trade, and not for agriculture; but the legal subdivisions included in such town sites should be subject to the operations of the act of May 23, 1844, "for the relief of citizens of towns upon lands of the United States, under certain circumstances."[1] The proviso to the 4th section of the original act, declaring void all sales of lands before the issue of the patents therefor, was repealed, and sales were declared invalid only where the claimant had not resided four years upon the land. By these terms two subjects which had greatly troubled the land claimants were disposed of; those who had been a long time in the country could sell their lands without waiting for the issuance of their patents, and those who had taken claims and laid out towns upon natural town-sites were left undisturbed.[2] This last amendment to the donation law granted the oft-repeated prayer of the settlers that the orphan children of the earliest immigrants who died before the passage of the act of September 27, 1850, should be allowed grants of land, the donation to this class being 160 acres each. Under this amendment Jason Lee's daughter could claim the small reward of a quarter-section of land for her father's services in colonizing the country. These orphans' claims were to be set off to them by the surveyor general in good agricultural land, and in case of the decease of either of them their rights vested in the survivors of the family. Such was the land law as regarded individuals.
This act, besides, extended to the territory of Wash-
- ↑ This act provided that when any of the surveyed public lands had been occupied as a town site, and was not therefore subject to entry under the existing laws, in case the town were incorporated, the judges of the county court for that county should enter it at the proper land office, at the minimum price, for the several use and benefit of the occupants thereof according to their respective interests, the proceeds of the sales of lots to be disposed of according to rules and regulations prescribed by the legislature; but the land must be entered prior to the commencement of the public sale of the body of land in which the town site was included. See note on p. 72, Gen. Laws Or.
- ↑ Many patents never issued. It was held by the courts that the law actually invested the claimant who had complied with its requirements with the ownership of the land, and that the patent was simply evidence which did not affect the title. Deady's Scraps, 5.
