The bill failed to become a law. At the next session Senator Harlan introduced the following bill:
“Be it enacted by Congress, that should any settler on any of the public lands who made said settlement with bona fide intent to enter the same under the provisions of the homestead or preëmption laws of the United States and who has continued to reside upon and improve the same, or the assigns of any such claimant, who has continued such settlement, as aforesaid, until judgment may have been or may be rendered against him by a competent court of the United States; such settler shall be entitled to all the remedies and reliefs provided by the laws of the State in which said lands are located, enacted for the protection of the rights of occupying claimants. But nothing in this act shall be so construed as to affect the rights of the United States.”
This bill also failed. Mr. Harlan then introduced a
“bill to authorize the President of the United States to ascertain the value of certain lands in Iowa, north of the Raccoon Fork of the Des Moines River, held by settlers under the preëmption and homestead laws of the United States and subsequent to the settlement thereof determined by the Supreme Court of the United States to be Des Moines River improvement lands.”
This bill was not acted upon, as it was near the close of the session.
Captain Jackson Orr succeeded Mr. Pomeroy in Congress and at once proceeded to collect all of the important facts involved in the long controversy, had the statement printed and laid upon the desks of the members. The Iowa Legislature at its session of 1872, passed an act providing for the appointment of a Commission by the Governor
“to ascertain and report the names of all claimants, the amount and value of improvements, the value of each tract of land, the date of preëmption, homestead entry or purchase, the loss sustained by each claimant and such other facts as they may deem important, of all persons who have made improvements upon what are known as Des Moines River lands and have sustained or will sustain loss by reason of the decision of the courts in favor of the title of the Des Moines Navigation Company, or its
