Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/372

 860 i'BDEBAL BEPOBTBB. �tain a mission there among the Indians, and that said "Whit- man would pay $600 for certain personal property belonging to the mission; that, in pursuance of said agreement, said Whitman gave the defendant a draft upon said Loard for said $600, and the defendant's agents and missionaries, between September 1 and 10, 1847, surrendered the station to said Whitman ; that, owing to the death of said Whitman on No^ vember 29, 1847, said agreement was cancelled in 1849, by the surrender of said draft to the agent of said board and the "retransfer" of said station to the defendant, who there- upon resumed control of the same ; that in June, 1850, the agent of the defendant went upon the ground and surveyed and marked the boundaries of the claim as he understood them to be; and that in 1854 the Eev. Thomas H. Pearne, its agent, notified the surveyor general of the territory of the claim of the defendant thereto; but said defendant substan- tially admits that from the delivery of said station to Whit- man, as aforesaid, it never actually occupied the same for mission purposes or otherwise, and claims that it was pre- vented from so doing by the danger from Indian hostilities, growing out of what is known as the Cayuse war. �The commission er of the general land-office authorized the surveyor general to hear and determine the conflioting claims of the defendant, Bigelow, and Dalles City to the premises, and on February 16, 1860, the parties appeared before him, and on February 2, 1861, said officer decided that the defend- ant had no right to the land in eontroversy; which decision, on an appeal to the commissioner, was, on February 7, 1863, affirmed. From there the case was carried by appeal before the seeretary of the interior, who, on March 15, 1875, reversed said decision, and decided that the defendant was entitled to the premises as a mission station, and directed a patent to issue to it accordingly. �Section 2447 of the Eevised Statutes, under which this patent issued to the defendant, is taken from the act of December 22, 1854, authorizing the issue of patents in cer- tain cases, and only applies where there bas been a grant by etatute without a provision for the issue of a patent. In such ��� �