Samuel Blatchford

“ The prayer of the bill is that all the lands granted to the state by the act of congress of July 5, 1866, be decreed to be forfeited to the United States, and restored to the public domain; that the said certificates, patent, and deeds be declared fraudulent and void ”

“ The pleas and answer of the Farmers Loan & Trust Company set forth the principal matters appearing in the pleas and answer of Weill and Cahn; and the answer alleges that the trust company is the trustee for certain holders of bonds secured by a mortgage made to it, as trustee. The pleas and supporting answer of Hogg, the Willamette Valley & Coast Railroad Company and the Oregon Pacific Railroad Company set forth substantially the same matters contained in the pleas and answer of Weill and Cahn and in those of the Farmers Loan & Trust Company. ”

“ The bill further avers that the maps or plats referred to in the certificate of the governor showed the line of the pretended road to be 357 miles, which would make the grant of lands covered by the act of congress of February 25, 1867, embrace in the aggregate 685,440 acres, of which 558,529.77 acres were not yet patented to the Dalles Military Road Company, and it claimed the right to have a patent therefor. ”

“ If laches be a good defense, it must be declared that congress directed suits which would be defeated by showing prior delays by congress. Besides, the defenses of stale claim and laches cannot be set up against the government. ”

“ The government has had no opportunity to prove the charges of fraud made in the bill, and there is no proof but the allegations of the pleas as to the bona fides the defendants, and as to the amounts expended by them in good faith in connection with the roads or the lands. ”

“ The claims of the United States cannot be treated as stale claims, in view of the act of 1889, especiallly as to those portions of the lands which remain unpatented, and as to those certificates of the governors which were false and fraudulent to the knowledge of those who made them, and to the knowledge of the several defendants, or in view of the alleged defects of the certificates in cases Nos. ”