The Morrills and Reminiscences - C. H. Morrill

The state first undertook the work of internal improvement in 1853, but owing to political interference and scarcity of labor very little progress was made. The state then entered into a contract with local parties for the completion of the work. Later the contract was assigned to parties in New York City, known as the Des Moines Navigation Company, and by its terms the entire land grant was given for completion of the work. Very little, however, was accomplished by this company. In the spring of 1859 there was a great flood, and during the high water the Des Moines Navigation Company ran a boat to Fort Dodge. They then set up a claim to the title of the entire land grant, and in the same year the United States District Court decided that the land grant was valid. As a matter of fact, very little effort was made by the Navigation Company toward rendering the river navigable.
Settlers who occupied these lands claimed them under the United States Government preemption laws, and refused to recognize any rights claimed by the Navigation Company. In 1866 the United States Circuit Court of New York, in a suit brought by New York parties, decided that the Navigation Company had a good and sufficient title to all lands included in the grant. In 1868 the Commissioners of the United States General Land Office authorized the United States Land Office at Des Moines to accept the government filings. The same order was sent from Washington, D. C., to the United States Land Office located at Fort Dodge. Some of the settlers made final proof

under the pre-emption laws and received patents from the government for their lands. Late in 1868 the United States District Court in Iowa decided that the patents issued to the settlers were void. Thousands of settlers had been induced to locate there by reason of the favorable decisions of the general land office, and because the Navigation Company had done nothing entitling it to the lands. The settlers were well aware that a stream, practically dry during the summer months, and ice-bound during four months of the winter, could not be made navigable. These settlers then organized and refused either to vacate or purchase the lands from the Navigation Company. As the United States Supreme Court's decisions were in favor of the Navigation Company, United States marshals were directed to eject settlers from these lands. The settlers armed themselves and refused to leave their homes. Then began a reign of terror. Both sides went prepared to defend themselves. Several agents of the Navigation Company were shot by the settlers; marshals were attacked; many families of the settlers, numbering about two thousand, were ejected from their homes and some were imprisoned for violating the orders of the court. The Navigation Company, through its agents, continued to harass the settlers by serving notices on them that they must vacate the premises or purchase the land from the company.
Owing to these conditions, permanent improvements were neglected, and most of the settlers lived in mere

shacks. Many bills were introduced in Congress to reimburse the settlers for money paid by them to the government. In 1872 there were two hundred and forty suits pending against settlers for rent and damages. A commission was appointed by the Governor of Iowa to ascertain the value of the improvements on the land, which was found to be one million five hundred thousand dollars. For more than twenty years the rights of settlers who had lost their land were ignored. Not until 1894 did Congress pass an act to return to them the money paid into the United States Land Offices as purchase price under the pre-emption act.
In the meantime, many of the settlers, driven from their homes, had died or gone to other territory to secure new homes. The title of the Navigation Company was, in the end, confirmed. This vast tract of land was the finest and most fertile in Iowa. Much of the land along the river was covered with fine oak and black walnut timber, and, being adjacent to vast tracts of prairie land, it was of great value. It was during this contention that I settled on an eighty-acre tract of this land. During the first summer we lived in a small shack having one room. The roof was constructed of elm boards, badly warped and cracked by the hot sun. Whenever it rained, most of the water came through, wetting the bedding and everything inside the so-called house. We had at that time about five hundred dollars, a team of horses, and a wagon. This money was soon expended in the pur-

chase of two cows, a few pigs, and enough lumber for a small house. As I had always lived in Concord, New Hampshire, I knew nothing about farming, and my wife was a city bred girl. Everything we tried to do seemed a failure. I knew nothing about the care or management of horses and cattle. My wife knew just as little about farmhouse work, such as making butter or caring for chickens. We had practically no comforts in the house, and no cellar -- only a hole in the ground with dirt walls, a very inviting place for rats and mice. I spent the first summer breaking prairie for some of my neighbors, and a few acres for myself. We had no tillable land, and therefore no crop. Our new house was twenty-eight by twenty-five feet, one story high, and divided into four small rooms. It was so poorly built that during the first winter Mrs. Morrill, while at work in the kitchen, froze her feet so badly that she suffered for several years. A pail of water standing in the kitchen over night sometimes froze solid. During the first year our daughter Lilla was born. At the end of this year, or in the fall of 1866, my health was very poor. I had a violent cough and showed symptoms of tuberculosis. In September, in company with Mr. J. P. Smith, I went to Boone, sixteen miles south, and was examined by a lung specialist. He said I had consumption and advised me, if I had friends in the East, to go to them as I was in a very serious condition. When the cold weather came on I began to improve and decided to remain in Iowa.


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