Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/381

 DALLES CITY V. MIBSIONABY SOCIETY. 369 �was no more danger of Indian difficulties or hostilities at The Dalles, than there was prior to September, 1847. �in the spring of 1849 the news of the passage of the or- garde act, with the clause making a grant to missions, reached Oregon. The death of Whitman had prevented the. occupation of the station at The Dalles by him, either for himself or as the agent of the American Boajrd, or both. The draft of $600 which he had given upon the board in payment for it had never been presented. Whatever might be thought of the claim of the defendant there could be no ground for claiming the premises as a place ever occupied by the Amer- ican Board as a mission station. Thereupon, about the last of February or first of Maroh, 1849, an arrangement was made between the superintendent of the Oregon mission and Messrs. Elkanah Walker, Henry H. Spaulding, and Cushing Eells, three missionaries of the American Board, by which the station was retransferred to the defendant and the draft aforesaid cancelled; and this was done by the defendant, not with any view of resuming missionary work there among the Indians or otherwise, but solely to enable it to claim and obtain, if it could, a grant of the premises from the United States on account of its occupation prior to September, 1847, and the subsequent circumstances. To the same end, and to assist it in> obtaining damages from the United States for taking a portion of the station as a military reservation, the defendant, on February 28, 1859, obtained from the Ameri- can Board a formai deed of quitclaim to the premises; al- though, on November 3, 1858, Messrs. Walker and Eells, professing to act upon a power to them from said board, dated February 28, 1852, for a nominal consideration, had conveyed the premises, subject to the military reservation, to Messrs. M. M. McCarver and Samuel L. White. �Upon this state of facts there is no ground to olaim that the defendant acquired the title to this station on August 14, 1848, under the act of that date. It had abandoned the place voluntarily, and without any expectation or intention of re- turning, and was no more within the purview or operation of the act than if it had never been upon the ground. The �v.6,no.4— 24 ��� �