Conflict and Fraud: Utah Public Land Surveys in the 1850s, the Subsequent Investigation and Problems with the Land Disposal System
Utah Historical Quarterly
80
2
Champaign, IL
University of Illinois Press
2012
108-131
"Between July 1855, when Surveyor General David H. Burr opened the Utah Surveying District office in Salt Lake City and April 1857, when he and several other federal officials fled the territory, the people of Utah and federal appointees engaged in heated and often violent controversies. No conflict created more distress than the battles over federal land surveys. As settlement in Utah proceeded, conflicts of varying causes and magnitudes ensued. Conflicts with survey officials led to violent attacks by Utahns on the surveyors and clerks and to charges by the surveyors and other federal officials that Utahns had rebelled against federal authority. President James Buchanan agreed with the charges of rebellion, removed all of the Utahns from appointive offices, and appointed a group of outsiders to territorial government positions. He also sent a military force to escort the appointees to Utah. Later investigations by the General Land office showed that Burr's deputies had conducted fraudulent surveys. These investigations also substantiated some of the complaints made by Utahns. Moreover, the frauds required expensive resurveys and clouded land titles. This article investigates the controversies and their results." [from author]