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Lot 303
Honey War! Call for Mounted Volunteers in Border War Between Iowa and Missouri
Description:

Honey War! Call for Mounted Volunteers in Border War Between Iowa and Missouri

Iowa Territory Brigadier General Augustus C. Dodge calls on militia for mounted volunteers to assemble in Burlington to travel to Van Buren County, Iowa, to protect the boundary against the Missouri militia. The short-lived Honey War was settled peacefully when commissioners from both sides called on the governors to send the militias home. It took another decade and a U.S. Supreme Court case for the federal government to decide to revise the original 1816 survey of the border.

[HONEY WAR; IOWA.] Augustus C. Dodge, Printed Document Signed, Order Calling for Volunteers from Iowa Militia, December 7, 1839, Burlington, Iowa Territory. 1 p., 7.75" x 10". Some toning and staining on edges; small hole at top center, not affecting text; very good.

Complete Transcript
Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Head Quarters,
Second Brigade, First Division, Iowa Militia
Burlington, Iowa Territory, December 7, 1839.
To the Citizen Soldiers of the 1st Regiment, 2d Brigade:
I have this moment received an order from Major General Browne, commanding me to furnish from this brigade one Company of Mounted Men, armed and equipped for active service, directing the Company, when organized, to report to him at Farmington, Van Buren county, with the least possible delay.
In the absence of any regularly organized Mounted Companies in this brigade, the Brigadier General, relying upon the patriotism of the Citizen Soldiers of Des Moines, calls upon a sufficient number of them to form said Company to rendezvous in Burlington, on Monday next at 12 o'clock, M.
A. C. Dodge,
Brigadier General, 2d Brigade, 1st Division.
A true copy from the original.
Geo. H. Beeler
Attest
L W Babbitt / Adjutant

Historical Background
In 1816, the United States government commissioned John C. Sullivan to locate the northern border of the Missouri Territory, originally between land belonging to the United States and those belonging to the Osage Nation. Over time, the Osage were forced westward, and the line came to mark the boundary between slave states and free states.

Because the Sullivan Line of 1816 had some uncertainties, the legislators of Missouri attempted to define the boundary better, specifying that the line ended at "the Des Moines rapids." However, "the Des Moines rapids" on the Des Moines River is approximately ten miles farther north than the "Des Moines rapids" on the Mississippi River.

In 1837, Missouri hired surveyor J. C. Brown to run a new line, which was based on the Missouri definition and ran from 9 to 13 miles north of the original Sullivan Line. In 1838, as the Iowa Territory was separating from the Wisconsin Territory, it drew a new Iowa Line south of the Sullivan Line, and the federal government became involved. Congress gave President Martin Van Buren authority to appoint three surveyors to re-survey the land. Van Buren appointed Albert M. Lea, Iowa territorial Governor Robert Lucas appointed Dr. James Davis, and Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs refused to name a third person in an attempt to delay the project.

After waiting, Lea and Davis proceeded with the project working into December 1838. They finished their final charts by January 1839, though Davis sent his report to Governor Lucas, while Lea sent his report to the federal Land Office. Both agreed that there although there were four possible lines, only two'the Brown Line and the Iowa Lin'ran parallel to existing latitude lines. Davis predictably favored the Iowa Line and characterized the Brown Line as a land grab by Missourians.

Settlers in the southern portion of Van Buren County, Iowa, lived on rich farmland, which both Iowa and Missouri claimed. Pleased about paying taxes to neither body, the settlers here became known as the "Hairy Nation." In February 1839, Missouri began sending tax assessors into the area, and many settlers there were opposed to living in a slave state. In July 1839, they sent a complaint to Territorial Governor Robert Lucas in Burlington. Late that same month, Lucas issued a proclamation declaring that Iowa Territorial laws must be upheld in the area and that Missouri officials who traveled north of the Sullivan Line could be arrested. Late in August, Missouri Governor Boggs issued a counter-proclamation declaring that though Missouri officials would not provoke Iowa, they had a right to enforce their jurisdiction over the disputed area.

In October, Sheriff Uriah S. Gregory of Clark County, Missouri, attempted to collect taxes from the residents of the disputed area, but Sheriff Henry Heffleman of Van Buren County, Iowa, forced him to leave and warned him not to return. Both sheriffs reported their versions of the story to their respective governors. In an address to the Iowa Legislative Assembly on November 5, 1839, Governor Lucas declared that he believed the dispute would "ultimately lead to the effusion of blood." Lucas had been an advocate of a strong militia in Ohio, where he served as governor from 1832 to 1836, and had dealt forcefully with a border dispute with Michigan.

In early November, a suspicious-looking person had cut down at least three large trees in Van Buren County, which housed an Iowa farmer's bees, and took the honeycombs as payment for past due taxes. On November 19, Clark County Sheriff Gregory again ventured into the disputed area to collect taxes, and Sheriff Heffleman arrested him the next day and, in the absence of a county jail, held him in custody in his own home in Farmington. Heffleman wrote to Governor Lucas for further directions. In response to the arrest of Gregory, Missouri Governor mobilized the Missouri militia. Governor Lucas likewise called for the Iowa territorial militia to station three units along the Iowa border in Van Buren County.

By early December, when Dodge issued this call at least 2,000 men had gathered on the Missouri side, and approximately 1,200 assembled on the Iowa side. Meanwhile, Clark County, Missouri, sent a delegation to the Iowa Legislative Assembly in Burlington. After initial reluctance, the Assembly sent Representatives Col. William Patterson, L. B. Hughes, and Dr. J. D. Payne to Clark County. There, on December 12, 1839, the Iowa committee requested that both governors call off their militia and allow the federal government to decide on the boundary. Although some of the militia were angry at both governors, they returned to their respective homes.

Nearly as quickly as it had begun, the Honey War ended without bloodshed. The U.S. government took another decade until the case finally made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, which decided that the original Sullivan Line would be re-surveyed and cleaned up, with both Missouri and Iowa bearing the costs. In 1850-1851, a new survey was taken and 4.5-foot cast iron markers were erected every ten miles with the word "Missouri" on the southern side and "Iowa" on the northern side.

Augustus C. Dodge (1812-1883) was born in Missouri and moved to Galena, Illinois, in 1827. After working in his father's lead mines, he served in the Black Hawk War before moving to Burlington, Iowa, in 1837. He served as register of the land office there until 1840. After Congress made Iowa a territory in 1839, Dodge served as a Democrat as the territorial delegate to Congress from 1840 to 1846. He served as one of Iowa's first U.S. Senators from 1848 to 1855. In 1853, he introduced a bill to organize the Nebraska Territory, which eventually became the Kansas-Nebraska Act of Senator Stephen A. Douglas, which Dodge supported. In 1855, President Franklin Pierce appointed Dodge as U.S. Minister to Spain, a position he held until 1859. He served as mayor of Burlington, Iowa, from 1874 to 1875.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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