Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/485

434 law of 1844 the conditions were narrowed. Only free men over eighteen years of age, who would be entitled to vote if of lawful age, and widows, could legally claim six hundred and forty acres. The claimant must take his land in a square or oblong form, and must begin improvements within two months from the time of location with the intention of occupying. Yet a boy under eighteen, if married, might hold land; and all claimants might own town lots in addition to their acres. The custom of recording claims was dispensed with as being of doubtful privilege, the country being unsurveyed, and involving as it would oftentimes a long journey. By an act passed at the second session of the committee in December, the word 'occupancy' was made to mean actual residence by the owner or his agent. The second act also authorized taking six hundred acres of prairie and forty acres of timbered land, not contiguous. Partnership claims were also allowed of double the usual amount, to be held for one year by improvements upon either half; or longer, if both halves were improved within the year. All persons complying with the law were deemed in actual possession, and if supporting the government, had the remedy of forcible entry and detainer, and action against trespass.

These were certainly improvements in the land law. But the great change aimed at by the legislative committee, and desired by the people, was to forbid the right of missions to hold thirty-six sections of land, thus repeating the practice of land monopoly by the Catholic missionaries in California. As a whole, we may be very sure that the repeal of the law of 1843 met with general approval from both the old and new colonists, the missionary element only excepted. The