The Settlers Beat the Railroad

Washington City, March 7.—Special.—The contest between the Northern Pacific Railroad Company and the settlers on township 13 north, range 9 west, near the city of South Bend, Pacific county, which has long been pending before the commissioner of the general land office, has at last been decided in favor of the settlers. The land in controversy was that portion of said township which is within the indemnity limits of the grant to the railroad company. The company, it appears, presented its lists of selections August 8, 1883, the date of the filing of the township plat of survey in the local land office, and on the same day the settlers made their entries for the same lands. The commissioner has held that those entries which were of record August 8, 1883, with settlement alleged prior to that date should be allowed to stand, and for those that were subsequently placed of record, but based upon claims of settlement begun prior to and existing at said date, hearings have been ordered as between the settlement claimants and the railroad company. This action rejecting the company’s claim for the tracts embraced in the first class of entries was subject to appeal by the company within sixty days from receipt of notice.

Settlers on township 12 north, range 6 west, which has not yet been opened to settlement, owing to the delay in completion of the survey of the same, the contract for which was let in June, 1890, will be glad to learn that the corrected plat has been filed in the office of the commissioner of the general land office here, and an order has been issued for a field examiner to go and make the necessary examination, preliminary to its acceptance. Nearly all the land in this township is occupied by actual homestead settlers, some of whom have been living on the land for five and six years, and the delay in the acceptance of the survey is necessarily working great hardship to many of them. At a meeting of the settlers’ association, held at Pe Ell last December, it was decided to appeal to Representative Doolittle to help them get title to their lands. The latter took up the matter at once and has been so energetic about it that the land office has kept the matter moving, with the above result. It is claimed at the land department here that it is through no fault of theirs that this survey has not been made and accepted long ago, but that it is the fault of the deputy surveyor, who has persistently refused and neglected all along to make the corrections in his original surveys, when the errors in them were pointed out to him by the department.