Chapter 2910. To annul certain titles to land acquired by judicial proceedings in the courts of the United States in Texas, and for other purposes
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CHAP. 2910.— An Act To annul certain titles to land acquired by judicial proceedings in the courts of the United States in Texas, and for other purposes. March 4, 1907. [[S. 8427](/us/bill/59/s/8427).] [[Public, No. 245](/us/pl/59/245).] Preamble.Whereas on the eleventh day of December, eighteen hundred and seventy-three, the United States obtained judgment in the circuit court of the United States sitting at Tyler. Texas, in the then western district of Texas, for fifty thousand dollars, against William T.
Scott, William Umbdenstock, and others, sureties on the official bond of Davis B. Bonfoy, late collector of internal revenue for the fourth district of Texas, cause one thousand and thirty-seven, and it appearing from the facts that on the trial of the cause against the said sureties they were deprived of their defense by having, through mistake, pre-1285sented their accounts and facts in favor of Davis B. Bonfoy, their principal, then deceased, to the wrong accounting officer at Washington, District of Columbia, for his action thereon, and said accounts were returned by said officer to the United States attorney representing the Government in the cause without any action thereon, which fact was not known to the defendants until they had announced themselves ready for trial; and Whereas facts subsequently discovered show that at the date of said judgment Davis B.
Bonfoy, as collector aforesaid, was not really indebted to the United States, which facts could not have been known at the time to the proper accounting officers of the Treasury Department, for the reason that the money belonging to the United States in the hands of Bonfoy at the time of his death were taken charge of by the military authorities of the United States then commanding at Marshal, Texas (the State being under military rule), and returned to and accounted for by said military authorities to the War Department instead of the Treasury Department; and Whereas since said money so returned to the War Department has been taken up by the accounting officers of the Treasury Department in a readjustment of the accounts of the said Davis B.
Bonfoy as collector, and it appearing from said last adjustment, including the newly discovered funds in the War Department, that at the time said judgment was obtained against said sureties Bonfoy really owed the Government nothing, but in fact had a balance due him from the Government: Therefore *Be if enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,* That the UnitedTexas.Relinquishment of certain lands in, to the heirs, etc., of William T.
Scott. States hereby relinquishes to the heirs or legal representatives of William T. Scott, late of Scottsville, Harrison County, Texas, and to his assigns, all the right, title, and interest, real or pretended, of the United States in and to fifty-two sections of land of six hundred and forty acres each, aggregating thirty-three thousand two hundred and eighty acres, lying and being situated in the counties of Tom Green, Mitchell, Concho. Irion, Coke, Sterling, and Atascosa, in the State of Texas, which said lands were bought in for the United States by Stillwell H.
Russell, then United States marshal for the western district of Texas, at a public sale made by him, the said Stillwell H. Russell. United States marshal, on the first Tuesday in October, eighteen hundred and seventy-eight, under and by virtue of an alias pluries execution, dated June tenth, eighteen hundred and seventy-eight, issuing out of the circuit court of the United States on said judgment obtained by the United States in a circuit court of the United States sitting at Tyler, Texas, in the western judicial district of Texas, on the eleventh day of December, eighteen hundred and seventy-three, against William T.
Scott and others as sureties on the bond of Davis B. Bonfoy, collector aforesaid cause one thousand and thirty-seven, and levied on said lands on the fifth day of September, eighteen hundred and seventy-eight, and by him as such marshal, following the statute in such case made and provided, deeded to the United States in a deed bearing date December ninth, eighteen hundred and seventy eight, and recorded in Tom Green County, in Book C of deeds of said county, folios one hundred and twenty-eight to one hundred and thirty-eight, inclusive; and that all the right, title, and interest of the United States, real or pretended, to said lands be, and the same are hereby, as fully and thoroughly divested out of the United States as if no such judgment had ever been obtained.
Approved, March 4, 1907.