John Catron

“ Congress still continued to pass laws to protect the claims which had been thus presented for confirmation. Accordingly, the act of the 15th of February, 1811, provides, 'that, till after the decision of Congress thereon, no tract of land shall be offered for sale, the claim to which has been in due time, and according to law, presented to the recorder of land titles in the District of Louisiana, and filed in his office, for the purpose of being investigated by the commissioners appointed for ascertaining the rights of persons claiming lands in the Territory of Louisiana.' 2 Stat. ”

“ The survey of Cerre's tract, founded on the confirmation, was given in evidence, and recognized as part of his title by the Circuit Court; which circumstance we deem it proper not to pass without notice. By the act of April 26th, 1816, it was provided that a surveyor should be appointed of the public lands for the territories of Illinois and Missouri, whose duty it should be to cause so much of the lands in said territories as the President should direct, to be surveyed and divided as were the public lands lying northwest of the river Ohio ”

“ We are not called upon to say, nor do we wish to be understood as intimating, to what retrospective date the confirmation by Congress of land thus surveyed relates, so as to overreach a claim by purchase from the United States, further than the case before us requires, which is, that lands purchased before the act of July 4th, 1836, was passed, are protected against the confirmation made by that act. ”

“ The township, including 'the Big Spring of the River Maramee,' was offered for sale on the third Monday of November, 1823, pursuant to the proclamation of the President. Whether Massey and James purchased at the public sale in 1823, or entered afterwards, does not appear from the record; but in 1826 and 1827 they obtained their different patents for the land in dispute, from the United States; and these titles, the court below charged the jury, were superior to Cerre's confirmed claim. ”

“ It would be confusing the forms of action to allow a recovery in ejectment for a mere trespass, committed at a former period, and unaccompanied with possession, and would involve the absurdity of permitting an individual to maintain an action of ejectment for land of which he was himself in possession at the commencement of his suit. ”

“ Certainly, a mere floating claim, founded on a concession that was ordered to be located by survey, and where no survey or location had been made, was not protected by the act of 1811. An actual survey is not indispensable; but boundaries must appear, in some form, from the notice of claim and the accompanying evidences filed with the recorder. If, from these, the tracts could not be laid down on the township surveys, then the land could not be reserved from sale ”

“ On each limit has been planted a stake made of pine, driven into the ground to a depth of two feet; the first implanted upon the bank of the bayou, and the other at the foot of the high land; at the extremity of the ordinary forty arpens, I have planted no boundary, the soil being covered with water and impracticable, as it appears on the plan on the other side, which exhibits the extent and direction of the limits, &c. This survey has been made pursuant to a decree of his Lordship the Intendant-General, dated the 15th of the month of March last past. ”

“ That the plaintiffs in this case cannot recover against the defendant for any land embraced within the patents given in evidence by the defendant.
2. That the plaintiffs cannot recover in this case against the defendant, on account of any land within the plaintiffs' survey, without proof that the defendant, at the commencement of this suit, was in possession thereof; and the fact that the defendant had cut wood upon such land is not sufficient to authorize a recovery for the land upon which the wood was cut, if these were merely temporary trespasses and occupation of the land. ”

“ He then states, that a great number of those who have asked for land think themselves the legal owners of it; those who have obtained the first degree, by which a surveyor is ordered to measure and put them in possession ”

“ And, then, again, land was of no material value to such a population, who resided in villages, and cultivated patches within a common fence, where each inhabitant had his portion assigned by a syndic. But two instances are known to exist in Upper Louisiana, where the Intendant was applied to for a complete title, and made the same; one case was that of Moses Austin for a league square at Mine a Breton, a report on which is found in 2 American State Papers, 678, and the other perfected title was made to Mr. ”