The Ramblings of a Title Man

?? Earthquakes, land claims and casualty damage to land.

The most powerful earthquakes to ever hit the continental United States occurred in 1811 and 1812 along the New Madrid fault in the “boot heel” region of the Missouri Territory. The first quake on Dec. 16, 1811, was believed to measure between 7.5 and 7.9 on the Richter scale. An aftershock on the same day hit a few hours later and was believed to be magnitude 7.4.? Follow-up quakes occurred on Jan. 23, 1812, and Feb. 7, 1812.? The quake in February destroyed the small village of New Madrid, Missouri, and damaged homes as far away as St. Louis. The February quake was believed to be the largest and could have been magnitude 8.0. Eyewitness reports of the time tell of the Mississippi River running backwards during the quakes, and church bells as far away as Philadelphia, ringing due to mild shaking.?

But while the quakes that occurred back then were massive, what is often untold is the damage it did to land in the area and how title to the lands were impacted. Earthquake damage to land can be long-lasting. In addition to knocking down manmade structures, a phenomenon of “soil liquefaction” can occur. This causes land to be too porous to build on or plant crops. In the time period of 1811 and 1812, many settlers to the area had purchased land from the federal government.? Under the Land Ordinance of 1785, western lands were divided into 6-mile square townships of 36 sections and sold to raise needed revenue for the United States government. We still use the 6-mile square township survey method in more than three-fourths of the United States.

New Madrid was the first American settlement in the Missouri Territory. George Morgan, a Princeton graduate and famous Indian trader, was given a grant of 15 million acres in 1789 by the Spanish ambassador. Morgan sold land grants to future colonists to the area. Later, the Missouri lands reverted back to France and were sold to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Spanish land grants have been used to establish valid ownership during the period of westward settlement in the first half of the 19th Century.

But the earthquake changed all that. Settlers to the area complained that their land was not usable and sought compensation from the government. On Feb. 17, 1815, Congress passed the New Madrid Relief Act, the first federal disaster relief act in U.S. history. ?President James Madison signed the act during his second term.? The legislation provided for residents whose land had been damaged in the earthquakes to trade their land titles for a certificate that would be good for any unclaimed government land for sale elsewhere in the Missouri Territory. The only restriction was that the new grants had to be between 160 and 640 acres, regardless of how much or little land a person had previously owned. However well-intended this legislation was, it did little to help the residents of the area.?

Enter the speculators.? News of the New Madrid Relief Act reached St. Louis many months before it was known in the New Madrid area. Speculators were quick to buy up damaged land from local residents for just pennies on the dollar, only to turn around and apply for replacement lands worth 10 times as much in value. Five hundred sixteen certificates were issued by the federal government for redemption, but only 20 were issued to local residents of New Madrid. Of the 496 certificates issued to land speculators, 384 were listed as residents of St. Louis. Local New Madrid residents in many cases got nothing for their land, as the bank notes used to pay residents were often worthless due to a series of bank failures in the new territory. However, some residents got the last laugh. Several landowners caught on to what was happening and began selling their land many times over to multiple people. Some lands were sold 10 or 15 times. Before too long, the term “New Madrid land claim” came to be synonymous with a fraudulent land title.

Litigation over the resulting land claims tied up the courts for more than 20 years, with hundreds of fraudulent claims being pressed. Over the next three decades, Congress passed three more pieces of legislation to try to straighten out the mess. The last case stemming from the New Madrid Relief Act was finally settled in 1862, but even that settlement had to be delayed due to Missouri’s status during the Civil War as a member of the Confederate states.

Titles to lands in New Madrid County Missouri can still be traced to this period of history before the Civil War and the tangled mess created by the Spanish land grants, multiple sales, lawsuits and Relief Act certificates.

SOURCES:

- When the Mississippi Ran Backwards: Empire, Intrigue, Murder, and the New Madrid Earthquake by Jay Feldman (Free Press, 2005), p. 236

- Wikipedia.org – accessed 8/30/2018