Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/283



A controversy had arisen between the people of the Territory of Iowa and the State of Missouri over the boundary line between them. By the act of Congress of March 6, 1820, defining the boundaries of Missouri, the northern line was described as follows:

“The parallel of latitude which passes through the rapids of the River Dee Moines, thence east along said parallel of latitude to the middle of the channel of the main fork of the said River Des Moines; thence down along the middle of the main channel of said River Des Moines to the mouth of the same, where it empties into the Mississippi.”

A line had been run in 1816 by J. C. Sullivan and marked by mounds and stakes to establish the northern boundary of the Territory of Missouri. It began one hundred miles north of where the Kansas River empties into the Missouri, thence east along that parallel of latitude to the Mississippi River. The “Rapids Des Moines” were thus first designated by Lieutenant Pike in his report of the exploration of the upper Mississippi in 1805. As he passed up that river by the mouth of the Des Moines River, he writes:

“On Tuesday, the 20th of August, we arrived at the foot of the Rapids Des Moines, which are immediately above the confluence of the river of that name with the Mississippi. The Rapids are eleven miles long with successive ledges and shoals extending from shore to shore across the bed of the river.”

These rapids in the Mississippi River were thus called by Lieutenant Pike “Rapids des Moines” and from that time to the present have been known as the Des Moines Rapids. But many have supposed that the “Des Moines Rapids” were in the Des Moines River, not only at the time of the controversy over the boundary line, but up to the present day, hence the misapprehension which led to the long and bitter controversy. There is no doubt that Missouri officials so understood, as this was the chief point upon which their claim was based in attempting to