Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 3.djvu/54



agree with and appoint all such surveyors, intendants, artists or other agents as they may judge necessary to carry on the intended works, and to fix their salaries, wages or compensation; to direct and order the times, manner and proportions, when and in which the stockholders shall pay moneys due on their respective shares; to draw orders on the treasurer for all moneys due from said company; and generally to do and transact all such other matters, acts and things as by the by-laws, rules and regulations of said company shall be required or permitted.

. And be it further enacted, That upon application of the said president and directors of the said company to the circuit court of the District of Columbia, or to the judges of said court, out of court, the said court or the judges, or any two of the judges thereof out of court, shall appoint three commissioners, not interested in any of the lands through which the said road may be laid out, nor interested in the stock of the company hereby created, nor in the occupancy of any mills or water works by which the said road may pass, who shall receive each from the said president and directors and company, two dollars for every day they shall respectively be actually necessarily employed in or about the affairs of said company; and each of the said commissioners, before he proceeds to act as such, shall take and subscribe an oath or solemn affirmation in the presence of a justice of the peace, that he will well, faithfully and impartially, according to the best of his skill and judgment, and without unnecessary delay, execute and perform all the duties required of him as a commissioner, under the sixth section of the act of Congress, entitled “;” which oaths or affirmations so subscribed and certified by the justice, in whose presence they shall be severally taken and subscribed, shall be filed with the office of the clerk of the said circuit court and enrolled among the land records of the county of Washington; and the said commissioners, or any two of them, being qualified as aforesaid shall, upon the request of the said president and directors cause to be surveyed, laid out, and ascertained, described and marked by certain metes and bounds of the aforesaid turnpike road, described in the first section of this act, not less than sixty feet in breadth, in such routes tracts or courses for the same respectively, as in the best of their judgment will combine shortness of distance with the most convenient ground and the smallest expense of money; and for this purpose it shall be lawful for them and such agents, assistants, servants, or attendants as they may think proper to employ, to enter upon any of the lands through or near which the said road may be laid out, having first given twenty days public notice in some public newspaper printed in the District of Columbia, of the time and place of their entering on the said business of surveying and laying out each road respectively: and if any proprietor of any part of the lands, through which the said road may be laid out, shall require compensation for so much of his or her land as may be occupied by the said road, or shall claim damages for or on account of the opening or laying out the said road through his or her land, and if the said president and directors cannot agree with such proprietors respecting the same, then the said commissioners at the request of either party, shall appoint a day and place to hear and decide upon such claim, and the amount of compensation and damages which such proprietor shall be entitled to receive from the said president, directors and company thereof, first giving twenty days’ notice to the adverse party, his or her agent or attorney in fact, or other legal representative, if either shall be within the District of Columbia; and if the party so notified shall fail to attend, or if the party shall be an infant under age, non compos mentis, feme covert or absent out of the District of Columbia and have no agent or legal representative therein, then the said commissioners may