David W. Kilbourne and Edward Kilbourne, “Latter-Day-Ism: Number Two,” Warsaw Signal, October 27, 1841

Historical Introduction

David and Edward Kilbourne dated this article October 6, 1841, slightly more than two weeks after their last. In this article, they primarily discussed issues regarding the Half-Breed Tract and accused Isaac Galland, from whom the Church had purchased significant amounts of land, of fraud regarding the Half-Breed Tract.

As part of a treaty executed with the Sauk and Meskwaki tribes on August 4, 1824, the government set aside 119,000 acres of land between the Mississippi and Des Moines rivers, then a part of Wisconsin Territory, for Native American “half-breeds,” meaning those with mixed Native American and European or white American ancestry.¹ Under the original treaty, those with claims could occupy but not sell the land. That provision was revoked in 1834, and anyone with a valid claim could sell their land in the Half-Breed Tract. However, because of the vagueness of language, it was difficult to determine who exactly the land was intended for and how to decide who had a valid claim.² During this time, locals recognized that practically any claim to land on the tract, despite the claimant, was suspect. Issues concerning ownership were not completely settled until 1850.³

This uncertainty did not prevent many from taking advantage of the economic opportunity which the land provided, among those both Isaac Galland and David Kilbourne.⁴ Galland had moved to the area in 1829 and, even before the change to the law in 1834, Galland had had some success in finding ways to purchase land in the Half-Breed Tract through tactics such as finding specific claimants wanting to sell and writing to Superintendent William Clark regarding the case.⁵ When the New York Land Company sent land agents to the Half-Breed Tract, they partnered up with Galland. In 1837, the two original agents whom Galland aligned himself with, Joshua Aikin and Robert Little, were replaced with David Kilbourne and Henry Austin.⁶ Galland purchased land both in his own name and in the name of the New York Land Company, which could have complicated the situation.⁷

Kilbourne soon began to distrust Galland. Part of this could be because of differences in their backgrounds. Kilbourne was considered a gentleman from the east who valued refined society and found the transition to rural Lee County, Iowa, difficult. Galland was a frontiersman who, despite his title as “Doctor,” had a slightly questionable past and a tendency to seek excitement and adventure.⁸ In Keokuk and Montrose, the social and economic separation between “legitimate settlers” and “border society” was enforced by the higher society, who formed a Vigilance Committee in Keokuk to protect and support each other. When Galland broke his relations with the New York Land Company and was baptized a Latter-day Saint, the committee all began to oppose Galland’s enterprises and worked to isolate him in Keokuk.⁹

Kilbourne first publicly accused the Latter-day Saints of lacking valid titles to land in the Iowa Territory in June 1841 in an article published in the New York Journal of Commerce Magazine. By implication, Kilbourne was thus accusing Galland as well. Galland responded and refuted the accusation.¹⁰ Throughout the rest of his life, Galland was required to continuously defend his claims to the land in the Half-Breed Tract both through debating and publishing. After Galland published a pamphlet accusing Kilbourne of fraud regarding the Half-Breed Tract, Kilbourne responded with a pamphlet of his own, outlining his relationship to Galland and how Galland had been the perpetrator of fraud.¹¹ It is likely impossible to know who, in reality, was the perpetrator of fraud. Historian Mark Goodmansen has compiled evidence to demonstrate that Kilbourne and the New York Land Company were engaged in fraudulent conduct regarding the Saints and the Half-Breed Tract.¹² However, one aspect of land claims to the Half-Breed Tract that is easily ascertained is that they were nearly all questionable, and it would be many more years before legality was sorted out.

Document Transcript

LATTER-DAY-ISM

NUMBER TWO.

It is generally known that a tract of land, containing 119,000 acres, lying in the extreme southern part of our Territory, which from its form,—bounded as it is on the east by the Mississippi, and on the south and west by the Des Moines river—may not inaptly be termed the Delta of Iowa, was in 1821 reserved by treaty for the use of the ‘Half-Breeds of the Sac and Fox Nation of Indians; they holding it by the same title that other Indian lands are held,’—i. e.—possession—the United States retaining a reversionary interest—or the right to purchase it. In June, 1831 Congress relinquished to the ‘Half-Breeds of the Sac and Fox Nation of Indians,’ this reversionary interest, and authorized them to transfer their portion thereof, by sale, devise, or descent.¹³

By an unaccountable oversight, the names of the individuals intended to be benefitted by this reservation of land, were neither introduced into the Treaty or in the act of Congress alluded to, and the term ‘half breeds’ of the Sac and Fox Nations, was so indefinite, that a wide door was at once opened for the introduction of spurious and doubtful claims, and from forty or fifty in number, they soon increased to one hundred and sixty.

In the summer and fall of 1836, a company of gentlemen from New York, made extensive purchases of Half-Breed shares. On account of the intimate knowledge that Dr. Galland was supposed to have of the ‘Half-Breeds,’ he was admitted as a member of this company, and was constituted one of their five trustees. The confidence however in his integrity was of short duration, and as a majority of the trustees controlled the affairs of the company, his power to injure them was of short continuance.¹⁴

In the winter of 1837–8, a law was passed for the partition of the Half-Breed Tract; commissioners were appointed to receive testimony, &c.; —the succeeding Legislature, however, repealed the law, and left the matter—if possible—worse than before. Every attempt that had been made to adjust the title, had not only signally failed, but seemed to increase the difficulties that clustered around it, and the public mind had settled down into the conviction that any further effort of the kind would be entirely fruitless.

The ingenuity of Dr. Galland, however, found in this state of things, a fine field for the exercise of his peculiar talents,—and in the year [1839], he matured the plan of a stupendous fraud. He wrote to Joe Smith, who was then most righteously imprisoned in Missouri, on charges of High Treason, Burglary, Arson, &c.—inviting him to purchase his land at Nauvoo (47 acres).¹⁵ Smith, after making his escape, complied, and brought on his half-starved followers, a large number of whom settled on the ‘Half-Breed Reserve,’ in Iowa. Dr. G. then commenced selling half-breed lands, giving therefor, warentee deeds, which of course, could convey no title while the lands remained undivided. He at first asserted that he was the owner of seven-tenths of the Tract, and finally claimed to be the sole proprietor.

That he might the more successfully carry out the scheme of swindling thus commenced, he attached himself to the Mormon Church!¹⁶ became a confederate of Joe Smith, and in order to dupe persons daily arriving among them, he deeded to Mormon Bishops and Prophets, thousands and tens of thousands of acres of the reservation alluded to, and they are daily deeding by warentee deeds the lands thus acquired, and receiving therefor a valuable consideration.¹⁷

By a recent judicial decision, it is ascertained that the interest to which this man Galland is entitled, is but a small, undefined, undivided portion of the Half-Breed reservation.¹⁸

Our object is not so much to draw the portrait of Galland—for his character is too well known to require an extended notice here—as to show the connection between him and the swindling leaders of the Mormon Society. With a full knowledge of all the facts here stated, he is sent out with a ‘proclamation to the Saints abroad—Greeting;’ signed by Joe Smith, Sidney Rigdon, and Hiram Smith—the two latter of whom the Times and Seasons informs us ‘have been appointed by revelation, Prophets, Seers, and Revelators,’ —in which it is said that ‘He (Galland,) is the honored instrument the Lord used to prepare a home for us when we were driven from our inheritance, having given him control of vast bodies of land, and prepared his heart to make the use of it, the Lord intended he should.’¹⁹

Many instances might be mentioned, of individuals at the East, who have exchanged with the ‘Agents of the Church,’ their valuable possessions, for their worthless land titles; and there are cases of suffering—of families reduced to beggary—by these villains, which would cause them, were they other than the heartless wretches they are, to relent, and desist from their cruel purpose.

Do these Prophets share in the plunder? If the reader has thrown the mantle of charity over them thus far, it will require enlarging, to cover a pretended ‘revelation’ upon matters and things in general, published in their paper of June 1st, in which—speaking of the Nauvoo Boarding House—the following passage occurs: —‘Let my servant Isaac Galland put stock in that house, for I the Lord loveth him for the works he has done, and will forgive all his sins, therefore let him be remembered for an interest in that from generation to generation.’²⁰

When it is known that one of these Prophets acts in the absence of Galland, as his Agent for the sale of these lands, what further evidence, we ask, is wanted, of the baseness and rascality of himself and his confederates?²¹

D. W. &. E. KILBOURN.

Montrose, Iowa, Oct. 6, 1841.