Chapter 21. referring to the Court of Claims for adjudication the claims of John H
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CHAP. 21.— An Act referring to the Court of Claims for adjudication the claims of John H. Kinkead, Samuel Sussman, and Charles O. Wood.Jan. 17, 1887. PreambleWhereas John H. Kinkead, of Nevada, and Samuel Sussman, of California, did, on the twenty-eighth day of October, eighteen hundred and sixty-eight, purchase a certain building situate on lot known as number one on the official plat of the town of Sitka, in the Territory of Alaska, from the Russian-American Company, the owner of said building; and Whereas said building bad been declared by the protocol of the transfer of Russian America to the United States to be private property; and Whereas thereafter the collector of customs of the United States did take from said Kinkead and Sussman a lease of a portion of said building, and entered thereupon; and Whereas afterward General Jefferson C.
Davis did seize the whole of said building, on the ground that the same was the property of the United States, notwithstanding the commissioners appointed to ascertain private property had certified the same to be private property; and Whereas afterward said Kinkead and Sussman did present their petition to the United States Court of Claims claiming rent for the said building; and Whereas said court did, on the eleventh day of June, eighteen hundred and eighty-three, dismiss said claim, for want of jurisdiction only; and Whereas Charles O.
Wood, of Ohio, did in like manner purchase a certain other building, situate on lot known as number twenty-four, from said Russian-American Company, and did in like manner present his petition to the Court of Claims for rent of the same, the same having been in like manner seized for the use of the United States, notwithstanding the same had been certified to be private property; and Whereas said Court of Claims did in like manner dismiss the claim of said Wood, for want of jurisdiction only:
Therefore, *Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled*John H. Kinkead, Samuel Sussman, and Charles O. Wood.Claims of, referred to Court of Claims., That jurisdiction be. and is hereby, conferred on the Court of Claims to hear the claims of John H. Kinkead, and Samuel Sussman and Charles O. Wood, for the rent and value of certain buildings in the town of Sitka, in the Territory of Alaska, alleged by them to have been acquired by virtue of purchase from the Russian American Company, upon the evidence already filed in said court and such additional legal evidence as may be hereafter presented on either side: and if said court shall find that said parties acquired a valid title to said buildings respectively alleged to have been purchased by them, said court shall award to said parties a fair and 359 reasonable rent for the use of the said buildings for the time (if any) the same have been occupied by the United States, and also a suitable indemnity for said buildings themselves; and the receipt of such rent and indemnity shall thereafter bar any further claim by said parties for the use of said buildings or for the value thereof; and before receiving the same, all of said parties shall execute a release to the United States for all right, title and interest whats over in and to the said property; and any defense, set-off, or counter claim maybe pleaded by the United States as defendants, as in cases within the general jurisdiction of the court, and either party shall have the same right of appeal as in such cases.
Approved, January 17, 1887.