John Catron

“ The certified extract from the list of claims transmitted by the recorder of land titles to the surveyor-general, and certified from the office of the surveyor-general, relating to the claims of the legal representatives of John B. Gamache, senior, is evidence of said claim and the extent and boundary thereof, and that the same was confirmed by the act of Congress of 13th June, 1812. ”

“ Instructions given to defendants. 5. If the jury find that the land spoken of by the witnesses as actually cultivated and possessed by Gamache did not embrace the land now in dispute, they ought to find for the defendants.
17. The survey No. 120, read by the plaintiffs, is no evidence of title, nor of the extent and boundaries of Gamache's claim.
18. The testimony taken before Hunt, and read in evidence by the plaintiff, is not to be regarded by the jury in the present case, the defendant insisting that the claim had been abandoned. ”

“ V. The return of the description of the Gamache claim to the surveyor, by Conway, in 1839, was merely null, and afforded no evidence of title whatever.
The abuses to which such a practice will lead are manifest. If Hunt's list may be altered after twelve years have elapsed, alterations may be made at any distance of time; if future recorders may supply fancied omissions, they may strike out such claims as they may regard as erroneously entered ”

“ So far the ability and soundness they manifest have commanded our entire concurrence and respect, and are likely to do so in future. It is proper further to remark that the jury was instructed, at the request of the plaintiffs, that inhabitation and cultivation of a part of the lot, claiming the whole, would be good for the whole within the meaning of the act of 1812. ”

“ O'Hanlon, 11 Mo. 589-595: parties are not to be prejudiced by delays and omissions of merely ministerial officers and government agents. Taylor v. Brown, 5 Cranch, 234: a law requiring an officer to record surveys within two months, and return a list, is merely directory, and the validity of the survey is not affected, if not done. In point by principle and analogy.
4. The certificate containing an accurate description of the lot, so that any surveyor could find it, was all the evidence of title the claimants needed ”

“ John Baptiste Maurice Chatillon, being duly sworn, says he knows the land claimed, and that he is about sixty-six years of age, and that he was born in Kaskaskia, and A. D. seventeen hundred and eighty-eight he removed from Ste. ”