Peter Vivian Daniel

“ The language of the proviso is broad and comprehensive enough to comprise patents and surveys in the names of persons either living or dead, and it expressly declares to be null all patents posterior in time to those surveys and patents thus generally described and protected by that language. The proviso, then, if the natural and common meaning of its terms be adopted, must extend to and protect alike patents, entries, and surveys of either description, so far as this end is accomplished by preventing the possibility of conflict with locations and patents coming into existence after its date. ”

“ The reasoning of the court in that case would apply as strongly to the justice of cases which were not perfected by reason of death, as it possibly could do to such as were not perfected in consequence of the neglect or omission of the persons interested ”

“ These cases, though express to the single point for which they have been cited, are nevertheless by no means decisive of the question certified, if indeed they are at all applicable thereto; that question not involving simply the validity of an entry made in the name of a dead man, but embracing the legality of locations made since the enactment of the proviso, upon lands previously patented or surveyed, without reference to the circumstance of the death or life of those in whose names such previous patents may have been granted or surveys made. ”

“ The heirs of Dun contend that the patent to McArthur having been granted upon a location and survey made in the name of Means, when in fact Means had been dead fourteen years anterior to the entry, and thirteen years previously to the survey in his name, this entry and survey, and the patent issued to McArthur thereon, were of no legal efficacy, and should be superseded by the patent to James Galloway, upon an entry made by said Galloway in 1824, under which patent the heirs of Dun derive title by purchase. ”