Source: https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Stark_v._Starrs
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 22:56:22+00:00

Document:
ERROR to the Supreme Court of Oregon.
Previously to the treaty with Great Britain, of June 15th, 1846, by which the boundary line between the possessions of that country and the United States, west of the Rocky Mountains, was established, the region known as Oregon was claimed by both countries; and the emigrants there from the United States and from Great Britain held joint possession of the country under the treaty between the two nations, of October 20th, 1818, which was continued in force by the convention of August 6th, 1827.
In 185 , the inhabitants of this Territory established a provisional government for purposes of mutual protection, and to secure peace and prosperity among themselves; and they adopted laws and regulations for their government until such time as the United States should extend their jurisdiction over them.
Under the provisional government each settler was entitled to claim 640 acres of land, upon complying with certain conditions of improvement, &c.
In 1848, Congress established the territorial government of Oregon.  The fourteenth section of the act which did this, recognized and continued in force the laws adopted by the provisional government, and declared that the laws of the United States were extended over the Territory, so far as the same, or any provision thereof, may be applicable; but all laws granting or affecting lands were declared to be void. And Congress itself soon afterwards passed an act on the subject of titles. The act of September 27th, 1850, commonly called the Donation Act of Oregon,  provided (§ 4), that there should be granted to settlers or occupants of the public lands, then residing in the said Territory, or who should become residents thereof on or before the first day of December, 1850, and who should have resided upon and cultivated the same for four consecutive years, and should otherwise conform to the provisions of the act, one-half section, or 320 acres of land, if a single man, and if married, or becoming married within one year from December 1st, 1850, one section, or 640 acres; provided, however, the donation should embrace the land actually occupied and cultivated by the settler on it.
In professed accordance with these provisions, and the regulations made by the general land office, the defendant, in May, 1852, within three months after the survey of the land had been made, gave to the surveyor-general notice of the tract claimed by him, and within twelve months after the survey proved, to the satisfaction of the surveyor-general, that the settlement and cultivation had been commenced on the 1st of September, 1849, and afterwards on the 10th of September, 1853, proved, in like manner, by two disinterested witnesses, the fact of his continued residence and cultivation for four years, which had previously expired; this having been done in the form and manner usual in the department.
In September, 1853, the surveyor-general issued to the party a donation certificate, reciting the claim of a donation right made by him to a tract of land described; that proof had been made to his satisfaction that the settlement was commenced on the 1st of September, 1849, four years previous to the date thereof, and that the fact of his continued resd ence and cultivation since that period had been established by two disinterested witnesses; and he forwarded the certificate to the commissioner of the general land office, accompanied by the proof of the facts recited, in order that a patent might issue to the claimant for the tract described, provided he found no valid objection thereto. No objection was found by the commissioner except a supposed application to the tract in question of an act of Congress of May 23d, 1844, commonly known as the Town Site Act, the nature of which will appear further on in stating the title on the other side, and which was relied on as in part making that title. The evidence of settlement, &c., was by him considered ample, and the certificate satisfactory; and a patent was issued thereon to Stark, the defendant.
Such was the title-a documentary one-sought to be put aside.
The documentary title of the Starrs, alleged by their bill to be superior to it, will be stated directly. Their bill not only, however, set up title in themselves, alleging it superior to the documentary title as presented by the other side, but it alleged that Stark had not made in point of fact any such settlement and cultivation as he had brought persons to swear to before the commissioner, and that the certificate on which he got this patent, was false, and his patent consequently void. This was a question of fact on which evidence was taken. The answer denied the allegations thus made.
An act of Congress passed September 4th, 1841,  provides that every person who shall have made a settlement on the public lands 'which have been or shall have been surveyed prior thereto,' shall be authorized to enter any number of acres, not exceeding one hundred and sixty, upon paying the minimum price.
'Whenever any portion of the surveyed public lands has been or shall be settled upon and occupied as a town site, and therefore not subject to entry under the existing pre-emption laws, it shall be lawful, in case such town shall be incorporated, for the corporate authorities . . . to enter at the proper land office and at the minimum price, the land so settled and occupied,' &c.
On the 17th of July, 1854, Congress enacted that donations thereafter to be surveyed in Oregon Territory, claimed under the Donation Act of September 27th, 1850, should in no case include a town site or lands settled upon for purposes of business or trade and not for agriculture, and that all legal subdivisions included in whole or in part in such town sites or settled upon for purposes of business or trade and not for agriculture, should be subject to the operations of the Town Site Act of May 23d, 1844; whether such settlements were made before or after the surveys.
On the 1st of February, 1858, and while the claim of Stark was pending before the commissioner, the corporate authorities of the city of Portland made an entry under the Town Site Act of May 23d, 1844, of lands within the city limits to the extent of 307 49/100 acres, which included the premises in controversy, in trust for the several use and benefit of the occupants thereof, and presented to the commissioner a certificate of the register of the land office, in Oregon, of their having made full payment for the same. The commissioner accordingly issued a patent to them.
The patent to the city authorities was dated 7th December, 1860; that to Stark the day following; it having been intended that they should be issued on the same day. Each contained reciprocal reservations in favor of the rights conveyed by the other.
The court in which the bill was filed, granted the relief prayed for, and the Supreme Court of the State of Oregon having affirmd their decree, the case was now here under the twenty-fifth section of the Judiciary Act.
1. The patent to the city was absolutely void-the act of 1844, under which it issued, not being in force in Oregon until after July 17th, 1854. The act of 1844 is but amendatory of the pre-emption law of 1841, which contains the provision upon which the act of 1844 operates. It applies only to surveyed lands, which are excepted from operation of the pre-emption law. But the pre-emption law was not in force in Oregon in 1850. There were not only no surveyed lands there at that date, but Congress had, in the donation law of 1850, made more liberal provision for settlers than even by the pre-emption act. The law of 1844 was inapplicable, from the condition of things in Oregon when the act of 1848, establishing the territorial government, or when the donation law of 1850, was passed.
3. In this view we need not discuss the issue of fact.
1. This is a suit in equity to quiet title, brought under a statute which allows any person in possession to maintain such a suit. Under any circumstances of title, the Starrs being in possession may maintain it.
2. Was the Town Site Act of 1844 in force in Oregon prior to the enactment of the donation law of 1850, by virtue of the fourteenth section of the act of August 14th, 1848, organizing the Territory of Oregon?
Unless the land laws of the United States, including the Town Site Act, were extended by the act to the Territory of Oregon, we have this anomaly, that by this law all land titles then existing were made null, and in a law organizing that Territory and providing for its settlement no means were provided whereby incipient title to lands could be acquired from the United States, their sole proprietor. The land laws of the United States in themselves, were as applicable to Oregon as to any other Territory of the United States; and that they were needed is demonstrated by the fact, that no other means was provided whereby title to land could be acquired in the Territory.
^1 9 Stat. at Large, 323.
^3 § 10; 5 Stat. at Large, 455.
^5 Burgess v. Gray, 16 Howard, 65; Wilcox v. Jackson, 13 Peters, 511; Miller v. Kerr, 7 Wheaton, 1; Patterson v. Winn, 11 Id. 384; Polk's Lessee v. Wendell, 9 Cranch, 99; Bodley v. Taylor, 5 Id. 191; Easton v. Salisbury, 21 Howard, 426.
^7 2 Black, 554; and see State of Minnesota v. Bachelder, 1 Wallace, 111 115.

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