eau Claire, and Minneapolis acquired tracts of timber extending from a few thousand acres to the huge Palms and Driggs holding of 486,000 acres, the Dodge, Satterlee and Mason holdings of 352.000 acres in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas. Most of the entries by these men were made under a proper construction of the law, though they were commonly given preferential treatment in selecting their lands at the local land offices. All but the most circumspect loggers and millmen at one time or another became involved with the law and some seemed frequently to be in difficulties but it was the small loggers who were most constantly in trouble. That the early days of government noninterference with logging on public lands was passing was clear by the fifties. Evidence of extensive trespassing on the public lands in Wisconsin is to be found in a frank communication of Alexander Montgomery, of Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, dated July 7, 1846. Montgomery reported there had been discussion in local ecclesiastical councils and in the pulpit on the subject of stealing timber from government United State* sold or gave away almost all its forested land in Wisconsin, its public lands policy showed no significant recognition that the great forest of the Lake States was an asset which might have distinctive value or present special problems for its wise use." land. Some ministers had declared timber stealing a heinous sin "altogether inconsistent with a profession of Godliness." Other professing Christians and some ministers held otherwise, defending the practice "as right in the sight of God and as tolerated by government." As a result of the dispute, a committee was appointed to consult with government officials to determine what countenance the government was disposed to give to the practice of taking timber from public lands and also "the weight of the arguments used by those who defend the practice. . . ." The questions the committee propounded to the authorities were: (1) Had the citizen any right to take timber on government land "from the fact that he is a citizen and thus one of the owners of all that is Government property?" (2) Is it a violation of law to take timber from unsold land when that land is open to entry? (3) Is it proper for a person to build a dam on a stream, overflow government land, and then prevent a purchaser who has bought overflowed land from interfering with the dam? (4) Does the fact that a man has bought prairie land justify him in taking timber from government land for fencing? (5) Is the marshal compelled to prosecute all complaints of timber trespass? Montgomery declared there was a "most destructive wasteful slashing of timber on the public lands in his vicinity; section after section had been stripped of all timber which could be used for rails or boards. Men who had an abundant supply of growing trees on their own land made a business of cutting all their needs on government land."13 Three years later the register of the Green Bay Land Office complained bitterly of the extent of timber stealing on the Menominee, the Peshtigo, the Oconto, and other streams flowing into Green Bay. Upwards 13 Letter of Alexander Montgomery, Beaver Dam, July 7, 1846, to the GLO Commissioner, "Miscellaneous Letters A," GLO. |