# United States Statutes at Large/Volume 5/28th Congress/1st Session/Chapter 71

Chap. LXXI.—An Act to amend an act entitled “An act to provide for the armed occupation and settlement of the unsettled part of the peninsula of Florida.”
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,Where location under act of Aug. 4, 1842, ch. 122, was made upon land liable to overflow, it may be changed. That in any case in which it shall appear to the Commissioner of the General Land Office that the location made by a settler under the act approved August fourth, eighteen hundred and forty-two, entitled, “An act to provide for the armed occupation and settlement of the unsettled part of the peninsula of Florida,” was located upon lands which were discovered after the issue of the permit to be liable to overflow, it shall be lawful for the said Commissioner to authorize the change of the location to any other vacant quarter section within the same land district:Proviso. Provided application for permission to change the location shall have been made at the proper land office before the fourth day of August, eighteen hundred and forty-three.
When settlement was made before survey, settler may locate upon legal subdivisions, so as to include his improvement.Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That in all cases in which settlements have been made under the provisions of said act, upon lands not surveyed before the issue of permit, the settler may, after survey, locate his quarter section in any legal subdivisions of continuous or contiguous sections, or fractional sections, so as to make up the quantity of one hundred and sixty acres, as may be, and to include his improvements and as much of the lands described in his permit as is consistent with the system of the public surveys.
Settler may reside on land not in permit. Proviso. Proviso.Sec. 3. And be it further enacted, That the settlers under said act may erect their dwellings, and reside upon other than the quarter ​section described in their permit, Provided, The land upon which they so erect their habitation shall be entered and paid for by them, if in market, or if not in market, shall be so entered within three months after it shall have been offered at public sale. And provided, also, That the condition of cultivation on the land described in the permit shall be faithfully complied with according to the terms of the act to which this is an amendment.
When title of U. S. is defective, settler may locate elsewhere.Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, That in any case in which the title of the United States to the land or any part of it, not less than forty acres, described in the permit issued by the land office to any settler, or contained in the quarter section upon which he shall have been located, shall prove to be defective, a tract of land equal in quantity to that of which the title shall have proved defective as aforesaid, may be located elsewhere upon vacant surveyed lands within the same township, or within the nearest township in which there shall be sufficient quantity of vacant arable land.
Settler may perfect his title, how.Sec. 5. And be it further enacted, That it shall be competent for any settler under the said act to perfect his title to the quarter section located and described in the permit, by paying to the receiver of the land office in the appropriate district the sum of one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre for the said quarter section:Proviso. Provided, that such settler shall prove to the satisfaction of the register and receiver for the proper land district, that up to the date of his application to make payment, he has fully complied with the requirements of the act to which this is an amendment.
Approved, June 15, 1844.