Another class of persons, however, were deeply interested in the question of this title. Prior to the contract made with the Des Moines Navigation Company the state of Iowa had sold some fifty thousand acres or more of these lands located above the Raccoon fork of the river, and many of these lands were occupied by actual settlers who had made improvements thereon and had paid the state valuable considerations for their title. To avoid the hardships that must otherwise have resulted from the decision of the supreme court, congress on March 2, 1861, passed the following joint resolution: "Resolved, that all the title which the United States still retain in the tracts of land along the Des Moines river, above the mouth of the Raccoon fork thereof, which have been certified to said state improperly by the department of the interior as a part of the grant by act of congress approved August 8, 1846, and which are now held by bona fide purchasers under the state of Iowa, be, and the same is hereby relinquished to the state of Iowa." The congress of the United States further on the 12th of July, 1862, passed an act in express terms extending the grant to the northern boundary of the state, and providing that such lands "be held and applied in accordance with the provisions of the original grant, except that the consent of congress is hereby given to the application of a portion thereof to aid in the construction of the Keokuk, Fort Des Moines & Minnesota Railroad, in accordance with the provisions of the act of the general assembly of the state of Iowa, approved March 22, 1858." At the December term, 1866, the supreme court of the United States, in the case of Samuel Wolcott vs. The Des Moines Navigation Company, reported in 5 Wallace, page 681, made a further decision confirming the title of the Des Moines Navigation Company under the acts of congress of 1861-2, to the lands that had been deeded to them by the state of Iowa as before recited, and further deciding that the lands within the five mile limits of the Des Moines river had been reserved by competent authority for this work of internal improvement at the time of the passage of the railroad grant of 1856. Mr. Gue in his history of Iowa unfortunately attempts to disparage the title of the stockholders of the Des Moines Navigation Company by stating they were mere speculators who had purchased an impaired title, and were therefore entitled to no consideration. On the contrary, the men who received these deeds directly from the Des Moines Navigation Company were stockholders who had advanced their money in payment of their stock, which money had been paid over by that company directly to the state.