No. 9.

In compliance with the instructions of the Commissioner of the General Land Office we, the undersigned, make the following statement, under oath, concerning the public lands in Nottaway and part of Gentry counties, Missouri, which Peter McLaughlin and Henry F. Felix entered at the General Land Office.

The Reading, Berks county, Pennsylvania Land Association for actual settlements, appointed James Power, Anthony S. Felix, and Owen O'Reilly, a committee, with full power to proceed to the west to select suitable lands and purchase the same.

On the 27th of October, 1856, the aforesaid committee departed from Reading to carry out the instructions of said association. They proceeded to St. Paul, Minnesota. Being satisfied that that locality would not suit, they went southward, and arrived at Fort Leavenworth and attended the sale there on the 17th of November. On account of the great competition and consequent high price of land, they could not purchase at that sale. They then turned their attention to the public lands in Missouri, and inspected and examined the lands in Nottaway county, and were satisfied that those lands would suit our purposes. On the 26th of November two of said committee, viz: Anthony S. Felix and Owen O'Reilly, personally applied at the land office at Plattsburgh to enter lands and were denied the right, (the register being present;) and being informed that the office had closed on the 15th of November, and that they could not state when it would be opened again, they then appointed M. Jeff. Thompson, esq., of St. Joseph, Missouri, our agent, and returned home.

After their return, M. Jeff. Thompson corresponded with the association, and stated that he was of the opinion that when the receiver and register closed an office contrary to law, military bounty land warrants could be entered at the General Land Office. With thi conviction he forwarded to us a map of Nottaway county, showing by red the lands which were vacant in Nottaway and part of Gentry counties, which map, he stated, was corrected from the plats at the office at Plattsburg after the closing of the same on the 15th of November.

Upon these representations, Peter McLaughlin and Henry F. Felix were appointed a committee to proceed to Washington and apply at the General Land Office, and, if possible and legal, to enter the

same.

On the 4th of February, the said Peter McLaughlin and Henry F. Felix applied at the General Land Office, and on the 5th of the same month entered one hundred and fifty-two military bounty land warrants, according to the directions of the Commissioner of the General Land Office.

We are informed, through the General Land Office, that on the 6th of February these warrants, with the proper instructions, were forwarded to the office at Plattsburg. We are also informed, by letter of M. Jeff. Thompson, that they arrived too late; that on or about the 2d of March the office was opened again, and that all the lands in

the district were sold before our warrants arrived. One of the committee, viz: Henry F. Felix, after our return from Washington, wrote to the receiver, and also to M. Jeff. Thompson, informing them of the fact. And the said Henry F. Felix forwarded also a copy of the instructions which the Commissioner forwarded with the warrants to the receiver and register to the said M. Jeff. Thompson. Now, from the letters in the possession of the Commissioner, we believe the receiver and register knew that those warrants were on the way, and we have no doubt M. Jeff. Thompson could have pointed out the lands we entered, as he was at Plattsburg at the time of the sale. In testimony whereof, we have hereunto set our hands and seals this 8th day of April, A. D. 1857.

Before me, William B. Schoener, one of the aldermen of the said city of Reading, personally appeared James Power, Anthony S. Felix, and Owen O'Reilly, who, upon oath, stated that they are the committee named in the foregoing instrument of writing who were appointed to proceed to the west to carry out the instructions therein named, and that they believe the foregoing statement to be correct to the best of their knowledge and belief. And also personally appeared Peter McLaughlin and Henry F. Felix, who, upon oath, did declare that they are the committee named in the foregoing instrument of writing to go to Washington to enter land warrants, and that they believe the foregoing statement to be correct to the best of heir knowledge and belief.

Witness my hand and seal this 8th day of April, A. D. 1857. WM B. SCHOENER, Alderman, [L. S.]

I, Josiah Hearing, prothonotary of the court of common pleas of said county, do certify that William B. Schoener, before whom the annexed affidavits were made, is an acting alderman and ex officio justice of the peace of the city of Reading, county of Berks, duly commissioned and qualified to administer oaths and affirmations, and to take acknowledgements, &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 thereto is genuine.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and [L. S.] affixed the seal of said court this 8th day of April, A. D.

1857.

JOSIAH HEARING, Prothonotary.

No. 10.

GENERAL LAND OFFCE,
April 11, 1857.

GENTLEMEN: On the 1st instant, a letter was addressed to you in relation to the efforts made by Messrs. McLaughlin and Felix to locate 152 military bounty land warrants on certain lands in Nodaway county, Missouri, and advising you that they would be called upon by this office for their statement of the case under oath, in order that proper steps might be taken for a thorough investigation of the

case.

I now enclose a correct copy of the statement above alluded to, on the receipt of which you will notify Messrs. McLaughlin and Felix, through the Hon. J. Glancy Jones, of Reading, Berks county, Pennsylvania, and all the adverse claimants, that on a certain day and hour, to be named in such notice, you will be prepared to take testimony in the matter at issue, giving ample time for all the parties to appear at the appointed time with their witnesses, in order that a thorough and complete investigation of the case may be had with as little delay as practicable.

The testimony must be taken under oath, and the witnesses subject to cross-examination by either of the parties, if they so desire, and must be forwarded to this office with your joint report thereon, in which report you will state distinctly the number of times and upon what plea your office has been closed, without authority from this office, since the 8th day of October last, this being the day upon which James H. Birch qualified and took possession of the register's office, the precise date or dates upon which the office was so closed, and the date or dates when again opened for business.

You will also take for the use of your office a correct copy of the letter from this office of the 6th of February last, on this subject, and forward the original to this office, after having certified thereon the precise date of its reception at your office.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

REGISTER and RECEIVER,
Plattsburg, Missouri.

Th

JOS. S. WILSON,

Acting Commissioner.

V

No. 11.

PRAIRIE PARK,

April 15, 1857.

SIR: Your letter of the 23d ultimo having reached me in due course of mail, I have been patiently awaiting the arrival of my successor, and have delayed this communication accordingly. Learning yesterday, however, that his letter of declension had been enclosed to a gentleman in town, to whom the appointment was simultaneously tendered by Mr. Craig, under the mistaken assumption that he would answer his purpose, (and that being also declined,) I need only add that your instructions in respect to the transfer of the records and other public property in my possession will be complied with as soon as a person presents himself authorized to receive them. Meanwhile, my key has been surrendered to the receiver, in obedience to your telegram of the 26th; my office, which is in my own building, is locked up; pre-emptors and others return home disappointed; the news naturallly flies through the country, with the usual exaggerations, so that, as far as yourself and Mr. Craig can effect it, I am a discredited man, out of his way, and beyond redress. Enough of this, however.

Acquiescing in the policy of the administration in respect to the more important offices of the country, I have, of course, no reason to complain that I was not made an exception to the principle of rotation; the less so, in a mere pecuniary or business point of view, since such an exception would have devolved upon me the duties of the next ten months in closing up the business of the office, without any additional compensation-having considerably overearned my maximum for the current year, before the receipt of your telegram by the receiver.

And this brings me again, with but natural reluctance, to the only objectionable phase of the transaction; namely, the indecent haste and unfairness by which I was betrayed, in a quarter where it was my right to look for protection and defence. In the exposition of this I shall, of necessity, refer and reply to your letter of the 19th ultimo, which has been regarded in no other light than a make-weight prepared in view of the possible necessity there might be for something of the kind, in order to render more certain the accomplishment of the mission and the pledge of our new representative, which reached me somewhat simultaneously, and of which I had not previously entertained even the most remote suspicion.

Deeming it due to our common superiors that a transaction in which you cannot be excusable in any point of view should be calmly investigated ur it is fully understood, I will ake up the charges contained our letter of the 19th, (which it is admitted were sufficient to my removal, which followed on the next day,) and will demonfrom the records and files of your own office, that ALL the reprehes to you, and not to me.

arst CL

have been "in the habit, for several onths, of permitting military land warrants, under the act of 1855, to be located on lands which are subject to sale at not less than $2 50 per acre," meaning, of course, the alternate sections within six miles of the railroad.

To this I reply, that a copy of this letter will be enclosed to the Secretary of the Interior, who is the official head of the service, and has his office in the same building that yours is; you are respectfully defied to point out to that officer even an inadvertence of that nature, much less to make good the charge that such has been the "habit" of my office for months. You probably saw on my abstract, or on that of the receiver, that lands 20, 30, or even 50 miles from the railroad, simultaneously applied for as locations, had been bid up from the minimum of $1 25 per acre to even more than $2 50 per acre; and seeing, in the same connexion, that these tracts were covered with warrants under the act of 1855, and the excess paid in money, your overweening haste to serve another, at the expense of your own subordinate, may have betrayed you into the inexcusable inaccuracy thus irrefragably refuted.

As to your second ground of reprehension, in connexion with which you threaten the cancellation of hundreds of my sales, I need only copy from the second paragraph of your letter the ex post facto ruling upon which this is to be predicated, and follow it by a quotation from the specific instructions of your predecessor, upon the same point, under which all the locations in question have been MADE, and upon the faith of which hundreds of citizens hold their fields and their homes.

You say, that "where a tract of land is put up between two parties, who have made simultaneous application for the same, and sold to the highest bidder, such purchaser cannot locate a warrant on said land, paying the difference in cash, but the whole of the land so purchased must be paid for in cash."

Now, sir, it so happens that the very first warrant I ever received. as register, upwards of four years ago, was offered in part payment for land thus simultaneously applied for, and bid off at $1 26 per acre; in respect to the legality of which, and the manner of making my returns of such a location, I received Commissioner Wilson's subsequent instructions of the 13th of July, 1853, as follows:

"Whenever two persons apply to locate a tract of land with a land warrant, and one of them offers an additional price in money, over the sum of $125 per acre, paid for by the warrant, the receiver in that case will issue his receipt for the excess so paid, the same as in an ordinary excess payment; and the issue of a certificate of location is all that is required of the register."

Believe me, sir, that much as you have essayed to wrong me--false and unfair as is the position you have placed me in-my pen well-nigh refuses to pursue you further. I must inquire, however, why it waswhere slept the watchful supervision with which you are charged, and to which you are sworn-that scores of similar locations, by my intermediate last summer, and by myself from first to last, were overlooked and uncomplained of until the day preceding my removal? The instinct of every honest man will answer that your letter was prearranged for a specific purpose; and, as it would be to dishonestly connive at so audacious an abuse of your position were I to forego the duty of bringing it properly before the administration, a copy hereof, as already intimated, will be transmitted to the President through the appropriate department.