An invasion is expected from across the border and you along with a few hundred disheveled men are preparing to repel it. The cold winter is just setting in as you and the humble defenders prepare what guns and ammunition you were able to muster. However as the hours tick down and the day wears on the attackers are nowhere to be seen.



The Sullivan Line

In 1816 the United States Government commissioned John C. Sullivan to find the North-South boundary of the United States. Originally this boundary line was to distinguish boundaries for Native American lands, but the Sullivan Line, as it is best known today, eventually evolved into the dividing factor that defined which states were Southern and which were Northern. It was supposed to run parallel form East to West, starting at the East bank of the Missouri River and ending at the rapids of the Des Moines River.

In 1821 when Missouri became a state the Sullivan Line was extended past the Des Moines River and used to mark Missouri’s Northern border. The Missouri Compromise also designated the Sullivan Line as the dividing point for free states and slave states. Any new state North of the line was free and any new state South of the line would allow slavery. The Sullivan Line was continually used for treaties with Native Americans, and in 1824 the Federal Government signed a particularly important treaty with the Osage Nation defining the Sullivan Line as one of their tribal borders.

Brown Line

In 1837 Missouri decided to have the Sullivan Line resurveyed. They decided this in part because they wanted to extend their border a little further North where there was much fertile land and abundant bee trees. Honey was an important commodity on the frontier since it was used as a natural sweetener and the wax was used to make candles, the hollow trees full of bee hives that sat just North of Missouri’s border was of great interest to its inhabitants.

Missouri hired a surveyor by the name of J. C. Brown to redo the Sullivan Line and this is where the problems started. Sullivan’s work was full of errors and made it difficult for Brown to find his original line. Sullivan said that he ended his line at the rapids of the Des Moines River when in reality he had ended at the rapids of the Mississippi River. Another issue was that Brown could not find the markers Sullivan placed as he had used mounds of dirt and wooden posts to mark the way, in the volatile Midwest weather neither of these marking methods lasted long. Another issue was that Sullivan apparently forgot that a compass points to magnetic North and not true North therefore his line was not the true North South line that it should have been. Finally Sullivan seemed to have issues with keeping the line straight as it was not parallel and varied up and down by a few miles. Not knowing about Sullivan’s errors Brown tried to find the rapids of the Des Moines River and settled on what he described as “ripples” in the Des Moines that he believed was what Sullivan had meant. This error caused Brown’s line to be between 9 and 13 miles farther North than Sullivan’s was.

In early 1838 the Missouri Legislature passed a bill that claimed the Brown Line as their new Northern border. They justified their decision by saying that their constitution stated that Missouri’s boundary line was to be ran from the “rapids of the river Des Moines”. Of course the constitution was based off of Sullivan’s incorrect interpretation and was actually supposed to be the Mississippi rapids. Shortly after the bill was passed Wisconsin, who bordered Missouri, asked the Federal Government to decide which line was correct but was more or less ignored.

Dispute

In July 1838 Iowa split from Wisconsin and became its own territory, eventually vying for statehood. Iowa was now Missouri’s Northern neighbor and the Federal Government assigned a commission to find the true border between the two. The commission was to consist of three surveyors, one from the Federal Government, one from Iowa and one from Missouri. However Missouri refused to cooperate in the survey so it was just the federal and Iowa surveyor who set to work. They started at Sullivan’s original point on the Mississippi River and continued on through the Des Moines. The two men worked through the fall of 1838 but were unable to completely finish due to sickness and inclement weather conditions.

They did submit a report on their findings however and stated that there were four possible boundary lines. The original Sullivan Line, the correct East-West Line that Sullivan should have found if he had done his job correctly, the Brown Line which Missouri favored, or the Iowa line which extended even further South than the Sullivan Line. The report stated that either the Brown Line or the Sullivan Line were the two best options and most likely to be accepted by both parties. However, the report gave no preference to either of the two and it would be left to the legislative bodies of both parties to decide.