Honey War - The "War"

The "War"

In 1837 the Missouri General Assembly ordered the line to be resurveyed. When Wisconsin Territory refused to participate in the survey, J.C. Brown began a survey in which he ignored the traditional definition of the rapids below Fort Madison on the Mississippi and instead looked for rapids on the Des Moines River itself and identified the rapids as being at Keosauqua, Iowa about 9.5 miles (15.3 km) into modern Iowa.

As the dispute heated up, Missouri was to note there were rapids on the Des Moines all the way to Des Moines, Iowa. Meanwhile, Iowa was to maintain its ownership extended to a line about 15 miles (24 km) into modern Missouri at the mouth of the Des Moines.

Tax agents from Kahoka, Missouri tried to collect taxes in what is now Van Buren County, Iowa and Davis County, Iowa. The Iowa residents allegedly carrying pitchforks chased away the tax collectors who chopped down three honey bee trees in what is now Lacey-Keosauqua State Park to collect the honey for partial payment.

Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs sent the state militia to the Iowa border and an Iowa mob captured the sheriff of Clark County, Missouri and incarcerated him in the Muscatine, Iowa jail. The Iowa militia was also called out by Iowa Territory governor Robert Lucas.

According to one description about the Iowans:

in the ranks were to be found men armed with blunderbusses, flintlocks, and quaint old ancestral swords that had probably adorned the walls for many generations. One private carried a plough coulter over his shoulder by means of a log chain, another had an old-fashioned sausage stuffer for a weapon, while a third shouldered a sheet iron sword about six feet long.

The two governors agreed to allow Congress resolve the issue. An arbitrary line was drawn between the two positions. However when Iowa entered the Union Congress was to rule the border was in fact at the Mississippi confluence, a position that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in State of Missouri v. State of Iowa, 48 U.S. 660 (1849).