History:  History of the State of Iowa
From the A.T. Andreas Illustrated Historical Atlas of the State of Iowa, 1875

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TERRITORIAL RELATIONS.
	Having finished our Indian history, we resume the territorial relations of 
Iowa from the purchase of Louisiana by the United States.  The region of country 
comprehended in this purchase, included all the territory west of the Mississippi 
from the Gulf of Mexico north to the British Possessions, comprising what are 
now the States of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, 
Minnesota, Colorado and Oregon, the Indian Territory, New Mexico, and the 
Territories of Idaho, Montana, Arizona, Dakota, Washington and Wyoming.  The 
American flag was first raised in New Orleans December 20, 1803.  By an act of 
congress, approved October 31, 1803, the President of the United States was 
authorized to take possession of the territory, and provide for it a temporary 
government.  By another act of the same session, approved March 26, 1804, the 
newly acquired country was divided, October 1, 1804, into the Territory of 
Orleans, south of the thirty-third parallel of north latitude, and the District of 
Louisiana, which later was placed under the authority of the officers of Indiana 
Territory.  On the 4th of July, 1805, under an act of Congress, approved on the 3rd 
of March preceding, the District of Louisiana was organized into a Territory of 
the same, with a government of its own, in which condition it remained till 1812.  
On the 30th of April, in that year, the Territory of Orleans became a State of the 
Union under the name of Louisiana, and on the first Monday in December, by 
virtue of an act approved June 4th, 1812, the Territory of Louisiana was 
reorganized, and called the Territory of Missouri.  By an act of congress, 
approved March 2, 1819, which took effect July 4th, of that year, Arkansas 
Territory was formed, comprising the present State of Arkansas, and the country 
to the westward.  By a joint resolution, approved March 2, 1821, the State of 
Missouri, being a part of the Territory of that name, was admitted into the Union.  
By an act of Congress, approved June 28, 1834, the territory bounded on the east 
by the Mississippi river, and on the south by the State of Missouri, was made a 
part of the Territory of Michigan.  On the 4th of July, 1836, Wisconsin Territory, 
embracing within its limits the present States of Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin, 
was taken from that of Michigan, and given a separate government.  On the 4th of 
July, 1838, by virtue of an act of Congress,  approved June 12th of that year, the 
Territory of Iowa was constituted, including, in addition to the present state, the 
greater part of what is now Minnesota, and extending north to the British line.
	By an act of congress, approved March 3, 1845, provision was made for 
the admission of Iowa into the Union as a sovereign State, with boundaries 
extending on the north to the parallel of latitude passing through the mouth of the 
Blue Earth River, and on the west only to 17"30' west from Washington, 
corresponding very nearly to the existing line between Ringgold and Union 
Counties on the one hand, and Taylor and Adams on the other.  The 
Constitutional Convention of 1844 had adopted much more extensive boundaries 
even than those of the present state, the northwestern line extending from the 
mouth of the Big Sioux, or Calumet River, direct to the St. Peters, of Minnesota 
River, where the Watonwan River (according to Nicollet's map) enters the same; 
thence down the main channel of said river to the main channel of the Mississippi, 
and thence down the Mississippi; embracing within it proposed limits some of the 
richest portions of the present State of Minnesota.  The reduction of these 
boundaries by congress being distasteful to the people, the admission was rejected 
at a popular election, and in 1846 Congress proposed new boundary lines, which 
were embodied in the constitution adopted that year – the state retaining the 
Missouri slope, but submitting to a material reduction of her pretensions on the 
north, her western line in that direction, however, being extended to the Big Sioux 
river.  The Constitution, with these modified boundaries, having been accepted by 
the people, the State of Iowa was farmally [sic] admitted into the Union on the 
28th day of December, 1846, as the twenty-ninth state in the National 
Confederacy.
	Before proceeding with the political history of Iowa, we shall attend to 
some other events connected with the exploration and early settlement of the 
country.

PIKE'S EXPEDITION
	Soon after the acquirement of Louisiana, the Government of the United 
States took measures to explore the new territory, with a view of conciliating the 
various tribes of Indians, and selecting sites for the establishment of the military 
posts.  St. Louis was then headquarters of the army of the West, under command 
of Gen. James Wilkinson.  From the subordinate officers of this garrison the 
President selected Captain C. Clark and M. Lewis, and Lieutenant Zebulon M. 
Pike, the former to explore the unknown sources of the Missouri, and the latter the 
Mississippi to its head waters.
	On the 9th of August, 1805, Pike started on his tour from the military camp 
near St. Louis, with one sergeant, two corporals, and seventeen privates, in a feel-
boat, with provisions for four months.  One the 20th of August they arrived within 
the present limits of Iowa, at the foot of the Des Moines Rapids, and were met by 
William Ewing, who had just been appointed Indian Agent at this point, a French 
interpreter, and four chiefs and fifteen Sac and Fox Indians, who assisted them in 
crossing the rapids.  At the head of the rapids, where Montrose is now situated, he 
held a council with the Indians, in which he addressed them substantially as 
follows: "Your Great Father, the President of the United States, wished to be 
more intimately acquainted with the situation and wants of the different nations of 
red people in our newly acquired territory of Louisiana, and has ordered the 
General to send a number of his warriors in different directions, to take them by 
the hand and make such inquires as might afford the satisfaction required."  At the 
close of the talk he presented them with some knives, whisky and tobacco.
	Pursuing his way up the river, he arrived on the 23rd of August at what is 
supposed from his description to have been the site of the present City of 
Burlington.  Here he selected a location for a fort.  He describes the place as being 
'on a hill, about forty miles above the River de Moyne Rapids, on the west side of 
the river.  In latitude about 41"21' north.  The channel of the river runs on that 
shore, the hill in front is about sixty feet perpendicular, nearly level on top.  Four 
hundred yards in the rear is a small prairie, fit for gardening, and immediately 
under the hill is a limestone spring, sufficient for the consumption of a regiment."   
In addition to this description, which answers to Burlington, the place is laid 
down on Pike's map at a bend in the river, a short distance below the mouth of the 
Henderson, which empties into the Mississippi from Illinois.  Though the fort was 
subsequently erected at Fort Madison, yet from the distance, latitude, description, 
and map furnished by Pike, it could not have been the place selected by him, 
while all the circumstances strongly corroborate the opinions that the place 
chosen was Burlington, called by the early voyageurs on the river "Flint Hills."
	On the 24th, Pike, with one of his men, went on shore to hunt, and 
following a stream which they supposed to be a part of the Mississippi, they were 
led out of their intended course.  His two favorite hunting dogs, which he took 
with him, owing to the heat and tall grass, gave out on the prairie; but supposing 
they would soon follow him, he left them and continued his march to overtake the 
boat.  He struck the river ahead of the boat, where he waited some time for his 
dogs to come up.  But the dogs not coming, and thinking it not expedient to detain 
the boat longer,  two of his men volunteered to go in pursuit of the dogs, and he 
pursued his voyage up the river, supposing the two men would overtake him.  But 
they got lost on the prairie, and were six days without anything to eat except a few 
mussels, which they gathered from the stream, and would in all probability have 
perished, had they not accidentally fallen in with a trader, who was on his way to 
St. Louis, and gave them assistance.  He procured a couple of Indians, with a 
canoe, to take them up the river, and they overtook the boat at the Dubuque lead 
mines.
	Julien Dubuque, though a Frenchman, and holding a mining claim under 
Spain, received Pike with cordiality on his arrival at the mines, on the first day of 
September, 1805, firing a salute with a field piece to signalize the advent of the 
first Americans who ever landed in that section of Iowa.  Dubuque, however, 
wishing to keep the wealth of his mines a secret from the Americans and the rest 
of mankind, condescended to give the young and evidently inquisitive officer but 
little information on the subject.
	Leaving the mines, Pike pursued his way up the river, arriving at Prairie 
du Chien on the 4th of September.  This was an old French trading post, the oldest 
and most noted on the Upper Mississippi.  The old village which had been first 
erected by the French voyageurs and traders who came down the Wisconsin, 
stood about a mile below; the town which Pike visited was first settled in 1783 – 
the year of the treaty of peace at the close of the Revolution – by three 
Frenchmen, Giard, Antaya and Dubuque. At this time the village contained 
twenty-six dwellings; there were eight houses within a distance of five miles on 
the east side of the Mississippi, and three on the west side, on Giard's Spanish 
claim, making in all thirty-seven dwelling houses, which were supposed to 
average about ten persons each, making a population in and about Prairie du 
Chien of three hundred and seventy souls.  There were very few white women in 
the settlement, most of the traders having taken Indian women for wives, so that 
most of the inhabitants under twenty years of age had the blood of the aborigines 
in the veins.
	Wabasha, chief of the lower bands of the Sioux, met Pike at Prairie du 
Chien, and returning to his village near the mouth of the Upper Iowa River, sent 
down a delegation of six of his men to invite him to partake of a feast at his lodge.  
When they arrived opposite the village the warriors were stationed on the bank 
with their guns, and fired three salutes with balls, which were returned from the 
boat with blunderbusses.  On coming to the shore, the chief met the commander 
of the expedition, and invited him to his cabin.  He accompanied him to his lodge, 
where he found a clean mat and a pillow prepared for his reception.  The chief, 
having passed the pipe around, addressed Pike to the following effect:
	That notwithstanding he had seen him at the Prairie, he was happy to take 
him by the hand among his people, and there show his young men the respect due 
to their new father.  That when at St. Louis in the Spring his father had told him 
that if he looked down the river, he would see one of his young warriors coming 
up.  He now found it true, and was happy to see him, who knew the Great Spirit 
was the Father of all, both the white and the red people, and if one died the other 
would not live long.  That he had never been at war with their new father, and 
hoped to always preserve the good understanding that now existed.  That he now 
presented him with a pipe to show the upper hands as a token of their good 
understanding, and that they may see his mark and imitate his conduct.  That they 
had gone to St. Louis on a shameful errand – to carry a murderer 0 but that the 
Americans, had given the man his life, and they thanked them for it."
	To this friendly speech Pike replied, telling him of the object of his visit, 
that his government was about to establish a military post among them, and to 
send officers and agents into their country to attend to their wants.  After the 
conference was closed, they partook of a dinner prepared of wild rye and venison, 
and making the chief some presents, Pike proceeded on his journey up the river.

	On the 22d of September they arrived at the mouth of the St. Peter's 
(Minnesota) River, near which, a short distance up the river, was a large village of 
Sioux.  In the afternoon, Le Petit Corbean, the head chief of the Sioux Nation, 
came down from the village with one hundred and fifty warriors.  They ascended 
the hill between the Mississippi and the St. Peter's, on which Fort Snelling now 
stands, and fired a salute with their guns loaded with balls, after which 
arrangements were made for a grand council the next day.  The council lodge was 
composed of Pike's sails spread over some poles on the shore, and there on the 
23d of September, at 12 o'clock, the council met.  In this council the Sioux gave a 
grant of land to the United States amounting to one hundred thousand acres, and 
on this grant Fort Snelling was erected in 1819-20.
	The expedition left St. Peter's on the 26th of September, and on the 16th of 
October halted two hundred and thirty-three miles higher up the river.  Here some 
of his men becoming sick through exposure and fatigue, he erected a fort at the 
mouth of a small stream for their accommodation, and left then, with a part of his 
stores, in charge of Sergeant Kennerman.  On the 8th of January, 1806, Pike with 
one man, his corporal, having outmarched the rest of his men, arrived at a trading 
post on Lake De Sable, in latitude 47".  This post was occupied by a Mr. Grant, 
an Englishman.  It had been established in 1796, and belonged to the Northwest 
Company.  They had a large number of Indian horses, raised plenty of Irish 
potatoes, and had an abundance of various kinds of fish and meat, though most of 
the time they had to use bread made out of wild oats.  The English first extended 
their trade into this country in 1766, through the agency of a few desperadoes, 
whose mode of life and habits were more like savages than civilized men.  From 
this small beginning the powerful Northwest Company came into existence, 
which in 1806 carried on a trade with the Indians from Hudson's Bay to the St. 
Lawrence, up both sides of that river and along the lakes to the head of Lake 
Superior at which place the Company had their headquarters; from thence to the 
sources of the Red River of the North, and its tributaries, west to the Rocky 
Mountains embracing within their scope the territory of Iowa, and at that time 
were making arrangements to extend their trade west to the mountains and to the 
North Sea.
	On the first of February, Pike arrived at the head waters of the Mississippi, 
and passed thence to Lake La Sang Sac, twelve miles beyond which he came to 
the establishment of the Northwest Company, where he was hospitably received 
by Mr. High McGillis, the Superintendent.  This trading post was located on 
Leech Lake in the latitude 47"16'13[degrees].
	After visiting various other trading posts, holding councils with the 
different Indian tribes, and accomplishing successfully the object of his mission, 
Pike and his company started on their journey back to St. Louis, amidst the shouts 
and acclamations of the Indians, many of whom had remained at the headquarters 
of the Northwest Company to see them start.  Pike arrived in St. Louis on the 30th 
of April, 1806, having accomplished a mission of great service, not only to Iowa, 
but to the whole Northwest, by paving the way for the peaceful recognition of the 
authority of the United States throughout this portion of her vast dominions.

SPANISH GRANTS
	Certain claims were made to lands in the territory now embraced in Iowa 
under the Spanish government of Louisiana before the country came into the 
possession of the United States.  These we propose now to consider.
	Dubuque's Claim. – On the 22d of September, 1788, Julien Dubuque, a 
Frenchman, of Prairie du Chien, obtained of the Fox Indians a cession of lands for 
mining purposes on the Mississippi River, embracing the site of the present city of 
Dubuque.  A lead mine had been first discovered here by the wife of Peosta, a 
warrior of the Kettle chief's village, in 1780.  The claim of Dubuque embraced 
nearly all the lead-bearing area of this vicinity, and proved to be very valuable.  
Dubuque immediately took possession of his claim, with a company of miners, 
and commenced mining, which he continued till the time of his death, in 1810, at 
the same time making a settlement and living at the mines, which were known as 
the "Spanish Mines," or more commonly, "Dubuque's Lead Mines."
	In 1796, Dubuque filed a petition with the Baron de Carondelet, Governor 
of Louisiana, for a Spanish grant of the tract ceded to him by the Indians.  In this 
petition the boundaries of the claim were indefinitely described as "about seven 
leagues along the Mississippi River, and three leagues in width from the river," 
including, as has been supposed, the river front between the Little Maquoketa and 
the Tete des Morts Rivers.  Probably the tract exceeded twenty thousand acres.
	In answer to his petition the Barono de Carondelet gave Dubuque the grant 
asked for, which was subsequently confirmed by the Board of Land 
Commissioners of Louisiana.  In October, 1804, Dubuque transferred the larger 
portion of his claim to Auguste Choteau of St. Louis, and on the 17th of May, 
1805, he and Choteau jointly filed their claims with the Board of Commissioners.  
On the 20th of September, 1806, a majority of the Board of Commissioners 
pronounced the claim to be a complete Spanish grant, made and completed prior 
to the first day of October, 1800; only one member of the Board, John B. C. 
Lucas, dissenting.
	Dubuque died at his mines March 24th, 1810.  The Indians understood that 
the cession made of the claim was only a permit to Dubuque to work the mines 
during his life, and so at his death regarded the mines as reverting to them again, 
and subsequently took possession of them and went to mining, in which 
possession they were sustained by the military authority of the United States.  
When the Black Hawk Purchase was made, the Dubuque claim was absorbed by 
the United States, in the general relinquishment of the Indian title to the territory 
in which it was embraced, no reservation being made of it by the Sacs and Foxes 
in the treaty of 1832.
	Soon aster this treaty, the heirs of Choteau began to look after the interest 
of their claim.  In the latter part of 1832 they employed an agent to lease to the 
miners the right to dig lead on the lands.  The miners being driven off by the 
military, one of the claimants went to Galena with a view of instituting legal 
proceedings, but found no court of competent jurisdiction.  In order to test the 
title, be brought an action at Galena for the recovery of a quantity of lead which 
had been dug at the Dubuque mines, and brought there for sale; but not being able 
to identify the lead, he was non-suited.
	After Dubuque had been laid out by an act of Congress, approved July 2, 
1836, and lots had been sold under that act, and another amendatory of it, passed 
March 3, 1837.  Henry Choteau brought an action of ejectment against one 
Patrick Malony, holding land in Dubuque under a patent from the United States, 
for the recovery of seven undivided eighth parts of the Dubuque claim, as 
purchased by Auguste Choteau in 1804.  This was tried in the District Court of the 
United States for the District of Iowa, and decided adversely to Choteau, who 
appealed on a writ of error to the Supreme Court of the United States, where the 
cause was tried at the December term, 1853, and the decision of the lower court 
affirmed.
	The court held that the permit from Carondelet was a mere lease to work 
the mines; that nothing was asked or granted by the Governor of Louisiana, but 
the "peaceable possession" of certain lands obtained of the Indians; that 
Carondelet had no legal authority to make such a grant as was claimed; and that, 
even if he had, this was only an "inchoate and imperfect title."
	The Giard Grant. – The Spanish grant known as the "Giard Tract," 
situated in what is now Clayton County, Iowa, was ceded by the Lieutenant 
Governor of Upper Louisiana to Basil Giard, in 1795.  It contained six thousand 
eight hundred and eight and a half arpents, or five thousand seven hundred and 
sixty acres.  In consideration of his occupancy of the claim during the time the 
country passed from Spain to France, and from France to the United States, our 
government, on the 2d of July, 1844, issued a patent of the same to Giard in his 
own right.  The whole tract was sold by the heirs of Giard to James J. Lockwood 
and Thomas  P. Barnett, of Prairie du Chien, for three hundred dollars.
The Honori Grant. – On the 30th of March, 1799, Zenon Trudeau, acting 
Lieutenant Governor of Upper Louisiana, granted to Louis Honori a tract of land 
on the site of the present Town of Montrose, I the words following:  "It is 
permitted to Mr. Louis (Fresson) Honori to establish himself at the head of the 
rapids of the River Des Moines, and his establishment once formed, notice of it 
shall be given to the Governor General, in order to obtain for him a commission 
of a space sufficient to give value to such establishment, and at the same time to 
render it useful to the commerce of the peltries of this country, to watch the 
Indians and to keep them in the fidelity which they owe to his majesty."
	Other privileges were given in this grant to enable Honori to carry on a 
successful trade with the Indians.  He took immediate possession of his claim, 
which he retained till 1805.  While he was engaged in carrying on trade with the 
Indians, he became indebted to Joseph Robedoux, who, in a suit to recover the 
debt, obtained judgment, and the property was sold on his claim.  In these legal 
proceedings the property was described as being "about six leagues above the 
River Des Moines."  At the time of the sale part of this tract had been improved 
by Honori, "by building houses, planting orchards, and a small piece was under 
fence and in cultivation."
	Robedoux died soon after he purchased the property.  By his will he had 
appointed Auguste Choteau his executor, and authorized him to dispose of the 
property, which he did to Thomas F. Reddeck, in April, 1805.  Up to this time 
Honori, although the property had been sold to pay his debts, continued to occupy 
it.  This grant, when at first made by the Spanish government, was a league 
square, but only one mile square was subsequently confirmed by a patent from the 
United States.  After the "Half-Brees sold their lands, in which tract it was 
included, the different claimants brought it into litigation to invalidate the title of 
the Reddeck heirs; but it was finally decided in the Supreme Court of the United 
States, in 1839, in their favor.
	
THE HALF-BREED TRACT.
	Before any permanent settlement had been made in the territory of Iowa, 
white adventurers and traders many of whom were scattered along the Mississippi 
and its tributaries, as agents or employes [sic] of the American Fur Company, 
intermarried with the squaws of the Sac and Fox tribes of Indians, producing a 
race of half-breeds whose number was never very definitely ascertained.  Some of 
these adopted the habits of the white men, which at that day were a sort of 
compromise between savage and civilized life; others lived and consorted with 
the Indians, and were hardly distinguishable from them in appearance or manners.  
There were, indeed, some respectable and excellent people among the half-breeds, 
children of men of some distinction and learning, who, no doubt, from their 
natural affinity for noble women, selected from among the squaws wives worthy 
of themselves, whom they loved and lived with on terms of mutual respect and 
amity, and whose children were well reared and educated.  We know of some 
such.  There was, for instance, Doctor Mair, a gentleman educated in Edinburgh, 
Scotland, and a surgeon in the United States service at the military post where 
Warsaw is now situated, who married a woman of the Sac of Fox tribe of Indians, 
and brought up his family of three daughters in the city of Keokuk.  Other 
examples might be sited, but they are probably exceptions to the general rule, and 
few of the half-breeds of any description remain in this region at the present time.
	On the 4th of August, 1823, a treaty was made at Washington between the 
United States and the Sacs, and Foxes, in which that portion of Lee County 
afterwards known as "the Half-Breed Tract," was reserved to the half-breeds of 
their nation.  This reservation was bounded by the Mississippi and Des Moines 
Rivers, reaching on the former to Fort Madison, on the latter to a point about 
twenty-eight miles above its mouth, and thence by a line running directly to the 
Mississippi, including a small portion of the lower part of the present city of Fort 
Madison.  It embraced what are now the Townships of Van Buren, Charleston, 
Jefferson, Des Moines, Montrose and Jackson, in Lee County, and contained 
110,000 acres. 
	The Treaty of 1824, like all Indian treaties, gave the half-breeds a right in 
the soil, but no right to convey, the reversionary right being reserved to the United 
States.  But on the 30th of January, 1834, an act was passed by Congress 
relinquishing the reversionary right, which gave the half-breeds a title to their 
lands in fee simple.
	As soon as that was done, a horde of speculators rushed in to trade and 
bargain with the half-breeds for their lands, and in many instances they were 
obtained for considerations the most trifling.  A gun, a blanket, an Indian pony, or 
even a few quarts of whisky, often sufficed to purchase large estates.  There was a 
good deal of sharp practice on both sides.  Full blooded Indians, who seemed to 
have no idea of the nature of an oath.  They would thus cheat the speculators by 
selling them lands which did not belong to them.  The speculators, on the other 
hand, would often lay claim to lands which they had no ownership in.  This went 
on till things got pretty badly mixed up throughout the half-breed territory.  There 
were no authorized boundary lines defining the location or limits of any one's 
claims, and conflicts and quarrels arose on all sides.
	To prevent this, and to open up the territory to actual settlers; to decide the 
validity of claims and partition them among the claimants, or sell them for the 
benefit of the actual owners, the Legislature of Wisconsin Territory passed an act 
on the 16th of  January, 1838, and commissioners were appointed, consisting of 
Edward Johnstone, Thomas S. Wilson and David Brigham, with power to carry 
out the objects of the act.
	The Commissioners met at Montrose and summoned the claimants to 
appear before them and prove up their claims.  The process of taking testimony 
went on till the next session, when influences were brought to bear upon the 
Legislature to repeal the act; not only setting the whole subject of claims afloat 
again, but depriving the commissioners of their pay for their services.  The act 
under which they had been appointed provided that they should have six dollars a 
day; but as their services were in behalf of the owners of the half-breed lands, the 
Legislature justly decided that said owners should foot the bills.  When the 
repealing act was introduced, the friends of the Commissioners attached thereto 
certain sections giving them a lien on the half-breed lands.  The second section of 
the act provided that the several Commissioners, by and under the act repealed, 
who were authorized to sit and take testimony, etc., under said act, "may 
immediately, or as soon as convenient, commence action before the District Court 
of Lee county for their several accounts against the owners of the half-breed 
lands, and give eight weeks' notice in the Iowa Territorial Gazette to said owners 
of such lands; and the Judges of said District Court, upon the trial of said suits 
before it at the next term, shall, if said accounts are deemed correct, order 
judgment for the amount and cost to be entered up against said owners, and said 
judgment shall be a lien on said lands," etc.  The third section declared "the words 
'owners of half-breed lands lying in Lee County' shall be a sufficient designation 
and specification of the defendants in said suits."  And by the fifth section it was 
provided that 'the trial of said suits shall be before the court, and not a jury; and 
this act shall receive a liberal construction, such as will carry out the spirit and 
intention thereof."
	At the August term of the District Court of Lee County, two judgments 
and executions on these lands were obtained, one in behalf of Edward Johnstone 
for twelve hundred and ninety dollars; the other in behalf of David Brigham for 
eight hundred and eighteen dollars, for services rendered as Commissioners; and 
the whole half-breed tract was sold to Hugh T. Reid.  The sheriff returned on both 
the executions that had levied "on the half-breed Sac and Fox reservation in Lee 
County, Iowa Territory, commonly called the half-breed tract, and had advertised 
and sold the same for twenty-eight hundred and eighty-four dollars and sixty 
cents,"
	In pursuance of this sale the sheriff made to Hugh T. Reid, the purchaser, 
a deed for the lands levied on, containing one hundred and nineteen thousand 
acres, more or less.
	Mr. Reid on coming into possession of this immense tract, sold more or 
less of it at different times, and to different purchasers, but the titles based on the 
judgments did not hold good. For a while the defendants were successful in 
maintaining them, and obtained decisions in their favor both in the District and 
supreme Courts; but they were finally reversed in the noted case of Joseph 
Webster, plaintiff in error vs. Hugh T. Reid, tried in the Supreme Court of the 
United States, in December 1850.
	The "judgment titles" failed because no notice had been served on the 
persons owning the land, and no attachment or other proceeding had been served 
till after the judgments had been rendered. The judgments were therefore 
pronounced "nullities" by the court, and it was held that they did not authorize the 
executions on which the land was sold.
	Some nine years before the "judgment titles" were finally abrogated in the 
above decision, another class of titles were brought into the competition with 
them, and in the conflict between the two, the final decision was obtained.  We 
refer to the titles based on the "Decree of Partition" issued by the United States 
District Court for the Territory of Iowa, on the 8th of May, 1841, and certified to 
by the clerk on the 2nd day of June of that year. Edward Johnstone and Hugh T. 
Reid, then law partners at Fort Madison filed the petition for the decree in behalf 
of the St. Louis claimants of half-breed lands.  Francis S. Key, author of the Star-
Spangled Banner, who was then attorney for the New York Land Company, 
which held heavy interests in these lands, took a leading part in the measure, and 
drew up the document in which it was presented to the court.  Judge Charles 
Mason, of Burlington, presided. The plan of partition divided the tract into one 
hundred and one shares, and arranged that each claimant should draw his 
proportion by lot, and should abide the result whatever it might be. The 
arrangement was entered into, the lots drawn, and the plat of the same filed in the 
Recorder's office, October 6, 1841.
	It is not the place here to discuss the fairness or unfairness of this mode of 
settlement --- a point about which much feeling has existed, and much litigation 
obtained in times past. Suffice it to say that, whatever may have been the 
grievances and animosities of the parties claiming to have suffered by it, it is the 
law, and has stood the test, either by legal trial on its merits, or by compromise, 
and is the ground on which titles to land in the half-breed tract are now held.