The intentional blindness of the manoeuvre, therefore, by which it is attempted to so discriminate in respect to the real record of the case as to give precedence to the applications received from Pennsylvania on the 7th, because the previous ones of Yonley and others were not reached, in their turn, and put into office shape by the receiver and myself, until from the 13th to the 31st of that month, is decidedly the weakest "dodge" which has been resorted to amidst all the "shiftings and twistings" of which the case has been so shamefully prolific. Why, sir, need I inform you, the head of the land service, that had the land applied for by the Pennsylvania parties been even vacant when their application was received on the 7th of March, they could not of had the right to renew and subdivide their application, and have it all put into separate applications, under office forms, as Yonley's was on the 17th of March, until his and all others of the 2d of March had been carried through that final process; that proposition being not only just and invulnerable in itself, but having been expressly so ruled by the Commissioner, in the case sent for Mr. Faulkner, to which you were referred in my letter of the 21st of April last. Of course I need scarcely repeat that land thus applied for at the various "openings" (as they were called) was not only necessarily, (as against intervening pre-emptors and others,) but EXPRESSLY, held to have been sold on the day of filing the original application and depositing the consideration; the decision of the Commissioner in the case of Hardin and Jackson, (made even after this case was commenced by the agent clerk in the land office, but whilst he was prosecuting it with the intention to certify an application and tender in NOVEMBER,) that decision covering the same point, and being but in accordance with your own subsequent report to the President, all demonstrating, in the language of that report, that I was "bound to admit❞ such applications as Yonley and others made for this land on the 2d of March, because they had "done all that the law required" of them! WELL, having done so, and having, in conjunction with the receiver, made out their final office papers, as usual, as soon as we could, who so blind as not to see that there is nothing left of this case, unless indeed Yonley and others are to have a new and different rule applied to them, (in their contest with the office clients of the Commissioner,) to the one under which we did all such business, and which the same Commissioner approved and upheld, specifically, even against a preemptor, as late as the 21st of April last, in the case of Hardin and Jackson. It need only to be added, as closing this view of the case, that if your Commissioner had intended to enlighten instead of mislead those for whom his report was probably ultimately intended, he would have copied, side by side with the office application and certificate in Yonley's case, the similar office application, receipt, and certificate in Hardin's case, showing those final papers to have been made on the 8th of September, in virtue of an original application by Hardin on the 1st of that month, just as Yonley's final papers were made out on the 17th of March, in virtue of his original application on the 2d of that month, and would have again recorded the fact, that as this had been the necessary and approved MODE of transacting ALL such business during the long period of unparalleled pressure, of which his records bear such ample evidence, it must of course stand undisturbed. I beg leave to submit, in conclusion, (trusting it may be the last word I may ever have to write or speak upon this subject,) that as I have the Commissioner similarly booked" in the Faulkner correspondence, in respect to the time at which an application made through his office attaches at a district office, there can be nothing left of this case but the duty of undoing what has been so wrongfully done; and that, with this reliance, it is desired that you will do me the favor to lay this before the President, to be considered, if necessary, in connexion with what I felt it my duty to address him on Saturday last. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, Hon. JACOB THOMPSON, Secretary of the Interior. JAMES H. BIRCH. No. 31. GENERAL LAND OFFICE, SIR: Herewith I inclose James H. Birch, jr's., letter of the 21st ultimo, with a copy statement from Birch, sen., as register, and Whittington as receiver, dated March 2, 1857, and pursuant to your instructions submit the following: That these papers relate to locations at Plattsburg, Missouri, made on the one part by Felix and McLaughlin, and on the other by Birch and others, and which are the subject of my report to you, dated 24th of September last, on the appeal of Mr. Yonley. By the act of 28th of September, 1850, (vol. 9, p. 520) it is made "the duty of the commissioner" to "cause to be located, free of expense, any warrant which the holder may transmit to the General Land Office for that purpose, in such State and land district as the said holder or warrantee may designate." Under this law Felix and McLaughlin, on the 6th of February, 1857, applied to this office, to locate for actual settlement a large number of tracts which they designated, and on that day their application and warrants were transmitted to the register and receiver at Plattsburg, Missouri; but those officers, in acknowledging the reception, stated that said application of the 6th of February was not received until the evening of the 7th of March, adding that "this delay is the more vexatious, as the greater portion of the land thereby to be located was covered and carried by the locations of mere speculators on the 2d instant." Upon the reception here of the official returns from Plattsburg, it was ascertained that the lands selected by Felix and McLaughlin had not been disposed of on the 2d of March, nor until after the 10th, and therefore the lands embraced in their application at this office, on the 6th of February, and which the register and receiver say reached them on the 7th March, 1857, were ordered to be admitted. This copy statement Birch, jr., now presents to contradict and set aside the official returns. It consists of 118 lines descriptive of tracts, only eleven of which embrace lands in this controversy. He calls it "an informal certificate." It is not only so, but it is without the sanction of law or instructions, and in disregard of both; but its material averment, that the lands were "purchased and paid for" by Birch, jr., on the 2d of March, 1857, is false in point of fact. They were not purchased but located lands. In making locations of the land with warrants between the 10th and 31st of March, small excess payments were made in four cases, where the tract exceeded in quantity the warrants located thereon, and that was all. If the certificate were true, it would prove that on the 2d March, 1857, the receiver received cash payments for over 30,000 acres-would fasten upon him the responsibility of yet accounting to the government for that sum, and would force the conclusion that warrants at a date subsequent to 2d March were substituted for money, thereby changing the transactions from purchase to located lands. But if this "informal certificate" stated that these lands were located by warrants the 2d March last, its error on that point is established First. By James H. Birch, jr.'s, application over his own signature. Take, for instance, the first case in the conflict designated in his "informal certificate," which is the location by warrant No. 34,234 for 80 acres. Here is a copy of it, on which he declares he applied for the location on the 14th of March, 1857. Second. Then follows the joint certificate, dated 14th March, 1857, of Birch, sr., register, and Whittington, receiver, stating that on that day the said warrant was received at this office from James H. Birch, jr. Here is a copy of their formal certificate. Third. Then we have a further certificate, dated March 31, 1857, superadded by register and receiver, that the above "location is correct.' Here is a copy of that also. Fourth. Then, in addition to all this, we have the regular official abstracts of locations for the month of March, 1857, with a certificate from the register and receiver that it is a "true abstract," describing each tract, number of warrant, date of location, and by whom made, and designating every one of Birch, jr.'s, locations in conflict with Felix and McLaughlin's, as made after the 10th of March, 1857. Will any man say that an "informal certificate" of such a character can be suffered to contradict or outweigh not only Birch, jr.'s, application over his own signature, but the official returns formally certified by the register and receiver? We think not; and even supposing that this irregular proceeding on the part of the applicant, Birch, jr., begins on the 2d of March, his subsequent regular and formal application, dated by him after the 10th of March, and carried through all the official forms after that date, would, in law, be regarded as a waiver of the question of date. But upon this point it is necessary only to add that the unofficial and irregular document sent up by James H. Birch, jr., is impeached, and as an instrument of evidence destroyed by his own applications and the certificates and official abstracts of the officers, made under the sanction and obligation of their official oaths. With great respect, your obedient servant, THOS. A. HENDRICKS, Commissioner. Hon. JACOB THOMPSON, Secretary of the Interior. No. 32. Personally appeared before the undersigned, an alderman of the city of Reading, in the county of Berks, and State of Pennsylvania, Peter McLaughlin and Henry F. Felix, who, being duly sworn according to law, depose and say: That, as they are informed by their representative in Congress that statements have been made by James H. Birch, late register at Plattsburg, Missouri, charging certain officers of the General Land Office at Washington with having a personal interest in certain locations of lands in the Plattsburg district, Missouri, for which the deponents have applied, the said deponents deem it only an act of justice to declare under oath, and depose as they do, that neither Thomas A. Hendricks, the Commissioner, Joseph S. Wilson, the chief clerk, John Hood, at the head of military division of 1855, nor any other person in any way connected with the General Land Office, had or have any possible interest in the lands located by us at Plattsburg, Missouri, for ourselves and others, either present, remote, or contingent; nor did they, or either of them, receive, nor have they received, any fee or reward whatever, or the promise thereof; and that the action of the General Land Office, in ordering our locations, was had and induced only and exclusively upon our representation to the Commissioner that we had been at the Plattsburg office, and had been denied the opportunity of locating the lands by the register of that office, upon the pretext that the office was closed. Upon this statement, we claimed of the General Land Office our right to make our locations through it under the 2d provision to the 4th section of the act of 28th September, A. D. 1850; so that any and all such declarations imputing interest, direct or indirect, of the officers aforesaid, in and to the land locations alluded to, are entirely false and unfounded; and that the deponents are the only parties interested in the lands who were authorized to appear at the General Land Office in the business; and that it was upon our application that the action of the General Land Office was had. PETER MCLAUGHLIN, Sworn and subscribed before me, February 27, A. D. 1858, WM. B. SCHOENER, Alderman. STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA, County of Berks, ss: I, David Fister, prothonotary of the court of common please of said county, do certify that William B. Schoener, esq., before whom the annexed was made, is an acting alderman and ex-officio justice of the peace of Reading, county of Berks, duly commissioned and qualified to administer oaths and affirmations, and to take acknowledgments, &c.; and to all whose acts, as such, full faith and credit are and ought to be given, as well in courts of judicature as elsewhere; and that his signature is genuine. In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and affixed [L. S.] the seal of said courts this 27th day of February, A. D. 1858. DAVID FISTER, Prothonotary. |