Encyclopedia Dubuque
"Encyclopedia Dubuque is the online authority for all things Dubuque, written by the people who know the city best.”
Marshall Cohen—researcher and producer, CNN
Affiliated with the Local History Network of the State Historical Society of Iowa, and the Iowa Museum Association.
LEASING SYSTEM
LEASING SYSTEM. Under the procedure begun in 1833, John P. Sheldon was sent to Dubuque from Washington, D.C. as the government superintendent. Sheldon then issued written permits to miners and licenses to smelters.
Permits gave miners the right to stake off two hundred square yards of land on which to prospect. The miner, however, was required to take his ore to a licensed smelter. Each licensed smelter was required to post a bond with the superintendent and pay a fixed percentage of all lead he processed to the government for use of the land.
Several years of operating under this system led many miners to refuse to recognize the government's right to the land. In 1846 the government took several miners to court as trespassers, but juries hearing the cases only assessed the defendants five cents in damage. Faced with heavy legal expenses and a hostile public, the government put the land up for public sale that ended the controversial policy.
Beginning in 1835, miners in Dubuque were also faced with claims by the Chouteau family of St. Louis who claimed to be heirs to the lands once worked by Julien DUBUQUE. Chouteau proposed leasing the land to the miners. This uncertainty of land ownership was eventually settled in the case of CHOUTEAU v. MOLONY.
