1823-30 1823-31»: 1823-32 1830-31 1825-31 1828-33 -33^ 1832-35 1826-35 1830-35 1833-35 ^rairie 1833-35 1833-35 r 1830-33 - 1833-35 1832-36 1830-35 1825-35 1829-32 g. 1823-30 1826-34 1823-29 ^ 1826-35 = 1825-31 %
9
9
1828-35 1 8 2 8 -3 1 ^ — 1824-35 1823-28 I I p r a i r i e t i m b e r s w a m p a n d 14:-^ b o t t o m l a n d ^ t i m b e r / p r a i r i e b o u n d a r y y o n o r i g in a l l a n d s u r v e y mileFigure 4.2 Entry dates in Springfield township, Illinois
The dates in each square-m ile section indicate the range o f years during which the first land entries were m ade in the section. The boundaries o f vegetation types are outlined in S angam on county soil report (Univ. Illinois Agric. Expt. Sta. 1912). The tim ber/prairie boundary is based on plats and notes o f the original land survey carried out in the 1820s.
Source: Douglas R M cM anis, The initial evaluation and utilization o f the Illinois prairies. D epartm ent of Geography Research Paper 94 (Univ. Chicago, Chicago
in south-central Illinois. Sangam on county, w ithin which the Springfield land office was situated, lies less than 100 miles south o f M cLean county, w hich was also served by the Springfield land office. All land in Springfield tow nship was quickly disposed of. (Figure 4.2) The first entries in 1823 w ere in timbered sections; the last entries in 1837 w ere in flood-plain swamps. Flat, upland prairies w ere occupied about ten years after the first entries on the tim bered fringe and all prairie sections had been sold by 1835. It is not clear exactly w here the edge o f the tim bered land lay in 1820. The federal survey m apped a m uch sm aller area o f open grassland than that indicated by later soil surveys. The discrepancy may be attributed to errors or om issions in the federal survey but it m ay be explained partly by encroachm ent o f tree grow th on surfaces that had ceased to be burned over repeatedly and w ere no longer grazed by bison and deer. Certainly, no part o f the prairie was m ore than two m iles distant from timber. M any early settlers in Springfield cam e from southern states but speculators, including som e Yankees, w ere extrem ely active in purchasing prairies after 1830."^' In M cLean county in 1822, the first two fam ilies occupied a w ooded tract later know n as Bloom ing Grove. In the 1830s other northerners from Ohio, N ew Y ork and N ew England purchased tim berland. Extensive upland prairies w ere used freely as open range grazing. Figure 4.3 indicates the original tim bered areas, m apped in 1856 by Peter Folsom , the county surveyor. A rthur W atterson has shown that there is "a striking correlation betw een the forested areas and the lands entered by early s e t t l e r s . B y 1850, hardly any land m ore than a m ile from the edge o f woods had been occupied. Large areas o f open prairie w ere acquired by large landow ners. A m ong the largest was the holding o f Isaac Funk, w ho bought 27,000 acres betw een 1841 and 1861.'^^ Funk was a cattle rancher. O ther landlords let farm s to tenants, som e of them share-croppers.'^'^ By contrast w ith the district around Springfield, prairies in M cLean county w ere not rapidly taken into private hands and m any sections stood vacant in 1850. A fter that, the Swam p Land G rant, the Illinois C entral Railroad G rant and purchases by cattle kings sw allow ed the rem ainder o f the public domain.
Plats and notes of the federal land survey
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and letters written by pioneers, an im portant source of inform ation on land in the new ly-form ed public dom ain was recorded in the plats and notes o f the federal land survey. M any historians, geographers and ecologists have valued these records for their detailed descriptions and com prehensiveness but have also criticized their num erous inaccuracies and deficiencies. It rem ains to ask w hether or by w hat means observations m ade by federal surveyors were used by hom eseekers or land com panies in deciding w here to locate. How readily w ere the maps accessible to prospective purchasers, how widely dissem inated am ong members of the public w ere the surveyors’ notes and how deeply did these records influence individuals’ opinions and choices?
The Land O rdinance o f 1785, whose provisons w ere fram ed by a congressional com m ittee chaired by Thom as Jefferson, set up the federal land survey. Jefferson had three aims for the survey. The first aim was to bring lands northw est of the Ohio R iver and south o f Tennessee under direct control o f the federal governm ent until such times as new states were organized in the west.^^ The process w hereby a public domain was created was by obtaining cessions o f land from the states o f M assachusetts, Connecticut, V irginia and G eorgia, each o f w hich relinquished claim s over western territories. Cessions o f land w ere obtained by negotiating treaties with Indian tribes and further cessions were obtained by treaty or conquest: the Louisiana Purchase from France in 1803, the annexation o f Florida from Spain in 1819."^^ A second aim was to sell public land in order to reduce federal governm ent debt. The propriety o f selling land to pioneer settlers was fiercely debated. A lexander Ham ilton o f New Y ork argued that the financial security of the nation must" take priority over the accom m odation o f individuals. On behalf of pioneers, Jefferson contended: "By selling land you will disgust them and cause an avulsion o f them from the com m on union. They will settle the lands in spite of e v e r y b o d y . J e f f e r s o n yielded to the dem and that revenue m ust be raised from land sales and agreed to setting a m inim um price o f one dollar an acre. He hoped this w ould not prevent poor people from settling on uncultivated land. He rem ained com m itted "to provide by every possible means that as few as possible shall be w ithout a little portion of land. The small landholders are the most precious part o f the state."'^^ A third aim of the Land Ordinance of 1785 was to ensure that
adm inistrative boundaries and property boundaries were clearly and efficiently dem arcated and that entries to land were accurately registered. To achieve this objective a rectangular grid was laid out by chain and com pass survey, based on north-south principal m eridians and east-w est coordinates. Survey tow nships w ere m arked o ff at intervals o f six miles by six miles along axes o f the grid and these w ere subdivided into 36 sections, each m easuring one mile by one m ile, containing 640 acres. The lines o f sections were surveyed and corners m arked by blazing trees or erecting m arker stones.'^^ W hen large areas had been surveyed, land sales w ere held and entries to properties w ere registered in tract books at local land offices. At a later date copies o f tract books were transferred to W ashington, to state capitols and county court houses.
A fter eleven years’ trial and error and changes in political regim e, a new land ordinance was introduced in 1796. The basic principle of a rectangular survey system w as reaffirm ed and the dependency o f governm ent on land sales as a means o f paying o ff public debts was extended. The m inim um price was raised to two dollars an acre and the m inim um entry o f a 640-acre section was retained. These conditions favoured speculators and discouraged pioneers w ith little or no capital. M easures to treat settlers as trespassers and crim inals provoked resistance in the west. The 1796 act was follow ed by detailed instructions to deputy surveyors on how the field survey should be carried out. The act required surveyors to describe the land traversed by lines o f survey, to record mines, salt licks, mill sites and to assess "the quality o f the lands".^° The instructions, am plified and am ended in 1815 by the Surveyor G eneral, Edw ard Tiffin, provided fuller directions on w hat deputies w ere to "be careful to note" in their field books. Among other features, the instructions specified "all rivers, creeks, springs and sm aller stream s o f water, w ith their w idth, and the course they run in crossing the lines o f survey, and w hether navigable, rapid or m ountainous; the kinds o f tim ber and undergrow th with w hich the land may be covered, all swamps, ponds, stone quarries, coal beds, peat or turf grounds, uncom m on natural or artificial productions, such as mounds, precipices, caves, etc., all rapids, cascades or falls of water; mineral, ores, fossils, etc.; the quality o f the soil and the true situation o f all mines, salt licks, salt springs and mill seats, w hich may com e to your know ledge are particularly to be regarded and noticed in your note
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b o o k s . D e t a i l e d attention was to be paid to lines o f w atereourses and outlines o f lakes, ponds and swamps. The assessm ent o f land quality was specifically related to soil characteristics, with a view to agricultural use. The Surveyor G eneral intended surveyors to com pile an inventory o f land and resources. The Secretary of the T reasury also required copies o f descriptions o f 36-square-m ile tow nships to be recorded in a form that could be preserved for future inspection. A ccordingly he instructed the Surveyor General: "Plats o f each tow nship are to be neatly and accurately protracted according to law, on durable paper, by a scale o f tw o inches to a mile, w hich are to be recorded in books to be kept in your office. Copies o f the plats and field notes are to be made out on good paper, o f uniform size, and with such m argins as will admit of being bound in durable books, to rem ain in the T r e a s u r y . C l e a r l y , the Secretary o f the Treasury and the Surveyor G eneral agreed that a full description o f lands to be offered for sale ought to be provided but neither the act nor instructions explicitly stated how, w here or w hen the public should be given access to the records. Letters from the Surveyor G eneral to the Secretary of the T reasury in 1801 and 1803 im ply that the surveyors’ notes w ere intended to furnish interested persons with means o f identifying section corners and gaining an
idea o f "the quality o f the land, & c."^^ •
Joseph Schafer, W illiam Pattison and H ildegard Binder Johnson state that copies o f plats and notes deposited in local land offices were m ade available to prospective purchasers or anyone w ho was interested w hen surveyed lands w ere offered for sale.^"^ The descriptions appear to have been w ritten expressly for the purpose o f inform ing enquirers w hether land was suitable for cultivation, w hether tim ber or minerals* w ere present, w here springs rose or swamps or prairies covered the surface. The records are known to have been consulted by w riters o f guides, gazetteers, county histories, county atlases and the surveys them selves w ere directly transcribed in printed maps of states.
Field surveyors were often consulted directly. Schafer rem arks: "it is not to be w ondered at that their advice was sought after by the great m ass o f land hunters or that som e should have been tempted to use their special know ledge o f the public lands for the purpose o f advancing the interests o f them selves and their speculating f r i e n d s " . I n the course of their work, surveyors gained know ledge about potential
mill sites and places where towns or railways m ight be built. Such opinions w ere not recorded in the notes but might be valuable for developers or engineers. In 1837, during a congressional debate, a representative from M ississippi alleged that surveyors "note every valuable lot and sell the inform ation thus acquired to s p e c u l a t o r s . T h e charge was not substantiated and, w ithin the strict term s o f the public land acts, very little outright fraud was proved.^® Few er than 5% o f all surveyors’ plats and notes were found to fall short of legal requirements.^^ On the other hand, some surveyors left the federal service to take em ploym ent w ith canal builders, railroad constructors and mining com panies.
In the 1850s railroad com panies began to receive extensive grants o f public land and carried out their own surveys w ith the avow ed purpose o f attracting settlers. The B urlington and M issouri River Railroad, for exam ple, was granted a large area in southern Iow a and Nebraska. Bernard Henn, an experienced land agent gave detailed instructions to all his surveyors, directing them to: "M ake yo ur exam inations as thorough & your reports as full as if on each 40 you w ere w riting to your ladylove & describing the Paradise where you hoped to pass w ith her a blissful middleage."^^ The B urlington sold most of its land in 40-acre tracts and regular sales o f public land w ere suspended w hile the com pany m ade a selection of lieu lands. Lieu lands w ere equivalent in area and situation to lands form ing part o f the grant that had already been sold to other p a r t i e s . B y 1850 the disposal o f public laijd w as subject to m any acts and regulations. It had becom e an arena o f conflict for m any claim ants.
F or m ost purchasers, a surveyor’s classification o f the quality o f agricultural soils w as o f less im portance than a correct entry in the land office tract book and an accurate m arking o f lines o f townships, sections and subdivsions on the ground. Land classification, however, was crucially im portant to holders o f m ilitary bounty w arrants. In awarding warrants for bounty land in Illinois and M ichigan to veterans o f the w ar o f 1812, the federal governm ent directed that only land "fit for cultivation, not otherw ise appropriated" was to be selected. The question w hether large tracts of Illinois prairie were eligible becam e a legal issue. Taking a cautious view , registers and receivers at a land office in Edw ardsville, Illinois, decided to throw "into the class o f ‘unfit for cultivation’ much land described as first rate soil but w hich is prairie and distant from timber." A sim ilar decision was taken by a land office at
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Springfield w hich stated: "Although this land is represented as unfit for cultivation, it is from the circum stance o f there being no timber. The quality o f m uch o f this land, indeed the larger proportion, is excellent, and equal to any in the district, but its rem oteness from tim ber and w ater will prevent any im m ediate sale."^^ O ther prairie tracts in Illinois w ere deem ed fit for cultivation. E dm und D ana concluded: "About one h alf o f the Bounty Lands may be allow ed for prairie. O f those, a large part is the finest quality o f soil, being either a black vegetable m ould, or a dark, sandy loam, from 15 inches to three feet deep; generally bedded on yellow clay, m ixed w ith sand - the surface conveniently w aving for cultivation, and adapted to rend the prospects more charm ing. By the time the land survey reached Iow a and M innesota in the 1850s, upland prairie was frequently described as first rate and, w here tim ber was found, mostly second or third rate q u a l i t y O t h e r problem s arose in selecting lands for allocation to states under the Sw am p L and A ct o f 1850. The act required that swamp and overflow ed lands be classed as "unfit for c u l t i v a t i o n " . L a t e r adjustm ents were m ade to com pensate states for lands that had been sold before the act cam e into force. Regulations and instructions drafted by the Treasury and Surveyor G eneral closely reflected early A m erican prejudices against open grasslands. This attitude softened as m ore and m ore settlers entered small prairies at the edges o f tim bered land. Extensive prairies rem ote from tim ber were m ostly unoccupied in 1850. A bhorrence o f w etlands rem ained hard and deep until