The SW.

14

of NE. and NW. 1, E. and SW. of SW. and SE. S. 6, T. 65, R. 3, 441,80 acres. of NE. and E.

of NW. 1 S. 7, T. 65, R. 33, 160 acres.
33, 320 acres.

of SE.
of S. 14, T. 63, R. 34, 80 acres.

of S. 13, T. 63, R. 34, 240 acres.

of S. 17, T. 63, R. 34, 160 acres.
63, R. 34, 320 acres.

The N. of S. 26, T.
and SW.

of S. 23, T.
of S. 27, T

of S. 36, T. 63, R. 34, 320 acres.
64, R. 34, 160 acres.

64, R. 34, 160 acres.

of S. 2, T. 64, R. 38, 320 acres.

The W.
The N.
The SW.

S. 12, T. 65, R.
and S.

The E.

of SE.

The SE.

The NE.

The SW.
The SW.

The W.

The N.

The N.

The NE.
The SE.

The NE.

The W.

of SE. and W. of S. 11,

and SE. of S. 4, T. 64, R. 38, 480 acres.
of S. 5, T. 64, R. 38, 320 acres.

of S. 6, T. 64, R. 38, 160 acres.

and E. of SW. of S. 8, T. 64, R. 38, 240 acres.
of S. 9, T. 64, R. 38, 160 acres.
of NE. 1, W.

T. 64, R. 38, 520 acres.

and SE.

acres.

The N.

acres.

The S.

The E.

The SW.
The SW.
The W.

of NE. and NE. of NW. † of S. 17, T. 64, R. 38, 120

of S. 29, T. 64, R. 38, 320 acres.

and SW. of SE. of S. 30, T. 64, R. 38, 120 acres.
of S. 6, T. 65, R. 38, 164, acres.

of S. 10, T. 65, R. 38, 160 acres.

of 15, secs. 19, 20, and W. § of S. 22, T. 65, R. 38,

of S. 27 and W. of S. 30, T. 65, R. 38, 664% acres. of S. 31, T. 65, R. 38, 166, acres.

S. 34, T. 65, R. 38, 640 acres.

The W. of lots 1 and 2 of NE. and NW. of S. 1, T. 65, R. 34, 209.84 acres.

Total amount of acres, 30,239.39.

I, Moses Shoemaker, clerk of the circuit court within and for said county, do hereby certify that the foregoing is a true and perfect copy of an instrument of writing in the possession of James H. Birch, jr.; that I am well acquainted with the handwriting of James H. Birch, Rep. No. 289-4

late register, and H. Whittington, present receiver of the land office at this place, and that I know that the signatures of the said Birch and Whittington, which are subscribed to the instrument of writing of which the foregoing is a copy, are genuine.

In testimony whereof, I have hereto set my hand and affixed the seal of said court, at office, in Plattsburg, this 21st day of October, A. D. 1857.

MOSES SHOEMAKER, Clerk.

F.

GENERAL LAND OFFICE, October 12, 1856.

GENTLEMEN: I am in receipt of a letter from J. H. Birch, jr., attorney for Redan & White, enclosing military bounty land warrant No. 38,173, for 80 acres, with an application made on the 2d September, 1856, by James D. White and Martin M. Redan, to locate land warrant on the west half of lots Nos. 1 and 2 of northwest half of section 4, township 63, range 37, Plattsburg district, Mo., and a certificate from the receiver of public moneys, showing that a fee of $2 was received by him from said White and Redan for the location of said. warrant. It appears from this letter that Martin M. Redan and James D. White applied to locate warrant No. 38,173 on the above described tracts, and were refused permission to locate the same for the reason that, under the rule adopted by a former register, application for about 100,000 acres had accumulated, and that the present register, therefore, refused to receive any further application until those then on hand had been disposed of, and that the papers in this case are submitted for the purpose of ascertaining whether a register of a land office can properly refuse at any time to receive an application to enter a tract of land which is vacant, and to the entry of which there appears to be no legal objections.

In reply, I have to state that it is the duty of a register to receive and to act upon and consummate, so far as his official action is required for that purpose, at the time of reception, all such applications to enter or locate lands subject to entry at private sale as may be presented to him in the regular order of the business of each day, taking care, at the same time, when there is a crowd in the office, not to allow a monopoly of purchase in favor of any one person, and not permitting any one person to purchase or locate at any one time more than the extent of an ordinary entry. It is then the duty of the receiver of public moneys to receive in cash, land warrants, or scrip, payment for each tract so sold by the register and certified as sold in the regular order during each day of the reception by him of the necessary certificates from the register, and full consideration for the tract so purchased or located, thus consummating before the close of each day every entry for which full payment has been made during the day.

If at any time a greater number of applications for the entry or location of land should be tendered at your office than can be attended to and consummated in the regular order of their reception, they should

be allowed to remain in the hands of the applicant until they can be so received and consummated. The fact that an applicant has tendered his application and consideration for the tract he desires to purchase or locate at a time when the business before you would not permit you even to examine, much less to consummate, the entry or location gives him no right to make a subsequent entry or location of the tract in preference to one who may have made a proper application and tender for the same tract at a time when his application could be attended to and consummated.

You will furnish Mr. Birch with a copy of this letter, if he desires it, and return him the warrant and other papers, which are herewith enclosed for that purpose.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

THOS. A. HENDRICKS, Commissioner.

REGISTER and RECEIVER, Plattsburg, Mo.

G.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,
September 4, 1857.

SIR The letter of James H. Birch, late the register at Plattsburg, Missouri, of 2d ultimo, was referred by you to the Interior Department, with a request that a thorough investigation should be made into the charges contained in said letter, and a report upon the same should be communicated to you. In compliance with that request I have given to the subject a personal and, I believe, a thorough exam

ination.

Prior to the receipt of this letter of complaint to you similar communications had been addressed to me, and I had referred them to the Commissioner of the General Land Office for a report. His reply was made June 14, 1857, and I must refer you to that letter for an explanation of the instructions given by the Commissioner at different times to the register at Plattsburg land office.

The charge of official conspiracy against him, (Mr. Birch,) so far as it implicates the Commissioner of the General Land Office, is wholly untrue. Mr. Birch was removed on the decisive recommendation of the Missouri delegation in Congress, without any consultation with the Commissioner.

The material facts involved in the charge that the Commissioner of the General Land Office had ordered the cancellation of 150 entries made by Mr. Birch, and the sale of the same lands to certain parties in Pennsylvania, are as follows:

On the 5th of February last Messrs. McLaughlin and Felix, gentlemen from Pennsylvania, representing, as they alleged, a large number of citizens of that State who desired to emigrate to the State of Missouri, and therefore wished to buy lands for settlement, appeared at the General Land Office in this city with 152 land warrants, and, under the law of 28th September, 1850, (Laws U. S., vol. 9, p. 521,)

made application to the Commissioner to locate them upon certain lands in the Plattsburg land district, State of Missouri. The warrants were examined and found to be regular in their issuance and assignment. The particular lands on which the parties wished to locate them were designated, and upon examination it was found, so far as anything appeared on the books of the office, that the lands applied for were

vacant.

The Commissioner received the application and the warrants, as it was his duty to do, and, on the 6th of February, enclosed the warrants and gave directions to the register and receiver at Plattsburg, Missouri, to locate the warrants on the lands designated in the list of applications. He also enclosed to the register and receiver a receipt of Adams & Co 's Express Company for $477 in gold, to be delivered to the register and receiver, as fees for the entry of these lands. The register acknowledges the receipt of the warrants and directions of the Commissioner on the 7th of March. On that day all the lands applied for were vacant, and there can be no doubt that it was the right of Messrs. McLaughlin and Felix to have their entries perfected. The register was bound to admit them, because they had done all that the law required of them. But subsequent to the 7th of March, that is, from the 13th to the 31st of March, the register and receiver permitted other parties to enter the identical lands applied for by Messrs. McLaughlin and Felix. For proof of this I enclose an abstract of the returns of the locations made at Plattsburg in the month of March, and the singular fact is most striking that by far the larger portion of the entries was made in the name of James H. Birch, jr., the son of the register; a badge of fraud which it will be most difficult to remove.

On the 8th of April, 1857, Hon. J. Glancy Jones came before the Commissioner and presented the affidavit of McLaughlin, Felix and others, which sets forth, that on the 26th of November, 1856, Messrs. Felix and O'Reily personally applied "at the land office at Plattsburg to enter lands and were denie the right, (the register being present,) and were informed that the office had closed on the 15th of November, and that they could not state when it would be opened again." He insisted that the matter be rectified at once. He charged fraud on the face of the transaction. This charge was strengthened by the fact that the abstract of locations returned to the office showed that locations were made in the Plattsburg office on the 18th, 19th, 21st, 24th, 25th and 29th of November. The information given to Messrs. Felix and O'Reily was therefore false.

April 11th, three days after Mr. Jones appeared at the Land Office, the Commissioner directed the register and receiver at Plattsburg to set a day and hour for investigating the whole transaction, in order that justice might be done to these citizens of Pennsylvania. The object of this investigation was to ascertain the number of times, and upon what plea, the office had been closed without authority since 8th of October last, the precise date or dates upon which the office was so closed, and the date or dates when again opened for business.

After the receipt of the official abstract or return by the register and receiver of the locations for the month of March, it appearing to

the satisfaction of the Commissioner that the lands sought to be entered in February in the General Land Office were vacant on the 7th of March, when their application was received at Plattsburg, no further investigation was deemed necessary, and on the 10th of July positive directions were given the register and receiver that, upon being furnished by Messrs. McLaughlin & Felix, or their attorney, with a descriptive list of the tracts applied for by them on the 26th of November, 1856, they should be permitted to locate the 152 warrants above mentioned thereon; provided, that, upon furnishing such a list, they appeared either in person or by attorney fully prepared to consummate such locations.

It does not clearly appear that Messrs. McLaughlin & Felix did tender any lists of lands or any money or land warrants to the register on the 26th of November; yet such an impression was made upon the officers of the General Land Office. But the instructions were so guarded that they were required to show that fact to the satisfaction of the register and receiver. Yet it does not follow that if they show that on the 26th of November they had tendered to the register a list of their lands and the land warrants or money necessary to enter the same, they were bound, six or nine months afterwards, to bring the same land warrants or the identical money which they originally tentered. The fact stated by Mr. Birch, that the warrants with which the locations were made in July, 1857, were assigned, or even issued, subsequent to the 26th of November, is not inconsistent with the statement that application was made for certain lands and tender was made of the warrants at that time necessary to locate the same. in order to justify the cancellation, which is the real grievance, there is no necessity whatever to refer to the 26th of November. The Commissioner has not strengthened his case by referring to an immaterial fact, and attaching so much importance to an application which, if made in due legal form, gave them at most only an equitable right of entry. But the lands were vacant on 7th of March. McLaughlin & Felix had then made a legal application and filed their warrants, and they are entitled to the lands; and every entry made subsequent to that date was permitted by the register and receiver in fraud of their legal rights.

But

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant. J. THOMPSON, Secretary.

The PRESIDENT.

WASHINGTON CITY, September 7, 1857.

DEAR SIR: I transmit you the report made to me by the Secretary of the Interior on the complaint contained in your letter of the 4th ultimo against the conduct of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, which, after examination, has received my approbation.

Yours, very respectfully,

JAMES BUCHANAN.

JAMES H. BIRCH, Esq.