“ One searches the records of Harrison, and the books of the commissioners of the revenue; he finds no notice of any such grant; he searches the office of the surveyor of Harrison and Monongalia; he finds no survey recorded.
Recording a deed in a wrong county is a fatal objection, when urged by a purchaser without notice. So, after the district of Zanesville was formed from that of Marietta, the lands in Zanesville district could not be purchased at the office of Marietta. If lands ought to be conveyed by a deed recorded in the proper county, so they ought to be granted in the proper county. ”

“ What had the plaintiffs to do with these entries of the defendants? They could not stand in the way of the claim of the plaintiffs, if the had a grant for the land. The tendency of this evidence, if not the object of producing it, was to perplex and mislead the jury, and excite a prejudice against the defendant Stringer. And the law is that 'illegal or improper evidence, however unimportant it may be to the case, ought never to be confided to the jury; for if it should have an influence upon their minds, it will mislead them ”

“ The first position is, that the parties can go behind the grant for nothing in an action at law, because evidence before the grant would take the party by surprize; and because, the grant is, ipso facto, an appropriation, and the question to be determined is the identity of the thing granted. Again; in the case of a land office warrant, in Virginia, the entry is, and the survey is not, an inceptive appropriation. The title is transferred by the grant, towards obtaining which the survey is but a progressive step. Even the entry cannot be brought before the court. ”

“ Is it required that the falsehood and the truth shall both appear on the face of the grant? Certainly no. The falsehood appears on the face of the grant; the truth appears by the evidence in the cause; and then the grant is adjudged void. In this case the truth appears by the record, and that which avoids the grant, appears on its face. It calls for lands in Monongalia. If the land claimed is identified in Harrison, that circumstance renders the grant void; for on its face, it appears that the land was surveyed after Harrison became a county. ”

“ It cannot escape observation, that if these objections were properly overruled when urged in support of the legal title, against an equity dependent entirely on the survey; they can have no weight when urged against the validity of a patent which has been regularly issued in all the forms of law. ”

“ Yet, as a survey is a progressive step, and those duties merely directory, it has been holden that the name of the owner of the survey itself may be mistaken in the certificate and grant, and both contradicted by parol testimony ”

“ But if parol evidence could have been received to contradict the call for the county, the grant would have been made good. A grant to one, as a knight, when he is an esquire, has been held void. But this would have been remedied, had parol evidence been admissible. ”

“ The court decided the omission to be immaterial, the patent containing other sufficient descriptions, as 'at the round bottom' 'on the Ohio,' &c. &c.
The history of that title is as follows: general Washington procured a deputy surveyor of West Augusta to make a private survey for him in 1773. He possessed the filed notes, and afterwards purchased warrants to cover it of a date subsequent to his private survey. In October 1776, the counties of Monongalia, Ohio and Yohogania, were formed out of West Augusta. See Hen. S. L. Vol 9, 262, 269. ”

“ The defendants thereupon offered in evidence a certified copy of an act of assembly of Virginia, establishing the county of Harrison, and a copy of the cerificate of the survey on which the plaintiffs' said grant issued, dated December 13th 1824, after the act for erecting the county of Harrison was in operation; and proved that the land purporting to be granted, and the land claimed, as having been surveyed, lay in the bounds of the county of Harrison ”

“ Browder, before quoted. If even a location have certain material calls sufficient to support it, and to describe the lands, other calls less material and incompatible with the essential calls may be disregarded. ”