# United States Statutes at Large/Volume 4/18th Congress/1st Session/Chapter 25

Chap. XXV.—An Act to extend the time limited for the settlement of private land claims in the territory of Florida.
The act amending, &c. the act for ascertaining the titles to land in Florida, to be extended. Act of March 3, 1823, ch. 29, 34. Act of March 3, 1825, ch. 83. April 22, 1826, ch. 29.Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the time limited for the settlement of private land claims in the territory of Florida, by an act of the seventeenth Congress, entitled “An act amending, and supplementary to, the act for ascertaining claims and titles to land in the territory of Florida, and to provide for the survey and disposal of the public lands in Florida,” be, and the same is hereby, extended and enlarged, until the ​first day of January next, when the commissioners for ascertaining claims and titles to the lands aforesaid shall make a return of their proceedings to the secretary of the treasury, to be laid before Congress.
The claimant or claimants not required to produce in evidence a deraignment of title from the original grantee or patentee, &c. 1822, ch. 129.Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That the claimant or claimants shall not be required to produce, in evidence, a deraignment of title from the original grantee or patentee, but the exhibition of the original title papers, agreeably to the fourth section of an act, passed the eighth of May, eighteen hundred and twenty-two, entitled “An act for ascertaining claims and titles to lands within the territory of Florida,” with the deed or devise, to the claimant, and the office abstract or abstracts of the intermediate conveyances for the last ten years preceding the surrender of Florida to the United States; and, where they cannot be produced, their absence being satisfactorily accounted for, shall be sufficient evidence of the right of the claimant or claimants to the land so claimed as against the United States:Proviso. Proviso. Provided, The claim be defined in quantity, and the amount does not exceed the quantity limited in the second section of the act which this is intended to extend; And provided, the conditions required by the laws and ordinances of the Spanish government, and the treaty between Spain and the United States, shall have been complied with.
No person to be deemed an actual settler within the provisions of the act of March 3, ch. 29, unless he be an occupier, &c.Sec. 3. And be it further enacted, That no person shall be taken and deemed to be an actual settler, within the provisions of the “act amending, and supplementary to, an act for ascertaining claims and titles to land in the territory of Florida,” passed on the third day of March, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-three, unless such person, or those under whom he claims title, shall have been in the cultivation, or occupation, of the land, at and before the period of the cession.
Part of act repealed.Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, That so much of the act of which this is an amendment, as authorized the secretary of said commissioners to demand and receive from the claimants ten cents per hundred words for recording titles to land, be, and the same is hereby repealed.
Secretaries of commissioners having received 1250 dollars, required to pay over such fees as have been demanded and received by them.Sec. 5. And be it further enacted, That the former secretaries, or those who may now be secretaries, to the said boards of commissioners, who shall have received their salary of one thousand two hundred and fifty dollars, from the treasury of the United States, which is, by law, declared to be their full compensation, shall be, and they are hereby, required to pay over, respectively, to the commissioners, conformably with the provisions of the original law, all such fees as have been demanded, and received by them, which shall be appropriated to defray the expenses of the commission.
So much of the acts of which this is amendatory, as makes void all claims not filed before Dec. 1, 1823, to be repealed.Sec. 6. And be it further enacted, That so much of the acts of which this is amendatory, as makes void all claims not filed before the first day of December, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-three, be, and the same is hereby, repealed; and it shall be lawful for claims to be filed any time previous to the first day of September next; but all and every claim not filed by that time, shall be held and deemed void and of none effect.
Compensation of the commissioners.Sec. 7. And be it further enacted, That each of the commissioners heretofore appointed, or who may hereafter be appointed, who has performed, and shall hereafter perform, the duties assigned him, shall receive, from the first Monday in February until the first of January next, at the rate of two thousand dollars per annum, in full compensation for his services.
Approved, February 28, 1824.