# United States Statutes at Large/Volume 2/9th Congress/1st Session/Chapter 40

Chap. XL.—An Act respecting the claims to land in the Indiana territory and state of Ohio.
Act of March 26, 1804, ch. 35. Registers and receivers of public monies in Vincennes and Kaskaskias authorized to lay out one or more tracts in their respective districts. Proviso.Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the registers and receivers of public monies of the districts of Vincennes and Kaskaskias, respectively, be, and they are hereby authorized and empowered, under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury, to lay out one or more tracts of land, in their respective districts, for the purpose of locating therein, tracts of land granted by virtue of any legal French or British grants, or any resolution or act of Congress: Provided, that the tracts thus laid out shall be, whenever practicable, adjoining the tracts, which, in conformity with former laws, had been laid out for similar purposes by the governors of the northwest or Indiana territories; and the tracts thus laid out shall not be otherwise disposed of, unless by order of Congress.
Resolution warrants not specific, how to be entered.Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That any person or persons entitled to grants of land by virtue of any former resolution or act of Congress, which are not specifically designated in the patents issued by the governors aforesaid, or which have not yet been located, shall have a right to locate the same in the tract or tracts, to be laid out in each district, respectively, by virtue of the preceding section, the priority of such locations shall be determined by lot in presence of the register of the land-office, with whom the location shall be entered: and the surveyor-general shall cause the same to be surveyed at the expense of the parties; Provided, that all the lands thus located, shall,Proviso. in each tract laid out for that purpose, be laid out in a body, without leaving any intervals of vacant land, and shall each be surveyed in the form of a square or of a parallelogram, the length of which shall not exceed three times its breadth.
Registers and receivers of public monies to transmit reports to the Secretary of the Treasury.—By what time. Additional compensation to them. Registers and receivers of public monies in Cincinnati to grant certificates of pre-emption to residents. Proviso. 1804, ch. 35.Sec. 3. And be it further enacted, That the registers and receivers aforesaid, shall complete and transmit their reports to the Secretary of the Treasury, before the first day of December next. Each of the said officers shall be allowed an additional compensation of five hundred dollars; and each of the clerks of the respective boards shall be allowed an additional compensation of two hundred and fifty dollars, in full for his services, as such, in relation to such claims.
Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, That the register and receiver of public monies in the district of Cincinnati be, and they are hereby authorized to grant certificates of a right of pre-emption to any person residing on any reserved section (other than section No. 16) for the tract on which he resides, on the applicant’s producing satisfactory evidence that his claim was within the provisions of the seventh section of an act, intituled “An act making provision for the disposal of the public lands in the Indiana territory, and for other purposes:” Provided, that the person shall exhibit the evidence of his claim, and shall have paid at least one twentieth part of the purchase money, on or before the first day of August next: And provided also, that such certificates shall not ​be granted for any lands previously granted or sold, or for a larger tract than a quarter of a section, nor for any other tract than that on which he resides, and such land shall be granted at the same price,Certificates not to be granted for lands previously sold, &c. and on the payments being made, as for other public lands sold at private sale.
Approved, April 21, 1806.