The Congressional Globe, Volume 14: Twenty-Eighth Congress, Second Session Page: 36
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36
28th Cong 2d Sess,
A^PENDIX TO THE CONGRESSIONAL GLoMfe. Dee. 1844.
Report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office.
Senate and H, of Reps.
the western boundary of the State. Of the lands
set apart for the satisfaction of Spanish claims,
there remain unlocated about 45,000 acres ;
and as the time has elapsed for the presen-
tation of them by innocent purchasers, as by
law provided, there does not seem to be any neces-
sity for the continuonce of the reservation. There
is also the Hot Springs reservation of 2,560 acres,
within the limits of which attempts have been made,
by various persons, to acquire an interest; but
whose claims have been, in all cases, rejected by
this office. These springs, it is presumed, were re-
served upon the supposition of their peculiar value;
and as, from the lapse of time, this must have been
fully tested, the final disposition of them might now
•be made with safety to the public interest; and if
restored to the mass of public lands, the question
would arise, whether they should be disposed of in
like manner, or by special sale.
In Louisiana, although there has been as much
money expended in surveys as in any other of the
States containing the public domain, nearly a third
of the territory is still out of the market. The pub-
lic lands are situate in the Opelousas and southeastern
districts, along the gulf coast and Sabine river;
and east of the Mississippi, south of lakes Borgne,
Pontchartrain, and Maurepas. It will be recellected
that in this State there are numerous and extensive
private land claims, which from time to time have
interposed to keep back the regular action of this
office, and occasionally caused it great embarrass-
ment. In such a straggle for individual rights, pur-
porting to be on grants which had passed from gov-
ernment to government, and through successive
generations, an uneertainty sometimes obtains,which
of itself has the effect to unhinge any settled plan of
operations. To this may well be added, that in
one entire land district, frauds in the public surveys
were detected of such a magnitude as to require a
thorough resurvey. This (the Greensburg district)
will, it is hoped, soon be in a condition to be opened
again to purchasers,—this office being assured that
every effort is making with the means specially ap-
propriated at the last session of Congress to place it
upon that footing. Applications for repayment in
this district, as authorized and dircctcd by the act of
29th August, 1842, on account of the difficulties al-
luded to, (all of which are of many years' stand-
ing,) have been made to this office to the amount of
§141,455, and reports submitted to you in every
case; a few suspended defective ones excepted, of
which the parties have been advised. In many of
them, She evidence was voluminous and complex—
the parties claiming under judicial sales, transfers,
and other proceedings, peculiar to the laws of
Louisiana; and the adjustment, therefore, has been
attended with great labor and difficulty at this office,
and, of itself, has given rise to an extensive corres-
pondence.
In Mississippi, there are some lands in the Gren-
ada and Columbus districts, and also south of the
thirty-first degree of latitude, (in all, about 62 town-
ships,) where the sales are now suspended—the
former to await the decision of the board of com-
missioners on the Choctaw claims, and the latter the
location of private land claims; and these are the on-
ly lands which have not been brought into the mar-
ket in that State. And in Alabama, there are about
three townships lying south of the thirty-first de-
gree of latitude, also suspended for the location of
private land claims, which make the entire balance
of public land within her jurisdiction which has not
been brought into market.
In making this reference to the States having por-
tions of the public domain within their borders, it
will be perceived that it is intended to give a
general idea of their present condition in that re-
spect, demonstrating that the policy alluded to has
been observed. It will not be inferred that the
public sales, which must have frequently taken
place to have brought such immense masses of pub-
lic land into the market, succeeded each other in
consequence of the lands being sold which had been
previously offered. On the contrary, large quanti-
ties of public land were at each time still in the
market, and up to this day continue to be in all
the States mentioned. And I may add, that, apart
from other considerations, the present established
policy of the government, in selling the public lands
by pre-emption, seems to require that they should
be brought into market progressively with the set-
tlements; for, unless this course is pursued, conflicts
in title, combinations among bad men, and com-
plaints among all, are the inevitable consequence.
In the Territories of WUcpnsin, Iowa, and Flor-
ida, every necessary attention has been paid, with
the means furnished, to provide in season for the
swelling tide of emigration. Extensive sales were
held in Wisconsin in October last, and are now ad-
vertised in Iowa, to take place there in January and
February next. This office has received continued"
representations from its officers in Wisconsin, in com-
mendation of the soil and general advantages' of that
country; and that extensive tract situate in Iowa,
south of the "Neutral Ground," and stretching
westwardly to the Indian boundary, is represented
to be very fertile, and to be settling with "unprece-
dented rapidity." The latter will be put under sur-
vey at the earliest day after an appropriation is had;
and it is believed that, in order to meet the public
demand, the surveys should be kept up with as lit-
tle intermission as possible in both Territories. Du-
ring the surveys of the last season, a valuable dis-
covery of copper ore was made in Wisconsin, be-
tween the Kickapoo and Mississippi rivers.
In Florida, the sales have been very circumscribed,
as it was thought probable her citizens had not
sufficiently recovered from their Indian troubles to
be prepared for them, and it might have had the
effect of throwing her choice lands into the hands of
distant capitalists. From the surveys already re-
turned, and those now in progress, heavy sales may
be expected thefre in the course of the coming year.
The act of 15th June last, amendatory of the
"Florida armed occupation act," has afforded salu-
tary relief in many instances; and although there
may be a few cases of hardship not within its pur-
view, these, as they may come up, will present fair
subjects for legislative relief. Whilst on this sub-
ject, I beg leave to renew the recommendation in
my last annual report, that provision be made by
law for remunerating the local officers in Florida
for their arduous duties incident to the proceedings
under that act; and that a table of fees be established
for all the local land offices, to pi event the renewal of '
complaints by our citizens, of having to pay charges
unauthorized bylaw—sometimes reasonable enough
in amount, but in other onerous and extortionate.
The boundary line between this Territory and the
State of Georgia still remains unsettled, after various
efforts, commencing twenty years back, directed to
that object by Congress, the State, and this office.
It is a matter of interest to the General Land Office,
inasmuch as the surveys eannot be closed in that
quarter until the line is established. The bounda-
ry-line between this Territory and Alabama is also
unsettled, never having been ascertained by actual
survey; and this office has been informed that there
is a strip of country between them, over which
neither the State nor the Territory exercises juris-
diction, designated the "Neutral Ground."
In general reference to the public domain in both
the States and Territories mentioned, it may be es-
timated that within the limits of the treaty of 1783,
with Great Britain, 74,024,749 acres have been sold;
of 1803, with France, 16,550,191 acres; and of 1819,
with Spain, 877,381 acres. And in connection with
this statement, a skeleton map has been prepared,
and hereto annexed, showing in colored lines the
respective limits referred to.
The aggregate receipts from the sales of the pub-
lic lands in the States and Territories mentioned, for
the present calendar year, estimating for a portion
of the last quarter, are $2,194,555—being over those
of the preceding year ^178,510; and of the year
preceding that, $776,583. The respective sums re-
ceived from individuals have, for the most part,
been small, corresponding, of course, with the size
of the tracts sold, as before referred to; and as proof
that they were paid in cheerfully, without produ-
cing distress or embarrassment in any quarter, it
need only be mentioned that there is not a single
instance, during the whole year, of an application
for the postponement of a public land sale. Indeed,
as it may be easily supposed, the sales by the gen-
eral government would have been greater, but for
those of the States—the act of Congress of Septem-
ber 4, 1841, granting lands to certain Statps therein
mentioned, having enabled them to enter into the
land market, and, to some extent, to compete with
the general government. The selections of the States,
in satisfaction ef the five-hundred-thousand-acre
grant here referred to, are not yet completed. The
process is necessarily tedious, in consequence of
the numerous conflicts which occur, and the
great accuracy required to prevent confusion
and miscalculation. As far as they have been re-
ported to this office, and found correct, they have
been submitted to you, and received your approv-
al, The whole amount actually granted to the
States by that actis 2,809,085 acres,—Ohio and In-
diana having previously received their complement;
and of this amount, 1,528,887 acres have been se-
lected and approved; and further selections of 416,-
356 acres have been made and reported to this office,
but not approved, in consequence of various con-
flicts, and the absence of approved plats—difficulties
which it is expected will soon be removed. All the
the States entitled by the act have selected lands in
pursuance of it, except the State of Alabama, which,
so far, has declined making any selections. The
balance due, to make- up the complement of that
State, is 100,000 acres.
Bounty lands to soldiers of the last war—at least
so far as issuing certificates of location—have, since
my last report, been disposed of to the amount of
20,753 acres. In discharging that older debt of a
military character, but little has been done; the
lands to satisfy Virginia military warrants being ex-
hausted, and the scrip authorized all appropriated,
but in some instances yet to be paid out. The
claims'remaining on the files of this office, and con-
sidered good, and on which nothing has been paid,
are 305 in number, and call for 239,698 acres.
Claims under the denomination of "private land
claims" being such as have emanated from foreign
governments before the transfer of jurisdiction, have
continued to receive all possible attention. The
confirmed claims are patented whenever it can be
done safely upon the reports made, and the returns
from the local offices. They impose a heavy labor
upon this office, in the shape of correspondence with
persons interested, in preparing special instructions
as to the surveys, and in adjusting conflicts of every
imaginable description. In' the Chickasaw cession
of1832, partly ing in Mississippi, and part in Alabama,
(sales in which are under the graduation system, as
required by treaty stipulations,) the aggregate
amount of sales at the district office in that cession,
from the commencement of operations in 1836 to
the end of the third quarter of the present year, is
3,372,418 acres—$3,149,562; and including sales of
orphan lands made at that office, and for purchased
lands and Indian reservations, 17,475 patents have
been issued. All the lands in that cession not cov-
ered by Indian reservations, have been brought into
market, with the exception of a few fractional tracts
on the boundary-line between that and the Choctaw
cession.
I submit herewith the entire reports of the sur-'
veyors general, preferring to give them in this man-
ner, to avoid doing them injustice, and the public in-
terest an injury. They are confined, of course, to
the surveys and public lands within their respect-
ive districts. The amount of public lands not in-
cluded in their districts, lying m the northwestern
territory east of the Rocky mountains, and exclu-
sive of the ceded lands in Iowa, is nearly 500,000,000
of acres; and west of the Rocky mountains, up to
49° of latitude, 218,536,320 acres, and to latitude
54° 40', 323,170,320 acres.
The surveyors general have at times been very
much annoyed by their deputies, who have not
been backward in preferring complaints to this of-
fice as to the manner in which they have been paid
for their services. To prevent this for the future,
and at the same time to avoid censure upon the of-
fice, and consequent odium upon the government, a
new mode has been recently adopted of making dis-
bursements on account of surveys. Instead of ad-
vancing large sums, as heretofore, to the surveyors
general, to be paid out by them for surveys, the
deputies are paid direct from this place, by treasury
warrant m each case, as their work is received at this
office properly approved. An additional recom-
mendation to this change is its perfect security
against the loss of the public money; although, as it
respects the surveyors general now in the public
service, there is certainly no occasion for this re-
mark, having promptly accounted in proper season,
and nothing being lost by them. The surveyors
general, and the registers and receivers, one hundred
and thirty in number, are at all seasons furnishing
from their respective districts the materials which
keep this office in constant employment. From one
end of the year to another, it has but little relaxation,
and knows no respite. Besides the immense mass
of litigated cases growing out of the private land
claims and pre-emptions, and some other branches
of business connected with the public domain, re-
quiring a thorough knowledge of the land laws, and
a close observation of the judicial decisions respect-
ing them, there is a vast deal of labor which makes
no display and for which the clerks engaged in if
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United States. Congress. The Congressional Globe, Volume 14: Twenty-Eighth Congress, Second Session, legislative document, 1845; Washington D.C.. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth2366/m1/460/: accessed March 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.