Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/279

Rh this, the organic act expressly said that all laws previously passed in any way affecting the title to lands should be null and void, and the legislative assembly should be prohibited from passing any laws interfering with the primary disposal of the soil which belonged to the United States. The first section of that act, however, made an absolute grant to the missionary stations then occupied, of 640 acres, with the improvements thereon.

Thus while the missionary stations, if there were any within the meaning of the act of that time, had an incontrovertible right and title, the settlers, whose means were often all in their claims, had none whatever; and in this condition they were kept for a period of two years, or until the autumn of 1850, when their rights revived under the donation law, whose beneficent provisions all recognized.

This law, which I have not yet fully reviewed, provided in the first place for the survey of the public lands in Oregon. It then proceeded to grant to every white settler or occupant of the public lands, American half-breeds included, over eighteen years of age, and a citizen of the United States, or having declared his intention according to law of becoming such, or who should make such declaration on or before the first day of December 1851, then residing in the territory, or becoming a resident before December 1850—a provision made to include the immigration of that year—640 acres to a married man, half of which was to belong to his wife in her own right, and 320 acres to a single man, or if he should become married within a year from the 1st of December 1850, 320 more to his wife, no patents to issue until after a four years' residence.

At this point for the first time the act took cognizance of the provisional law making the surviving children or heirs of claimants under that law the legal heirs also under the donation law; this provision applying as well to the heirs of aliens who had