Robert Trimble

“ We can discover no other law of North Carolina, or of Tennessee, which subjects the reservation about any of the licks deemed fit for manufacturing salt, to appropriation by entry and survey, as vacant land. ”

“ It is not necessary to decide whether the land in controversy would, or would not, have been protected from individual appropriation by being actually laid off and disposed of as town lots, beyond the quantity of two hundred acres, as we are all of opinion it was so protected by being within the French lick reservation, as laid off. ”

“ It seems to result necessarily from these provisions, that the commissioners must first determine what were the proper subjects of reservation, and having determined that a given salt lick or spring came within the provisions of the law, the power and duty of laying off by survey the 640 acres reserved, and to be avoided, around the lick, seems necessarily and irresistibly to result to the commissioners, in all cases where they might deem it necessary to do so, in order to enable them to lay off the lands for the officers and soldiers, so as to avoid these reservations. ”