Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 3.djvu/278

 Government which conveyed them by the highest and best title it could give.

In March, 1859, United States Attorney-General Black gave the opinion officially, in response to a request of the Secretary of the Interior, that the grant of lands did not extend above the Raccoon Fork. The old River Company still claimed the lands above the Raccoon Fork and E. C. Litchfield, a member of that Company, brought suit to procure a decision of the United States Supreme Court to settle the disputed northern limits of the grant of 1846. The Supreme Court rendered a unanimous decision at its December term, 1859, that the grant of 1846, was limited to the lands south of the Raccoon Fork and that the selection of lands under that grant north of that point was unauthorized and passed no title to Litchfield or the Des Moines Navigation Company from whom he purchased.

Thus after a long controversy and conflicting rulings of the Land Department the highest Court of the Nation had unanimously decided that no public land north of the Raccoon Fork of the Des Moines River was ever granted for the improvement of that river to the State and consequently could never have been legally certified or sold to that Company or its grantees. Consequently the lands still belonged to the Government or the people who had acquired title to them by entry or preëmption.

After the early decisions of the Land Department to the effect that the grant of 1846 did not extend above the Raccoon Fork, hundreds of settlers made preëmption or entered lands in Polk, Boone, Hamilton and Webster counties within the five miles limit of the Des Moines River. The Government officials accepted payment for the lands and the United States conveyed title to them. The grant of 1856 to aid in the construction of four lines of railroad across the State from east to west, embraced every alternate section of public land, designated by odd numbers, for six sections in width on each side of the