Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/297

Rh upon the land. The widow of Short then filed a notification under the new act, and in order to secure the whole of the 640 acres, which might have been claimed under the original donation act, dated the residence of her husband and herself from 1848. But Mrs Short, whose notification was made in October 1853, was still too late to receive the benefit of the new act, as Bishop Blanchet had caused a similar notification to be made in May, claiming 640 acres for the mission of St James out of the indefinite grant to the Hudson's Bay Company. Though the company's rights of occupancy did not expire until 1859, the bishop chose to take the same view held by the American squatters, and claimed possession at Vancouver, where the priests of his church had been simply guests or chaplains, under the clause in the organic act giving missions a mile square of land; and the surveyor general of Washington Territory decided in his favor. No patent was however issued to the catholic church, the question of the Hudson's Bay Company's claim remaining in abeyance, and the decision of the surveyor general being reversed by the commissioner of the general land office, after which an appeal was taken to the secretary of the interior.