Samuel Freeman Miller

“ If this had not been so Ogle would have successfully pleaded the Statute of Limitations against Simmons in the action at law. No laches could be imputed to Simmons, who brought suit very soon after he received his patent. Nor can laches be imputed to the United States, either as a matter of law or on any moral or equitable principles. ”

“ But no copy is produced, for the reason that no human being has been found who can say that any such paper ever existed, or was ever seen by any one. When we consider the number of persons interested in the property through Winstanley, there being several mortgages and intervening conveyances between him and Ogle, and that the certificate of entry, if ever made, could only have been forty years old when this suit was brought; that many persons must have been alive who had been interested in the title ”

“ Some parts of it are irreconcilable, and the result of it in producing any very clear conviction of the true state of the case is unsatisfactory, especially in regard to the foundation of the right of complainant to be the true equitable owner of the land. ”

“ The conveyances and other proceedings by which, if Winstanley ever had any right, it became vested in Ogle, and the actual possession of the land by Ogle.
As regards the first of these, the records of the Edwardsville land-office show a written application by Winstanley at that office, on the thirtieth day of December, 1835, for the purchase of the land. It is numbered 13,164, and shows the quantity of the land to be 84.46 acres, and the price to be paid $1.25 per acre. ”