Chapter 163. Prescribing limitations of time for completion of title to certain lands disposed of under the Act of Congress approved September twenty-seventh, eighteen hundred and fifty, and the Acts amendatory and supplemental thereto, and commonly known as the “Donation Act,” and for the protection of purchase
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CHAP. 163.— An Act Prescribing limitations of time for completion of title to certain lands disposed of under the Act of Congress approved September twenty-seventh, eighteen hundred and fifty, and the Acts amendatory and supplemental thereto, and commonly known as the “Donation Act,” and for the protection of purchasers and occupants on said lands.July 26, 1894. *Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled*,Oregon donation lands.Vol. 9, p. 496.
That in all cases where persons under the provisions of the Act of Congress entitled “An Act to create the office of surveyor-general of the public lands in Oregon, and to provide for the survey and to make donations to settlers of the said public lands,” approved September twenty-seventh, eighteen hundred and Time extended for proving claims.fifty, or the various Acts amendatory and supplemental thereto, have made proof of settlement on tracts of land in either of the States of Oregon, Washington, or Idaho, and given notice, as required by law, that they claimed such lands as donations, but have failed to execute and file in the proper land offices proof of their continued residence on and cultivation of the lands so settled upon and claimed, so as to entitle them to patents therefor, such claimants, their heirs, devisees and grantees shall have, and they are hereby given, until the first day of .January, eighteen hundred and ninety-six, the right to make and file final proofs and fully establish their rights to donations of lands under the aforesaid Act of Congress, and no longer; and all claimants who shall fail to make and file final proof and perfect their claims to lands, as donations under the Acts aforesaid, before the said first day of January, eighteen hundred and ninety-six, shall thereafter beheld to have *Provisos*.Advertisements for claimants to appear.abandoned their claims to the lands embraced in their notices: *Prodded*, That as soon as practicable after the passage of this Act notices shall be published at least once a week for six successive weeks in one newspaper of general circulation published in the land district, in a form to be prescribed by the Commissioner of the General Laud Office, requiring such donation claimants, their heirs, devisees, and grantees, and all persons making claim to such donation claims, to appear and make final proof for such claims within the time herein provided, and that in default of such final proof such donation claims will be held to have been abandoned and the lands embraced therein shall be, and are hereby, restored to the public domain and shall be subject to disposal under the then existing laws providing for the disposition of the Patents under quiet adverse possession.public lands: *Provided farther*, That where any such donation claims or any part thereof are claimed by descent, devise, judicial sale, grant, or conveyance, in good faith, under the original claimant, and are, at the date of this Act and for twenty years prior thereto have been, in the quiet adverse possession of such heir, devisee, grantee, or purchaser, or those under whom they claim, such heirs, devisees, grantees, or purchasers, upon making proof of their claims and adverse possession as aforesaid, shall be entitled to patents for the land so claimed and occupied by Bona fide settlers on abandoned claims.them: *Provided further*, That where any portion of any such abandoned donation claim shall have been settled upon prior to January first, eighteen hundred and ninety-four, by any person under an erroneous claim of right and has been used as a bona tide residence by such settler where final proof shall not be made by the original claimant, or bis heirs, devisees or grantees, as aforesaid, and such settler has exhausted his or her homestead right, such settler may, within ninety days from the first day of January, eighteen hundred and ninety-six, file with the register of the land office of the district within which the lands are situate their affidavit and the affidavits of at least two disinterested witnesses establishing the facts of their bona fide settlement, Payment.occupancy, and improvement of said lands, and pay to the receiver of the proper land office one dollar and twenty five cents per acre for the land so settled upon, occupied, and improved, not exceeding one hundred and sixty acres, and shall thereupon receive patent therefor.
Sec. 2. That nothing in this Act shall be so construed as to depriveHearings by Commissioner of General Land Office. the Commissioner of the General Land Office, under the regulations governing contests in land cases, of his right, if such right now exists, 123 to allow or direct hearings to be instituted to show that a donation claimant has abandoned the lands described in his notice, or prevent the Commissioner, when it is proven that such a claim is invalid or abandoned, from canceling the same upon the official records and thereafter disposing of the lands as a part of the public domain: *Provided*,*Proviso*.Payment of expenses.
That where hearings are allowed contestants shall pay the expenses incident thereto in the same manner that costs are paid in other contested land entries: and this Act shall not be construed to affect any case now pending before the Land Department in which final proof has been furnished. Sec. 3. That the Commissioner of the General Land Office, with theRegulations approval of the Secretary of the Interior, shall issue the necessary rules and regulations to give full force and effect to the provisions of this Act.
Nothing in this Act contained shall be construed to impair or affect any adverse claims arising under any law of the United States other than said Donation Act, to or in respect of the lands in this Act referred to. Approved, July 26, 1894.