Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/253



until the title was finally settled. A receipt for taxes paid on the land should be held as sufficient evidence of title to enable him to hold said land. At the next session an act was passed to enable the settlers to have a lien upon the land for improvements made. At the session of 1848 an act was passed permitting the defendant in an action for ejectment to raise a question of fraud in procuring title by plaintiff, whatever the nature of the title claimed might be, and the allegation of fraud should be investigated by the judge. It was further provided that no writ of possession could be issued until payment for improvements had been deposited with the clerk of the court.

The Legislature in all of its acts inclined to protect the actual settlers upon the lands against the claims of speculators who were seeking to get possession of them. But the Supreme Court decided that the act of 1840 could not be interposed against a title confirmed by the judgment of partition; that the act of 1840 became inoperative as soon as the title to the lands was settled by law. The Supreme Court also decided that nothing in the act of 1845 could be held valid which would impair vested rights. The court also decided that judgment could not be enforced against the plaintiff for value of improvements in excess of rents and profits for use of the land. Litigation over the titles to these lands continued for many years, sometimes favoring one class of claimants and again favoring the adverse interest.

In 1845 a decision was made in the case of Reid vs. Webster (a settler) in the Territorial Supreme Court, Charles Mason, Joseph Williams and Thomas S. Wilson, judges, which confirmed the title of Reid to the entire half-breed tract of 119,000 acres for which he had paid less than $6,000. But a judgment so manifestly unjust was not permitted to stand. When the territory became a state, the Supreme Court was reorganized, John F. Kinney and George Greene having succeeded Mason and Wilson. The court thus constituted, in another case brought by Reid