Bureaucratic Delay, Bloody Quarrels: The Land Survey That Left Homesteaders in Limbo for 15 Years

Washington City, June 21.—Special.—Senator Squire has been making inquiries at the general land office as to the delay in completing the survey of townships 38, 39 and 40 north, range 25 east of the Willamette meridian. The contract for surveying these townships was let in June, 1891, to De Kalb Ashley, United States deputy surveyor, and he finished the field work in the fall of that year. Nothing more was done in the premises till the latter part of 1893, when a land office agent inspected the field work done two years before. In his report the agent said that townships 38 and 40 were incomplete, and could not be platted till the deputy sent in the original data. Last year the deputy again visited the townships and went over the field work, making several corrections and alterations, since which time nothing has been heard from the authorities at the land office. Many complaints have been received by Senator Squire from the settlers on these townships at the delay. They have been waiting patiently from ten to fifteen years to file on the lands under the homestead laws, and they feel that the government is not giving due attention to their needs. The senator showed the commissioner of the general land office that the delay was working an injustice on many worthy people and keeping them out of their rights. He stated that when the work was done in 1891 the settlers arranged their dividing lines and accommodated their boundaries and fences to conform with it, and that the changes made in the fall of 1893 compelled them to rearrange the whole thing in many instances at great expense to the settler. In one of the letters the senator presented it was stated that the changes made in 1893 caused much litigation and many disputes, and that in the last two years four lives have been lost in quarrels which had their start in the changes from the original survey. The land commissioner has written to the surveyor general at Olympia to send a special agent to the scene to straighten things out and get the land in condition for the settlers to file.