The company now made a second resort to the courts to establish its claim to the grant of June 29, 1854. One of its directors, having bought of the United States a piece of land in Dakota County, brought suit against the railroad company for trespass. The district and supreme courts of the territory gave judgment for the defendant company, holding that it had good title to the land grant and therefore was not guilty of the alleged trespass. Before entry of judgment, however, in the latter court, the case was removed to the United States District Court; and this tribunal also found for the defendant. The Supreme Court of the United States, on writ of error from below, in December, 1861, disposed of the case by deciding (two justices dissenting) that the act of Congress of June 29, 1854, vested in the Territory of Minnesota no more than a naked trust or power, which could be and was revoked by the repealing act. The territorial legislature had exceeded its power in attempting to vest title in fee simple in the railroad company. * * * * * It was in the period now in view that Minneapolis, which has become the largest Minnesota city, had its beginning. The military reservation of Fort Snelling as delimited by Major Plympton in 1839 comprised, as was guessed, about 50,000 acres. The surveys made in later times show nearly 35,000 acres. So soon as it became known that a treaty of cession would be exacted from the Sioux, it was believed by the neighboring residents that Fort Snelling would be abandoned and the reservation opened for settlement. In 1849, when the first attempt was made on the Sioux, Robert Smith of Alton, Illinois, a member of Congress, having a “pull” at Washington, got leave of the War Department to lease the government mill at the Falls of St. Anthony on the west side. Later this concession ripened into a purchase of a quarter section abutting on the cataract. In the next year John H. Stevens, acting for himself and another, had similar leave granted to occupy the river front above the Smith claim, on condition of operating a ferry, free to government, at the falls. In the next year, 1851, a number of citizens of St. Anthony, already a thriving village of some six hundred people, thought it would be well to establish inchoate claims on some of the beautiful terraces which lay in view from their homes, beyond the river. They accordingly crossed over, staked out quarter sections as well as possible in the absence of surveys, built claim shanties, and had some plowing done. Still another year later, 1852, when in midsummer the Sioux treaties and amendments had been ratified and it was evident that the Sioux must soon move towards the sunset, and that the military reservation would be given up and opened to settlement, there took place a wild rush of St. Anthony men across the stream to seize on the coveted lands. It was not long till the whole terrain of Minneapolis was covered with claims.