Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/712

464 price, which was then two dollars per acre, give his notes for the remaining two-thirds in two equal payments, and receive from the state a certificate of purchase. This certificate was transferable. Any person, a citizen of the United States and over eighteen years of age, could, if a settler on such lands purchase three hundred and twenty acres; in case the applicant was not a settler, the amount of land that could be bought by one person was limited to one hundred and sixty acres.

In the case of the writer, who took up one of the first places in the country he filed his application accompanied b3' the affidavits of two disinterested parties, that the applicant was an actual settler on the lands applied for, and was cultivating and improving the same as a home.

In spite of this precaution six other filings were allowed on top of his first filing, the clerk of the board realizing a goodly sum for permitting them to be recorded. This rendered it necessary to hire lawyers to defend his title in order to secure the certificate.

It was also found that nearly all the most valuable meadow lands, and many large tracts of higher sage brush lands that protruded into the marsh lands had been returned by the early survey, as a part of Little Klamath Lake, and as many settlers were coming into the country who •wished to locate homes on these lands, the writer drew up a petition to the secretary of the interior reciting the conditions and asking for a resurvey of these lands in order that all lands susceptible of settlement might be thrown open for entry. This petition was signed by nearly all the settlers in the country, and resulted in a resurvey being made during the fall of 1872, in spite of a large number of exparte-affidavits sent to prevent the resurvey. These affidavits,—some five or six in number were largely made by people living in California and engaged in stockraising, who were deeply interested in preventing the settlement of the ranges.

To give an idea of the motive for these strenuous efforts to balk the settlement and development of the country, it is necessary to go back to the legislative session of the Oregon legislature of 1870, when a bill drawn up by Quiney A. Brooks, to select and dispose of swamp lands in the State of Oregon, to which the state was entitled by Act of March 12, 1860. This bill was cleverly drawn to enable a few individuals to secure control of all lands that could by any means be construed as swamp or overflowed, within the state, as it provided among other things that the lands could be selected in advance of the U. S. surveys, by describing them by natural boundaries, such as mountain ranges, lakes, rivers, etc. There was no limit to the amount any one could file on, and the price was one dollar per acre, 20 cents to be paid after the acceptance of the state selection by the secretary of the interior, and the remaining 80 cents to be paid when the lands were finally reclaimed.

As Q. A. Brooks had visited this country the previous year and had been largely instrumental in securing additional filings upon state lands both occupied and unoccupied, and had plots and lists made out for nearly all the swamp and overflowed lands in the Klamath Basin, and his applications ready for immediate filing before the bill passed, it should have aroused a suspicion in the minds of sensible legislators that such a measure was contrary to the best interests of the state, but no serious opposition was encountered and the infamous bill passed.