Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/249



over the island, shooting prairie hens and wild fowl for my meals. I found hundreds of graves of the red men on the island. Sleep on in peace, ye brave fellows, until the white man comes and with sacrilegious plow-share turns up your bones from their quiet and beautiful resting place! I returned to Camp Des Moines, musing over the loveliness and solitude of this beautiful prairie land of the West. Who can contemplate without amazement this mighty river eternally rolling its surging, boiling waters ever onward through the great prairie land for more than four thousand miles! I have contemplated the never ending transit of steamers plowing along its mighty current in the future, carrying the commerce of a mighty civilization which shall spring up like magic along its banks and tributaries.

“The steady march of our growing population to this vast garden spot will surely come in surging columns and spread farms, houses, orchards, towns and cities over all these remote wild prairies. Half a century hence the sun is sure to shine upon countless villages, silvered spires and domes, denoting the march of intellect, and wealth's refinements, in this beautiful and far off solitude of the West, and we may perhaps hear the tinkling of the bells from our graves.”

These descriptions of the country from 1832 to 1835, when Iowa was beginning to attract the attention of eastern people present a vivid picture of the beautiful prairies, rivers, valleys and groves before its soil was broken for cultivation and before its Indian population had removed from their favorite hunting grounds.

The first settlers upon the public lands found it necessary to establish rules and regulations for taking and holding claims. As the lands had not been surveyed, and were not yet in the market, there were no laws for the protection of settlers in holding their claims. It became necessary therefore for the pioneers to organize associations and establish such regulations as were required to protect their homes in the absence of law. The claim laws, while not legally enacted, were founded upon the theory that a majority of the people had a right to protect their property by agreeing to such regulations as they deemed necessary to accomplish that object.

They proceeded to adopt certain rules and organized a Court of Claims. The important features of the claim