St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-06-11
SHARKS SHUT OFF
BOLD ATTEMPT TO SWINDLE A
ST. PAUL PROPERTY
OWNER.
GEORGIA LANDS OFFERED.
BUT INVESTIGATION DEVELOPS
A GIGANTIC SCHEME OF
FRAUD.
STORY OF GEORGIA OFFICIALS
Bona Eide Owners Have Held the
Lands for Hundred
Years.

About ten days ago s. G. OlmStead,
the attorney, was consulted by
client of his in reference to the eX-
animation of an abstract. 1t covered
certain lands in Laurens county, Ga.
His client stated that man, claim
ing to represent some Georgia land
company or syndicate, had offered
him 500 acres described in the alb
stract for the equity in his house and
lot in this city Mr.. Olmstead ad-
vised his client to wait until he could
investigate. Thereupon he addressed
a letter to Secretary of State Cook,
of Georgia, as he had his doubts Of
the squareness of the deal, although
the abstract was apparently fair upon
its face. He received the following
letter from A. D. Chandler, of the
secretary of states office, at Atlanta,
under date of June 6:
IS. C. Olmstead, Esq,
''St. Paul. Mimi,
'Dear Sir:-All the grants OF LANDS
purporting to have been made by the
1895 are fraudulent and all the iands
covered by them have long since
nearly hundred years ago-been
granted to bona-fide settlers, who nave
owned, and in most cases occupied
them ever since. Let your client nave
"A. D. CHANTLER.
Accompanying the letter. was print
ed circular, signed by Philip Cook, the
secretary of state of Georgia, that is
too lengthy for entire insertion, ON
the subject of
"HEAD RIGHT GRANTS"
few extracts are of interest, as
they may prevent some of the readers
of the Glob e from being defrauded.
Here is one excerptN
"I have such constant application for
information in regard to certain old
head right grants purporting to have
been issued by the state of Georgia,
and so many erroneous statements
have been made by parties in this state
and some of the papers, who seem to
bel entirely ignorant of the facts, that
ask publication of this letter to pro-
tect innocent people from designing
and unscrupulous land sharks who are
offering them for sale all over the
United States, by showing the utter
worthlessness of all such fraudulent
grants, which are not worth the paper
upon which they are written"
An instance is cited of Montgomery
county, Georgia. Mr.. Cooks records
show that the sharks claimed the land
court on the 4th day of August, 1874,
issued warrants to about, fifty persons
for 100000 acres, when the entire
acreage of the county did not exceed
], 1,4OO,0 900 acres ''The legislature in De-
cember, 1884, making null and void
these pretended surveys" Then Mr..
Cook says further:
"In addition to this legislation, these
lands have been granted subsequently
to actual bona fide citizens, who have
lived upon them for the past forty or
fifty years, and in many instances
much longer, and have paid the tax
due the county and state. A few of
these grants bear date in 1875, but they
are all founded on warrants and pre-
tended surveys made in 1894. Most of
these grants purport to have been
signed by Gov. Matthews. The action
of his executive council, as well as the
several orders to the surveyor general
to pass no grant to any one person for
more than 1000 acres, as well as his
approval of the act of 1874, all show
his action to be honest and his inten-
ton to obey the law.
ALLEGED DECISION A MYTH.
"My attention has been called to an
article which appeared some while
back in one of the Savannah papers
stating that the supreme court of the
United States in the famous Dodge
land case, had decided these grants
good. No such decision was ever made.
The Dodge lands involved mere lot
terry lands, as contradistinguished
from head right lands.
'I regret to learn that there are a
few persons in this state who either
ignorantly or otherwise advise some
of the holders of these old grants that
they are good and valid. These old
grants are now on the market in al
most every city, certainly in every
Northern and Western state. have
received more than one hundred letters
in regard to them; and have been Wis
tied by number of gentlemen from
different states, some of whom have
invested in them, and others who desir-
ed to investigate the titles.
"The law required that an actual
survey should be made of all the lands
granted in this state. Such surveys
were never made of any of the lands
referred to in this letter. Thousands
and hundreds of thousands of acres
are purported to have been surveyed
in a single day. This was simply i'm
possible, as the distance around each
1,00O-acre tract is almost five miles.
Several hundred thousand acres are
reported to have been surveyed on
dates that fell on Sunday"
1t looks as though the fraudulent
Georgia land business had found a
footing in st. Paul, and hence this ex-
pose.