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For many years, there was a dispute where was the border of Iowa and Missouri. This matter came to a head in 1855, when tax collectors from Missouri were taxing Iowa citizens and a new survey began. That meant that the survey books listing the township and range of each deed needed to be re-recorded and all land offices' suspend selling or granting land until the new track books were completed in Washington City.
This greatly affected Council Bluffs which was orginally part of Missouri, but was now in Iowa.
The Register of Land in Council Bluffs was Enos Lowe, who was ordered to stay and keep selling land prior to July 1855. It was so busy that one of Arabia's consignee's Cassady was authorized to complete deeds. However, when the office was frozen there was no work and so he waited and waited for the new survey books to be sent to him.
Finally, Lowe sent a request to his superiors to travel to Washington. In his letter below, Lowe mentions he has been holding onto money he received for land and wanted to deposit it in St Louis. I saw his visit as an effort to speed up the books he needed. He was granted the leave and stayed in Washington until August 12, 1856..
The timing is right for Enos Lowe to have been aboard the Steamboat Arabia. I always wondered what was in the one box for Cassady & Test listed on the manifest. As Attorney's and Land Agents, it had to be something the firm needed.....and it had to be forms or perhaps the leather books to record deeds....which would have dissolved in the river.
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