The morning call., 1893-10-29
AT LAST.
The CaIabasas Claims to
Be Surveyed.
AWAITING FINAL APPROVAL
The Contract Now in the Hands of
the Secretary of the Interior
at Washington.

yesterdays CALL as absorbing nearly all
the niggardly appropriation of $4,000
which has been allowed to the Surveyor
Generals Office this year is that awarded
by Mr.. Pratt to John Galdsworthy, and
which is now in the hands of the Secre-
tarY of the Interior.
1t calls for liability of S4615 so, and
there will not be any more contracts let
this year for want of funds. Usually the
appropriation allowed has been $4,000
per annum. but the economy of the pres
ent administration has asserted itself in
reducing the figure to about the lowest
sum the Office could stand.
Mr.. Goldsworthy was appointed q
Deputy United States Surveyor on
August 81, on the recommendations of q
long petition signed by 100 settlers living
IN and about Cala0aSas, Los Angeles
County, and the contract calls for the
surveying of townships 1 north ana
south Of ranges 16 II and Is west; town
ship y north, range IL west; and township
3 north, ranges 10 and II west, San Ber-
nardinO meridian.
There are between 100000 and 100000
acres of land on the west slope of the
Santa Susanna Mountains TO be surveyed
under this cOntract-land which has
already been entered upon by about $50
actual and bOna-fde settlers-and tits only
after a great deal of effort on the part of
Mr.. Pratt that favorable action has at last
been taken by the General Land Office at
Washington.
If the Secretary of the Interior gives his
approval also, as it is confidently antici-
pated he will. the settlers can enjoy good
sigh of relief, because they have been liv-
ing a shotgun existence for number of
years, some of them half lifetime. For
cible entries have been common and as
fOrcible resistances have met the in
truders. One woman alone is said to have
defended her claim and TO have emptied
weapon against three masculine invaders.
Much of the trouble there has been
caused by the poorly defined boundary
lines of several old ranches. Chief among
these ranchOsis Is the extensive grant known
as the ex- Mission de San Fernando. That
grant was surveyed by Henry Hancock in
September, 1855. Then there are the
Rancho San Vincente Y Santa Monica and
t1e Rancho Boca de Santa Monica, both
surveyed by William Mimic in December,
1880; the Rancho San Francisco, surveyed
in June, 1876; the. Rancho Limi, surveyed
by j. Z. Terrell in August. 1886; the Rancho
Ell Conego by Mr.. Terrell in January, 1861
the Rancno Las Nirgenes, by MIR. Mimic,
in October, 1882, aud the Rancho Topanga
MaliDu Sequit. taking up most of the coast
land, surveyed by j. Il. Thompson il Au-
gust, 1860
These ranches virtually surround the
land to be surveyed under the G0ldsworthy
contract, and their lines have more or less
confiicted with those of the border settlers,
more particularly in the case Of the Sau
Fernando ranch, over whose lines there
have been innumerable controversies, as
that grant was never correctly established.
The very public land upon which the
anxious settlers have located was itself
claimed by Frenchman named Miguel
Leonis as a Mexican grant. Accordingly,
the settlers formed au association about
seven years ago to protect themselves. and
among other things to test the validity of
the alleged grant, and case was tried in
the Superior Court of Los Angeles County
entitled Domingo Domingus VS.. Brigido
Bottillier, which, however, went against
the settlers, thus adding to the general
confusion of proprietary interests.
The land has been surveyed twice al
ready. 1t was originally surveyed by
Reilly and Glover, agents of Benson, in
1SS4-85, among the notorious Benson
fraudulent surveys. Commissioner Sparks
rejected that survey, of course, on report
of Special Examiner George b. Pickett,
well known, the result of Benson's woi k
caused Commissioner Sparks to order
about 400 townships to be tied up.
The next survey was that made by W.
E. Hall in the spring of 1889. Hall evi-
IDENTIFY worked in the interest of Benson,
at least SO Special Agent Sibbald sus-
pected, for he constantly reported finding
the Benson corner monuments, whereas
no such landmarks could be discovered at
all. Surveyor-General Hammond there
fore with held his approval of the work at
the request of Mr.. Sibbald Until some kind
of field examination could be made. Since
Surveyor-General Pratt came into the of
ho hos fhn cnff larr %
assiduously that a field examination was
finally made last spring by Archibald Carr,
with the result that the Hail survey was
rejected altogether.
The Benson surveys caused the General
Land Office to move very slowly and with
the utmost caution in the matter of further
surveys, and time and again when Mr.
Pratt pleade d, both by mail and wire, the
general Office either refused to take action
or postponed consideration On one pretext
or another, while the settlers were becom-
ing more and more importuate and exaS-
perated.
To give an idea of the feeling of the
General Land Office the following quota
tion from a long letter of Commissioner
Lewis a. Croft in May. 1890, which was
alluded to several times in the subsequent
correspondence between the local and
general offices, might be given. MIR. Croft
wrote:
In view OF existing circumstances and the in
dlctments now pending against many contract
ing deputy surveyors on account of alleged
fraudulent surveys In California, also by rea-
son OF the rejection of the returns, it is deemed
tnexpedient TO consider or approve applications
for surveys In any of the townships
enumerated In the several contracts and en-
braced in the rejected surveys until after said
indictments shall have been disposed Of
These indictments have not yet been
disposed of. but the cases are set for hear
ing by the old United States District Court
for next January.
In February of last year formal petit
tion was made for proper survey of the
land by eighty-three actual settlers, accom-
panied by communication from William
T. Smith of the Settlers League and T. r.
Newell, Justice of the Peace of Calaba
and also by large number of affidavits.
Messrs. Smith and Newell represented
that there were $50 actual and bona-fide
settlers, whose Improvements had aggre-
gated S47, 1875; that they had built a post
Office at Calabasas and two schools, and
had school census Of 150 children.
The land was claimed to be good for agri-
cultural. horticultural, viticultural and
grazing purposes. Los Angeles is twenty
eight miles distant.
1t the Goldsworthy contract is approved
the survey will doubtless settle all disputes
and establish good precedent for the
surveying of hundreds of thousands of
acres in addition, for the running of fixed