The third section gave the company the right to take from the public lands earth, stone, or timber necessary for the construction of the road; and provided that unless the work was commenced within two years after the approval of the act, and completed within eight years thereafter, the grant should “cease and determine”. It provided, moreover, that if the road should be abandoned or discontinued, even after its completion, the grant was to “cease and determine”.
So far as can be learned, this road was never completed. It is inserted so fully for the purpose of showing the gradual growth of the system.
Next to this came a grant to the East Florida and other railroads, similar in general terms to those previously referred to. It required, however, the companies to file, with the Commissioner of the General Land Office, maps showing the location of their roads. This was to be done within six months after such locations. I am unable to find that any of those roads were ever constructed. Certainly, no evidence thereof was ever furnished the General Land Office.
A grant similar to the one to the New Orleans and Nashville company was made by act of March 3, 1837, to the Atchafalaya Railroad and Banking Company in Louisiana.
Many grants of like character and extent were made from time to time, as also donations in favor of various other internal improvements. The greatest of these latter, however, were the grants in aid of improving the navigation of the Des Moines River in Iowa, and the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers in Wisconsin, which were approved August 8, 1846.
The first of these made a grant to the then Territory of Iowa, for the purpose of improving “the navigation of the Des Moines River from its mouth to the Raccoon Fork (so called), in said Territory”, of “one equal moiety, in alternate sections, of the public lands (remaining unsold, and not otherwise disposed of, encumbered, or appropriated), in a strip five miles in width on each side of said river, to be selected within said Territory by an agent or agents to be appointed by the governor thereof, subject to the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States”. The second section provided that “the lands hereby granted shall not be conveyed or disposed of by said Territory, nor by any State to be formed out of the same, except as said improvements shall progress; that is, the said Territory or State may sell so much of said lands as shall produce the sum of thirty thousand dollars, and then the sales shall cease until the governor of said Territory or State shall certify the fact to the President of the United States that one-half of said sum has been expended upon said improvement, when the said Territory or State may sell and convey a quantity of the residue of said lands sufficient to replace the amount expended, and thus the sales shall progress as the proceeds thereof shall be expended, and the fact of such expenditure shall be certified as aforesaid.”
Section 3 declared that the river should forever remain a public highway for the use of the Government, free from toll or other charge whatever; and provided that the Territory or State should not dispose of the lands at a price less than the minimum price of public lands.
The grant to Wisconsin for the improvement of the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers, though approved the same day, was somewhat different from the Des Moines grant. It provided that “there be, and hereby is, granted to the State of Wisconsin”, upon the admission of Wisconsin as a State (which, by the way, had been provided for by an act approved two days before), “for the purpose of improving the navigation of the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers in the Territory of Wisconsin, and of constructing the canal to unite the said rivers, at or near the portage, a quantity of land, equal to one-half of three sections in width on each side of said Fox River, and the lakes through which it passes from its mouth to the point where the portage canal shall enter the same, and on each side of said canal from one stream to the other, reserving the alternate sections to the United States, to be selected under the direction of the governor of said State, and such selection to be approved by the President of the United States”. The rivers, when improved, were to remain forever public highways for the use of the Government, free from toll; and the sections reserved to the United States were not to be sold for less than $2.50 per acre.
By the second section, the legislature of the State was to accept the grant and fix the price at which the lands were to be sold (at not less than $1.25 per acre), and adopt such kind and plan of improvement as was for the best interests of the State.
The provisions for the sale of the lands were the same as in the Iowa grant, except that the sum to be realized by such sales was fixed at $20,000.