Boondoggle Land: Indiana and the Swamplands Act of 1850

Indiana’s difficulties in administrating an efficient drainage program …​ retarded the agricultural utilization of its wet lands. Like so many of the congressional enactments dealing with the disposal of the public domain, little consideration was given to the realities of frontier life. Grandiose plans for rapid transformation of the barren wilderness were foiled by the lack of expertise needed to complete such a project.

In accordance with federal directions the state auditors were to submit a list of townships encompassed by the act that might have been omitted from the federal lists. Once the designations were forwarded to the General Land Office in Washington, comparisons revealed discrepancies.

By 1854 the federal government had approved the designation of 9,811,682 acres as “wet” lands eligible for cession to Indiana but had rejected an additional 283,315 acres sought by the state. The Indiana Governor Joseph A. Wright did not want to lose money from any land that had already passed into private hands (by the awarding of a federal land patent to an individual) that was later determined to be land officially considered swampy under the Swamp Lands Act.

The surveyors were to forward their lists of designated tracts to the state auditor for validation. After verification of the lands selected as swamp lands by state and federal officials, sales would commence. The state auditor was responsible for ensuring the preparation of maps and plats indicating the location of all swamp lands within each county. After notice of the impending sale had been publicly posted, the county auditor would hold a public auction at the courthouse.

In addition, by 1955, Indiana’s financial administration of the swamp lands program had become unglued. The central accounting of receipts strained the limited resources of the bookkeeping staff at the capital; therefore, the General Assembly had decided to allow the individual counties to keep the records. This measure, designed to alleviate the burden of paper work, opened the floodgates of possible corruption even wider. By the fall of 1857 the entire program tottered on the verge of collapse. The state auditor, John Dodd, accused the swamp lands commissioners of allowing the tracts to fall into the hands of speculators who had no intention of fulfilling the terms of the agreement. He suggested that each contract should contain a provision rendering it void if the work was not satisfactorily completed within a reasonable time or by a specified date.

…​unearthed numerous examples of ineptness and criminality, both on the part of county officials and of state officers. Its report castigated the swamp lands commissioners in general as dishonest and inefficient and labeled their efforts as at least dilatory, at worst fraudulent. The governor’s appointments of commissioners and other officials were "in many instances …​ singularly unfortunate" as the men possessed "neither qualifications nor honesty of such a character as to fit them for their responsibilities." The examination unearthed unlawful and wasteful practices honey-combing the entire administrative structure. Since most of the laws relative to the swamp lands were "radically defective" the committee recommended their immediate revision.