examination of the cases so alleged to be fraudulent; and such testimony shall be reduced to writing, and subscribed by each witness, and the same returned to the Commissioner, with the opinion of said agent on each claim; and any witness, so examined before the said agent, who shall swear wilfully and falsely in regard to any matter or thing touching such examination, shall be subject, on conviction, to all the pains and penalties of perjury; and it shall be the duty of the Commissioner, to decide the cases thus returned, and finally to settle the matter in controversy, subject alone to an appeal to the Secretary of the Treasury:Proviso. Provided, That the power conferred by this section upon such agent is hereby limited to the term of one year from and after the date of this act; and the compensation to be paid to said agent shall not exceed three dollars per day for each day he may be necessarily engaged in the performance of the duties required by this section.
In case of death of party entitled to pre-emption before consummating claim.Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That in any case, where a party entitled to claim the benefits of any of the pre-emption laws shall have died before consummating his claim, by filing, in due time, all the papers essential to the establishment of the same, it shall be competent for the executor or administrator of the estate of such party, or one of the heirs, to file the necessary papers to complete the same: Provided, That the entry in such cases shall be made in favor of “the heirs” of the deceased pre-emptor, and a patent thereon shall cause the title to inure to said heirs, as if their names had been specially mentioned.
Settlers on certain lands, unsurveyed at time of settlement, may enter other lands.Sec. 3. And be it further enacted, That every settler on section sixteen, reserved for the use of schools, or on other reserved or land covered by private claims of others, which was not surveyed at the time of such settlement, and who shall otherwise come within the provisions of the several pre-emption laws in force at the time of the settlement, upon proof thereof before the register of the proper land office, shall be entitled to enter, at the minimum price, any other quarter section, or fractional section, or fractional quarter section, in the land district in which such school section or reserve or private claim may lie, so as not to exceed one hundred and sixty acres, not reserved from sale, or in the occupancy of any actual bona fide settler:Proviso.
1841, ch. 16. Provided, Such settlement was made before the date of the act of fourth September, eighteen hundred and forty-one, and after the extinguishment of the Indian title.
An individual filing a declaration for one tract, cannot file a second for another.Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, That where an individual has filed, under the late pre-emption law, his declaration of intention to claim the benefits of said law for one tract of land, it shall not be lawful for the same individual at any future time, to file a second declaration for another tract.
Claimants under late pre-emption law, &c. to make known their claims.Sec. 5. And be it further enacted, That claimants under the late pre-emption law, for land not yet proclaimed for sale, are required to make known their claims, in writing, to the register of the proper land office, within three months from the date of this act when the settlement has been already made, and within three months from the time of the settlement when such settlement shall hereafter be made, giving the designation of the tract, and the time of settlement; otherwise his claim to be forfeited, and the tract awarded to the next settler, in the order of time, on the same tract of land, who shall have given such notice, and otherwise complied with the conditions of the law.
Claimants not to suffer for non-compliance with the pre-emption laws caused by vacancy of office of register or receiver.
Proviso.Sec. 6. And be it further enacted, That whenever the vacancy of the office of register or receiver, or of both, shall render it impossible for the claimant to comply with any requisition of any of the pre-emption laws within the appointed time, such vacancy shall not operate to the detriment of the party claiming, in respect to any matter essential to the establishment of his claim: Provided, That such requisition is complied with within the same period after the disability is removed as would have been allowed him had such disability not existed.
