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LAWS RELATING TO LAND WARRANTS.

entry is made for the purpose of actual settlement and cultivation, and not either directly or indirectly for the use or benefit of any other person or persons whomsoever; and upon filing the said affidavit with the register or receiver, and on payment of ten dollars, he or she shall thereupon be permitted to enter the quantity of land specified. . . .

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SEC. 6. And be it further enacted, That . . . Provided, . . . provided, further, That no person who has served, or may hereafter serve, for a period of not less than fourteen days in the army or navy of the United States, either regular or volunteer, under the -laws thereof, during the existence of an actual war, domestic or foreign, shall be deprived of the benefits of this act on account of not having attained the age of twenty-one years.

LAWS RELATING EXCLUSIVELY TO LAND WARRANTS.1

AN ACT in relation to Military Land Warrants.2

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That any non-commissioned officer, musician or private, or his widow or heirs, who shall receive and hold in his own right a land warrant, issued by the Government of the United States for military service, may locate the same in on [one] legal subdivision, on any public land subject to private entry, taking said land at the price at which the same is subject to private entry, and reckoning the warrant at one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre for the number of acres therein contained, and paying the balance, if any, in money; but no claim shall exist on the Government to pay for any balance on said warrant in money.

Approved, August 14, 1848.

AN ACT to make Land Warrants assignable and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all warrants for military bounty land which have been or may hereafter be issued under any law of the United States, and all valid locations of the same which have been or may hereafter be made, are hereby de

1 See pages 309-24, for several acts pertaining to the issue of land

warrants.

2 U. S. Statutes at Large, vol. ix, 332.

LAWS RELATING TO LAND WARRANTS.

clared to be assignable, by deed or instrument of writing made and executed after the taking effect of this act, according to such form and pursuant to such regulations as may be presented by the Commissioner of the General Land Office, so as to vest the assignee with all the rights of the original owner of the warrant or location: Provided, That any person entitled to pre-emption right to any land shall be entitled to use any such land warrant in payment of the same, at the rate of one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, for the quantity of land therein specified: Provided, That the warrants which have been or may hereafter be issued, in pursuance of said laws or of this act, may be located according to the legal subdivisions of the public lands, in one body, upon any land of the United States subject to private entry at the time of such location at the minimum price: Provided, further, That when such warrant shall be located on lands which are subject to entry at a greater minimum than one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, the locator of such warrants shall pay to the United States, in cash, the difference between the value of such warrants, at one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, and the tract of land located on.

SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That the registers and receivers of the land offices shall hereafter be severally authorized to charge and receive for their services in locating all military bounty land warrants issued since the eleventh day of February, eighteen hundred and forty-seven, the same compensation or per centage to which they are entitled by law for sales of the public lands for cash, at the rate of one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre; the said compensation to be hereafter paid by the assignees or holders of such warrants.

SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That registers and receivers, whether in or out of office at the passage of this act, or their legal representatives in case of death, shall be entitled to receive from the Treasury of the United States, for services heretofore performed in locating military bounty land warrants, the same rate of compensation provided in the preceding section for services hereafter to be performed, after deducting the amount already received by such officers under the act entitled "an act to require the holders of military land warrants to compensate the land officers of the United States for services in relation to the location of these warrants," approved May seventeen, eighteen hundred and forty-eight: Provided,

LAWS RELATING TO LAND WARRANTS.

That no register or receiver shall receive any compensation out of the treasury for past services who has charged and received illegal fees for the location of such warrants: And provided further, That no register or receiver shall receive for his services, during any year, a greater compensation than the maximum now allowed by law.

SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That in all cases where the militia, or volunteers, or State troops, of any State or territory were called into military service, and whose services have been paid by the United States subsequent to the eighteenth of June, eighteen hundred and twelve, the officers and soldiers of such militia, volunteers or troops, shall be entitled to all the benefits of the act entitled "an act granting bounty land to certain officers and soldiers who have been engaged in the military service of the United States," approved September twenty-eight, eighteen hundred and fifty, and shall receive lands for their services according to the provisions of said act, upon proof of length of service as therein required; and that the last proviso of the ninth section of the act of the eleventh of February, eighteen hundred and forty-seven (see 9th section, 1847), be and the same is hereby repealed: Provided, That nothing herein contained shall authorize bounty land to those who have heretofore received or become entitled to the same.

SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That where any company, battalion or regiment, in an organized form, marched more than twenty miles to the place where they were mustered into the service of the United States, or were discharged more than twenty miles from the place where such company, battalion or regiment was organized; in all such cases, in computing the length of service of the officers and soldiers of any such company, battalion or regiment, with a view to determine any quantity of land any officer or soldier is entitled to under said act, approved twenty-eighth of September, eighteen hundred and fifty, there shall be allowed one day for every twenty miles from the place where the company, battalion or regiment was organized to the place where the same was mustered into the service of the United States; and also one day for every twenty miles from the place where such company, battalion or regiment was discharged to the place where it was organized, and from whence it marched to enter the service.

[Approved, March 22, 1852.]

LAWS RELATING TO LAND WARRANTS.

AN ACT declaring the Title to Land Warrants in certain cases Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United of America in Congress assembled, That when proof has been or shall hereafter be filed in the Pension Office, during the lifetime of a claimant, establishing, to the satisfaction of that office, his or her right to a warrant for military services, and such warrant has not been or may not hereafter be issued until after the death of the claimant, and all such warrants as have been heretofore issued subsequent to the death of the claimant, the title to such warrants shall vest in the widow, if there be one, and if there be no widow, then in the heirs or legatees of the claimant; and all such warrants, and all other warrants issued pursuant to existing laws, shall be treated as personal chattels, and may be conveyed by assignment of such widow, heirs or legatees, or by the legal representatives of the deceased claimant, for the use of such heirs or legatees only.

SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That the provisions of the first section of the act approved March twenty-two, eighteen hundred and fifty-two, to make land warrants assignable, and for other purposes, shall be so extended as to embrace land warrants issued under the act of the third March, eighteen hundred and fifty-five. [Approved, June 3, 1858.]

AN ACT to authorize the re-issue of Land Warrants, in certain cases, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That whenever it shall appear that any certificate or warrant issued in pursuance of any law of the United States granting bounty land, has been lost or destroyed, whether the same had been sold or assigned by the warrantee or not, the Secretary of the Interior shall be, and is hereby authorized and required to cause a new certificate or warrant, of like tenor, to be issued in lieu thereof, which new certificate or warrant may be assigned, located and patented in like manner as other certificates or warrants for bounty land are now authorized by law, to be assigned, located and patented; and in all cases where warrants have been or may be re-issued, the original warrant, in whoseever hands it may be, shall be deemed and held to be null and void, and the assignment thereof, if any there be, fraudulent;

REGULATIONS AND FORMS-BOUNTY LAND.

and no patent shall ever issue for any land located therewith, unless such presumption of fraud in the assignment be removed by due proof, that the same was executed by the warrantee in good faith and for a valuable consideration.

SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That the Secretary of the Interior shall be, and is hereby authorized and required to prescribe such rules and regulations for carrying this act into effect as he may deem necessary and proper in order to protect the Government against imposition and fraud by persons claiming the benefits of this act, and all laws and parts of laws for the punishment of false swearing and frauds against the United States, are hereby made applicable to false swearing and fraud under this act.1

[Approved, June 23, 1860.]

SECTION II.

FORMS AND INSTRUCTIONS FOR OBTAINING BOUNTY LAND WARRANTS, DUPLICATE WARRANTS AND WAR SCRIP; AND ALSO FOR THE LOCATION AND ASSIGNMENT OF WARRANTS.

As the liberal provisions and unlimited application of the acts of March 3, 1855, and May 14, 1856, have, in effect, superseded all former laws granting bounty lands for military services, it would be but superfluous to insert

1 A practice has grown up of executing and acknowledging the assignment in writing by the warrantee in blank; leaving a blank for the name of the assignee. When the instrument by which the assignment purports to have been made, comes up for examination in the General Land Office, the question, Who is the assignee? is decided by inspection; parol evidence to contradict the record is rejected, and claimants of title who seek to show ownership of the warrant while the blank in the assignment remained open, are properly referred to the courts for a determination of the question of right. The General Land Office, when it finds by inspection, that a warrant was regularly assigned in writing for value to "A. B.," who has made the location, can not set aside that record, and declare that "C. D." is the true owner and holds the title. The only persons, therefore, who are 66 assign

ees within the terms of the laws and the regulations of the General Land Office on that subject, are those whose names are found in the instrument of writing by which the last assignment was made. Secretary Thompson, Sept. 12, 1860.

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