upon the land. The widow of Short then filed a notification under the new act, and in order to secure the whole of the 640 acres, which might have been claimed under the original donation act, dated the residence of her husband and herself from 1848. But Mrs Short, whose notification was made in October 1853, was still too late to receive the benefit of the new act, as Bishop Blanchet had caused a similar notification to be made in May, claiming 640 acres for the mission of St James[1] out of the indefinite grant to the Hudson's Bay Company. Though the company's rights of occupancy did not expire until 1859, the bishop chose to take the same view held by the American squatters, and claimed possession at Vancouver, where the priests of his church had been simply guests or chaplains, under the clause in the organic act giving missions a mile square of land; and the surveyor general of Washington Territory decided in his favor.[2] No patent was however issued to the catholic church, the question of the Hudson's Bay Company's claim remaining in abeyance, and the decision of the surveyor general being reversed by the commissioner of the general land office, after which an appeal was taken to the secretary of the interior.[3]
- ↑ Says Roberts: 'Even the catholics tried to get the land at Vancouver… In the face of the 11th section of the donation law, by which people were precluded from interfering with the company's lands, how could Short, the Roman catholics, and others do as they did?' Recollections, MS., 90, 93.
- ↑ The papers show that the mission notification was on file before any claims were asserted to contiguous lands. It is the oldest claim. Its recognition is coeval with the organization of Oregon, and was a positive grant more than two years before any American settler could acquire an interest in or title to unoccupied public lands. Report of Surveyor General, in Claim of St James Mission, 21; Olympia Standard, April 5, 1862.
- ↑ The council employed for the mission furnished elaborate arguments on the side of the United States, as against the rights of the Hudson's Bay Company, one of the most striking of which is the following: 'The fundamental objection to our claim is, that the United States could not in good faith dispose of these lands pending the "indefinite" rights of the Hudson's Bay Company. We have seen that as to time they were not indefinite, but had a fixed termination in May 1859. But either way, how can the United States at the same time deny their right to appropriate or dispose of the lands permanently, only respecting the possessory rights of the company, and yet in 1849, 1850, 1853, or 1854 have made such appropriation (for military purposes) and permanent disposition, and now set it up against its grant to us in 1848? … It is
